RIVERTON,
Wyo. At 69, her eyes soft and creased with age, Alvena Oldman
remembers how the teachers at St. Stephens boarding school on the
Wind River Reservation would strike students with rulers if they
dared to talk in their native Arapaho language.
We
were afraid to speak it, she said. We knew we would
be punished.
More
than a half-century later, only about 200 Arapaho speakers are still
alive, and tribal leaders at Wind River, Wyomings only Indian
reservation, fear their language will not survive. As part of an
intensifying effort to save that language, this tribe of 8,791,
known as the Northern Arapaho, recently opened a new school where
students will be taught in Arapaho. Elders and educators say they
hope it will create a new generation of native speakers.
This
is a race against the clock, and were in the 59th minute of
the last hour, said a National Indian Education Association
board member, Ryan Wilson, whom the tribe hired as a consultant
to help get the school off the ground. Like other tribes, the Northern
Arapaho have suffered from the legacy of Indian boarding institutions,
established by the federal government in the late 1800s to Americanize
Native American children. It was at such schools that teachers instilled
the kill the Indian, save the man philosophy, young
boys had their traditional braids shorn, and students were forbidden
to speak tribal languages.
The
discipline of those days was drummed into an entire generation of
Northern Arapaho, and most tribal members never passed down the
language. Of all the remaining fluent speakers, none are younger
than 55.
That
is what tribal leaders hope to change. About 22 children from pre-kindergarten
through first grade started classes at the school a rectangular
one-story structure with a fresh coat of white paint and the words
Hinono Eitiino Oowu (translation: Arapaho Language
Lodge) written across its siding.
Here,
set against an endless stretch of windswept plains and tufts of
cottonwoods, instructors are using a state-approved curriculum to
teach students exclusively in Arapaho. All costs related to the
school, which has an operating budget of $340,000 a year, are paid
for by the tribe and private donors. Administrators plan to add
a grade each year until it comprises pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade
classes.
This
environment is a complete reversal of what occurs too often in schools,
where a child is ridiculed or reprimanded for speaking ones
heritage language, said Inée Y. Slaughter, executive
director of the Indigenous Language Institute, a group in Santa
Fe, N.M., that works with tribes on native languages.
I
want my son to talk nothing but Arapaho to me and my grandparents,
said Kayla Howling Buffalo, who enrolled her 4-year-old son, RyLee,
in the school.
Ms.
Howling Buffalo, 25, said she, too, had been inspired to take Arapaho
classes because her grandmother no longer has anyone to speak with
and fears she is losing her first language.
Such
sentiments are not uncommon on the reservation and have become more
pronounced in the five years since Helen Cedar Tree, at 96 the oldest
living Northern Arapaho, made an impassioned plea to the tribes
council of elders.
She
said: Look at all of you guys talking English, and you know
your own language. Its like the white man has conquered us,
said Gerald Redman Sr., the chairman of the council of elders.
It was a wake-up call.
A
group of Arapaho families had sent their children to a pre-kindergarten
language program for years, but it was not enough. Heeding Ms. Cedar
Trees words, the tribe began using Arapaho dictionaries, night
classes, CDs made by the tribe, and anything they could find to
help resuscitate the language. In the end, we knew in our
hearts that immersion was the only way we were going to turn this
around, said Mr. Wilson, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe.
He
was referring not just to the potential for the Arapaho languages
extinction but to a host of other problems that have long plagued
the vast reservation, which the tribe shares with the Eastern Shoshone.
Language-immersion
schools offer an environment that goes beyond teaching the language,
Ms. Slaughter said. It provides a safe place where a childs
roots are nurtured, its culture honored, and its being valued.
According
to tribal statistics and the United States Attorneys Office
in Wyoming, 78 percent of household heads on the reservation are
unemployed, the student dropout rate is 52 percent and crime has
been rising.
Most
recently, in June, three teenage girls were found dead in a low-income
housing complex. The F.B.I. has not yet released autopsy results,
but many tribal members think drugs or alcohol were involved. The
deaths left the reservation reeling. Officials here hope that the
school will herald a positive change, just as programs elsewhere
have helped native youth become conversational in their tribal languages,
enhancing cultural pride and participation in the process. A groundswell
of language revitalization efforts has led to successful Indian
immersion schools in Hawaii, Montana and New York.
Studies
show that language fluency among young Indians is tied to overall
academic achievement, and experts say such learning can have other
positive effects.
Language
seems to be a healing force for Native American communities,
said Ellen Lutz, executive director of Cultural Survival, a group
based in Cambridge, Mass., that is working with the Northern Arapaho.
At a recent ceremony to celebrate the schools opening, held
in an old tribal meeting hall, three young girls sang shyly in Arapaho.
Behind them, a row of elders sat quietly, their faces wizened and
stoic, legs shuffling rhythmically as familiar words carried through
the building.
They
are the ones who whispered it on the playground when nobody was
looking, Mr. Wilson said, referring to the elders. If
we lose that language, we lose who we are.
Preserving
a Dying Language
Multimedia Audio Slide Show
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/10/15/us/20081015-arapaho/index.html
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