Preserving Native American/ Indigenous Languages With Wil Meya Of The Language Conservancy

The Staten Islander News Organization sat down with Wil Meya of The Language Conservancy to discuss the important work that his non-profit is doing for Native Americans and Indigenous peoples in the United States and around the world. Language is an important part of culture. While it is not the only part, keeping language alive is an important part of preserving culture. Due to colonialism, and the rules created by it, many indigenous languages are on the verge of dying out. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which was outlawing transmission of language between generations on the reservations, along with forced education of children of the Native Americans. This did not only occur in the United States, as there has recently been news in Canada that the same practices were used on their indigenous people.

Such laws and rules had multiple purposes, not the least of which was keeping Native Americans and other indigenous people’s under control, along with destroying their culture and breaking the will of the people so colonized. Reservations were responsible for providing food for the tribes, but this often was not practiced in a just way. Children were taken by force from their homes to make them Christianized, and better able to assimilate into the larger colonial culture around them.

Later, laws were made to allow Native Americans to leave their reservations and travel to the cities to find work. This occurred after the government had decided that the indigenous population no longer needed special care, which included supporting them on their reservations. However, there was widespread discrimination, and the promised work was not easy to find.

One injustice occurred on Navajo reservations, where in the 1940s through 1960s, uranium was found, and uranium mines were created to extract the metal. Many tribal peoples were given jobs as miners due to the isolated nature of their reservations and their need for employment. However, they were not told what the United States had known since the 1930s: that uranium causes cancer and other diseases of radiation exposure in humans with long-term exposure. When we look back on history, it is clear that there was not a lot of justice in the treatment of those whose lands had been taken by the colonizers.

The long-lasting repurcussions of these issues, including the languange restrictions, has led to the situation that is faced today. After the formation of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in 1968, during the Black Civil Rights movement, some changes were made to the ways in which Native Americans were treated. The issues that the AIM had to deal with began with poverty, discrimination, and police brutality against Native Americans specifically. It soon widened its focus to treaty rights, high rates of unemployment, Native American education, cultural continuity, and the preservation of Indigenous cultures. To learn more about the AIM organization, please visit their Wikipedia page here.

To learn more about The Language Conservancy, the Lakota Dictionary, and the other important language preservation work being undertaken for Native American and indigenous peoples, please visit our previous article about this topic.

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