The Bitter Navajo Language Fluency 2014 Presidential Election Conflict
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Sociology and Anthropology 5(10): 841-861, 2017 http://www.hrpub.org DOI: 10.13189/sa.2017.051005 The Bitter Navajo Language Fluency 2014 Presidential Election Conflict Larry Roland Stucki, Ph.D. Reading Area Community College, Reading, PA, USA Copyright©2017 by authors, all rights reserved. Authors agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License Abstract The controversial ouster of one of the younger Initially, outnumbered in battles, starting with the Spanish, generation’s otherwise extremely qualified presidential the invaders helped less by guns than by introduced diseases candidates because he refused to show Navajo language such as smallpox and cleverly pitting one group of natives fluency when running for president of the tribe illustrates the against another, triumphed. dispute between these growing numbers of educated Navajos Prime examples of the use of these two weapons can be for whom Navajo is no longer their primary language but seen in the conquests of the Aztecs and Incas in Latin who still seek tribal offices and their opponents. Reasons America as well as in the French and Indian War, and the why the opponents seem to be losing this battle are examined War of 1812. Even choosing the side of the winning and what must be done to give them any hope of reversing combatant by the Tuscarora and the Oneida in the American this “death” spiral. (A revised version of a paper delivered on Revolution did little to help these particular tribes. Nor did April 1, 2016 at the 76th Annual Meeting of the Society for the attempt by the Cherokees to become an integral part of Applied Anthropology held in Vancouver, British Columbia, the new nation through their leaders’ enthusiastic embrace of March 29 – April 2, 2016). the legal system, religion, language and lifestyle of the victorious Americans. Even their victory in the Supreme Keywords Navajo, Dying Native Language, Cultural Court decision against removal from their lands did not stop Loss, Generational Conflict, Tribal Sovereignty, President Andrew Jackson from defying Chief Justice John Ultra-adaptability, Institutional Completeness, Bears Ears Marshall and ordering their forced removal to lands west of National Monument the Mississippi River. With the end of the Indian wars, the various defeated tribes were confined to reservations where the oft-practiced ideology that “the only good Indian is a dead one” was 1. Dying Language, Dying Culture? replaced by “kill the Indian, save the man.” And, to hasten the process of assimilation, children were taken away from As in so many Indian tribes, fewer and fewer young their parents and sent to boarding schools often at great people understand the language. And for many tribal distances away from their families and, while kept there, elders, the prospect of a president who does not speak severely reprimanded or punished if they dared speak to each fluent Navajo has stoked fears that the language could other using their native tongue. recede or even die, taking many of the tribe’s traditions However, such strong measures of suppression though with it.[1] often blamed as the primary causal factor for the rapid Most immigrant groups to the New World initially decline of fluency in the rising tribal generation, as the continue to use their native tongue within the family and linguist John McWhorter points out: close friends especially if they reside in ethnic enclaves. ... in reality, just as often the reason groups abandon However, as time passes, few of their leaders worry nearly as their traditional languages is ultimately a desire for strongly as certain indigenous Native American leaders do if resources that their native communities do not offer. ... their young people fail to put in the time and effort needed The language of the dominant power – written, spoken become fluent speakers of the tribe’s native tongue, choosing by the wealthy, and broadcast constantly on radio and instead, mastery of English. To understand this discrepancy television – quite often comes to be associated with requires a brief historical review of the changing power legitimacy, the cosmopolitan, and success. Almost relationship that has occurred through time between the New inevitably, the home language is recast as, basically, not World’s original inhabitants and invading Europeans. that – and thus antithetical to survival under the best 842 The Bitter Navajo Language Fluency 2014 Presidential Election Conflict possible conditions.[2] Jennifer Wheeler, the Navajo language and culture education For example, the young boarding school students quickly specialist for the Navajo district of the Bureau of Indian discovered the usefulness of English, not only as a lingua Education, organized the first large-scale Diné Language franca as they formed friendships with members of many Symposium which attracted more than 150 teachers, staff other tribes, but even more importantly as a necessary tool in and administrators from the BIE, public and tribal controlled gaining successful social and economic access to the rewards schools, along with partners from tribal and state of the surrounding outside world. universities.[9] Thus McWhorter in using the Native American situation In addition to exploring various classroom strategies and as an example makes the following prediction: parental involvement Wheeler said: Before the arrival of Europeans, there were about 300 ...the effort to revitalize the Diné language needs to separate languages spoken by Native Americans in extend past the classrooms to halls, playgrounds, what is today the continental United States. Today, 1/3 neighborhoods, bus rides and homes, as well as to of those languages are no longer spoken, whereas all but academic standards, policies and laws. a handful of the rest are spoken only by the very old and We really need to roll up our sleeves and save our will surely be extinct within a decade or so.[3] language ...[10] And even in the surviving “handful”, the growing number Will she and the other educators succeed? Historically of the younger generation that have placed little value on such attempts to revive a language that is no longer the becoming fluent in their native language is alarming to tribal primary language of the rising generation have failed with educators and politicians. Thus on the Navajo Reservation by the one exception of Hebrew, now the daily language of 1966: Israelis. Thus, as the linguist John McWhorter points out, “these efforts, laudable as they are, face many imposing Tribal educators were growing alarmed at the number obstacles, posed in large part by the realities of how of Navajo children who were not being brought up languages live in the world as we know it,” one of the most speaking the language. At the time, they estimated that important being: one out of every five Navajos under the age of five did not know their language or only knew a few words or ... most languages are actually clusters of dialects. phrases.[4] The form of a dying language taught in school is often a single, standardized variety, which can be quite In an attempt to reverse this decline the editor of the different from the various dialects that constitute the Navajo Times that December decided to begin a regular “language” as it actually exists. If there is still a healthy column to teach non-Navajo speaking Navajos how to speak population of people speaking the language natively the language. Lessons continued for almost a year and were and well, this “school” variety that children learn may praised by many for the effort. However, to have much value sound rather sanitized and even imposed from without. they required help from a friend or relative to get the This is a special problem in communities where the pronunciation right and there was little evidence that these impending death of the language is a symptom of lessons succeeded in stopping the fluency decline. A second historical oppression by a surrounding power...[11] greater, full-page (complete with traditional stories) attempt a decade and a half later, despite receiving much praise, was Certainly, frantic attempts to reduce fluency declines in also soon abandoned.[5] the rising younger generation on the Navajo reservation are The decline in younger generation fluency continued after in part motivated by the memories that older Navajos have of that time and by 1994, educators at Navajo Community their boarding school experience and by the strong desire of College (now Diné College) bemoaned the fact that over half tribal leaders to continue to gain further recognition from the the children entering the preschool program on the federal government that though once defeated, they are still a reservation spoke no Navajo.[6] This was followed 12 years “sovereign nation.” However, an even stronger motivation later by the alarming news that a December 2016 pre-test appears to be the fear that key elements of Navajo culture data set of 3,062 BIE and grant school students who had will be forever lost if the language dies, a controversial taken the Oral Diné Language Assessment Test that fall had hypothesis[12] first proposed by the anthropological linguist revealed to reservation educators that only 8 out of the 3,062 Benjamin Whorf and his mentor Edward Sapir and widely students tested were fluent in Navajo. [7] And, the following endorsed by many Native American leaders and educators. April, a more complete preliminary report of these fall 2016 Thus, following the chaotic 2014 presidential election, in a test results from all 31 BIE schools in the Navajo District was 2015 referendum about possibly amending the fluency released reporting that “about 95 percent of the students lack requirements for the two top elected Navajo officials, the fluency in the Navajo language.”[8] Navajo Nation’s very first president, Peterson Zah argues Sensing that it was now or never to mount a massive that: campaign to prevent the Navajo language from joining the The Navajo language is on self-identity.