Executiv e Director’S message
Our Languages on the Air: A Sense of Home, Place, and Belonging
S
onny Assu’s “iDrum” art piece on the cover of this issue conveys a poignant, complex, and exciting message for language learning and revitalization. It’s a message of the traditional blended with the contemporary—an artist’s challenge to his own people to “look past the debate of contemporary vs. traditional.” This message introduces this edition of the Quarterly, which focuses on the role of community radio in sustaining and revitalizing Indigenous languages. In an emerging conversation on how the use of media technology can revitalize languages, Cultural Survival has taken a lead in promoting the role community radio plays in language sustainability. In July, Cultural Survival collaborated with the Recovering Voices Initiative at the Smithsonian Institution to host “Our Voices on the Air: Reaching New Audiences Through Indigenous Radio,” a conference that brought together Indigenous radio producers from Canada, Columbia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, and the United States as well as language scholars and Indigenous leaders to share experiences. We spotlight the work of several conference participants in this issue. New technology and mainstream media in dominant languages have contributed to Indigenous language loss, but they have also created new tools and opportunities to reach younger generations. “iDrum” and its message reminds me of my family’s journey with our native language. My mother attended a Christian boarding school and experienced brutal repression for speaking her native tongue. Ironically, my grandmother assisted missionaries in translating the Bible into Navajo. Today, a local Navajo radio station permeates my elderly mother’s home on a daily basis as the preferred station. In Navajo, she hears community information,
local and national news, and cultural teachings. “When we listen to radio programs in Navajo, we are engaging something more than just words,” she says. “We feel a sense of home, place, and belonging. We listen to elders speaking who give us guidance. We feel secure and connected to our people.” Traditional ways of socializing are also carried out through community radio programs. For younger generations, inundated with mainstream media, radio provides a sense of pride and engagement beyond just words. Radio provides a creative space to discuss our contemporary lives and identities as Indigenous people, and makes Indigenous languages relevant. Community radio also plays a significant role in disseminating information about Indigenous rights across rural regions. Radio is also a highly charged political tool for Indigenous people to assert their rights, speak their languages, and educate and organize their communities. Cultural Survival works with Indigenous communities in Guatemala to build radio infrastructure and programming capacity throughout many villages, despite government efforts to criminalize community radio. We recently launched a new initiative to produce radio content about the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent for dissemination around the world. The article “Rights Talk in Belize” describes a community exchange between Guatemala and Belize that seeks to raise awareness and understanding of the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent. The challenge ahead of all of us is to support Indigenous communities’ efforts to keep their languages relevant using new and creative ways as they assert their rights to self-determination.
Donors like you make our work around the world possible. Thanks so much for being part of Cultural Survival. Staff Suzanne Benally (Navajo and Santa Clara Tewa), Executive Director Mark Camp, Deputy Executive Director Danielle DeLuca, Program Manager, Global Response Program and Free, Prior and Informed Consent Initiative David Michael Favreau, Bazaar Program Manager Sofia Flynn, Accounting & Office Manager Maria del Rosario “Rosy” Sul Gonzalez (Kachiquel), Free, Prior and Informed Consent Initiative Radio Producer Jamie Malcolm-Brown, Communications & Information Technology Manager Cesar Gomez Moscut (Pocomam), Content Production & Training Coordinator, Community Radio Program Agnes Portalewska, Communications Manager Angelica Rao, Program Assistant, Community Radio Program Alberto “Tino” Recinos (Mam), Citizen Participation Coordinator, Community Radio Program Patrick Schaefer, Director of Development Miranda Vitello, Development Assistant Jennifer Weston (Hunkpapa Lakota), Endangered Languages Program Manager Ancelmo Xunic (Kachikel), Community Radio Program Manager
INTERNS AND VOLUNTEERS Erica Adelson, Lauren Bolles, Don Butler, Febna Caven, Jessie Cherofsky, Ryann Dear, Laura Garbes, Madeline Hall, Terrance Hall, Daniel Horgan, Curtis Kline, Danielle Kost, Caitlin Lupton, Erin McArdle, Mehreen Rahman Ava Berinstein, Linguistics Advisor
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Suzanne Benally, Executive Director (Navajo and Santa Clara Tewa)
W h at o u r s u p p o r t e r s a r e s ay i n g :
“Cultural Survival doesn't merely fight on behalf of threatened groups.
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It empowers Indigenous people to harness the media, education, and legal systems of their countries so they can stand up for themselves and take steps to maintain their own lands and languages.” —Matthew Simonson
Cultural Survival Quarterly
March 2013 • 1