Ofelia Zepeda

Reclaiming the Gift: Indigenous Youth Counter-Narratives on Native Language Loss and Revitalization

In the beginning . . . Elder Brother and Younger Brother were instructed through visions by the breath-giver to teach . . . the newly created people [how] to live. All the instructions were in the native language. The people lived happily for many years. . . . Something bad happened and there was a battle among the peaceful people. The head chief then commanded that there would be many languages. . . . The people migrated and divided into different language groups. Lucille J. Watahomigie, “The Native Language Is a Gift” (1998, 5)

Indigenous Youth as Language Policy Makers

This article offers a grounded view of language shift as experienced by Native American youth across a range of early- to late-shift settings. Drawing on data from a long-term ethnographic study, we demonstrate that the linguistic ecologies in which youth language choices play out are more complex than a unidirectional notion of shift might suggest. We focus on 3 areas of the research: youth language practices, communicative repertoires, and language attitudes and ideologies. The portraits of language use that emerge show these to be dynamic, heteroglossic environments in which youth deploy diverse sociolinguistic abilities for specific purposes in the context of peer, school, and community cultures. Further, we argue that youths communicative practices represent de facto manifestations of language policy making. The final sections examine the mechanisms underlying this implicit policy making and the implications for school-community language planning and youth empowerment.

Native American Youth Discourses on Language Shift and Retention: Ideological Cross- currents and Their Implications for Language Planning

This paper examines preliminary findings from an ongoing federally funded study of Native language shift and retention in the US Southwest, focusing on in-depth ethnographic interviews with Navajo youth. We begin with an overview of Native American linguistic ecologies, noting the dynamic, variegated and complex nature of language proficiencies and practices across a continuum of sociocultural settings. We then examine two pairs of youth discourses that illuminate social–psychological and macro-structural influences on language practices. These discourses juxtapose language identity with language endangerment, and language pride with language shame. As such, they expose the ways in which language allegiance is tied to the distribution of power and privilege in the larger society. Youth discourses, we argue, represent a powerful call to action for communities and schools serving Native American students. We conclude with the implications for future research and for language education planning in Indigenous and other endangered-language communities.

The Continuum of Literacy in American Indian Communities.

Abstract Based on research among the Tohono O’odham of southern Arizona, this paper first describes spoken O’odham and oral narrative, relating this to the development of O’odham children’s English literacy. Oral tradition constitutes one aspect of a “literacy continuum” grounded in familial and community relationships. “School literacy” often constitutes an opposite end of that continuum; historically this form of literacy has remained isolated from and in conflict with literacy rooted in the family/community context. The discussion here shows how the two types of literacy are connected in children’s writing, and provides recommendations for educators to tap indigenous students’ linguistic and cultural resources to promote literacy in a second language.