Lakota Educators Take Action to Save Lakota Language

Indigenous peoples are among the world’s "most socially marginalized and dispossessed groups," U.N. Special Rapporteur Rodolfo Stavenhagen stated in his fourth report to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in March. The United States’ past education policies, Stavenhagen continued, contributed to the marginalization of North America's indigenous populations by not teaching or allowing the continuation of Native peoples’ languages and cultures. Throughout the United States and Canada indigenous peoples were removed from their lands and families and forced to assimilate into Western culture and forget their roots. As a result a significant number of Native cultures and languages were lost.

Emanuel Red Bear, who teaches Lakota language and culture at the high school on the Cheyenne River Reservation and Si Tanka University in South Dakota estimates that less than 30 percent of tribal members living on the reservation speak Lakota, and of the 30 percent that do, most are over 40 years old.

"One of the main reasons why we must preserve and revitalize our language, culture and heritage is because of the historical trauma our ancestors and Lakota elders went through in Christian boarding schools, we must reverse those wounding acts," Red Bear said.

Red Bear, in collaboration with Si Tanka University, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and the Owanca Lakota Bilingual Grant Program, are hosting an Immersion Camp on the Cheyenne River Reservation this summer from June 12-17. The camp will offer a wide range of Lakota language and culture courses, as well as practicum opportunities for Lakota language students who are training to be teachers.

Red Bear and his allies know they are working under a severe time constraint.

"[Elders] who are the wisdom keepers are taking their knowledge with them to nursing homes, away from the reservation, and eventually to the spiritual world," Red Bear said.