I have become enthralled by the way language is inseparably linked to identity and is invested with the role of proliferating a culture. (A fact particularly brought to light by the link of language and culture on reservations.) I have found fascination in an incredible anthology on this theme, Reinventing the Enemy's Language- an anthology of poetry and prose by Native women from all over the world that gives voice to their struggle for "beautiful survival."
"Many of us [native peoples] at the end of the [21st] century are using the 'enemy language' with which to tell our truths, to sing, to remember ourselves during these troubled times. Some of us speak our native languages as well as English, and/or Spanish or French. Some speak only English, Spanish, or French because the use of our tribal languages was prohibited in schools and in adoptive homes, or these languages were suppressed to near extinction by some other casualty of culture and selfhood."-Joy Harjo, from Reinventing the Enemy's Language
Can you imagine having your language ripped away from you? Not only ripped away, but then thrown on the dirt and stomped on. Smothered until extinction- what is left to keep the flame of culture alive?
This is what happened to the native peoples of this land, who are still part of our country today yet must fight for oxygen to keep the flicker of their culture burning strong.
How does American society go on living so carelessly about these people that were so brutally maimed of self and spirit?
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