I found chapter 5 of the Kidwell & Velie readings to be particularly interesting. The chapter deals with “Language” and starts out by saying, “Thought is the inner form that animates speech. Speech is manifest as breath, which is in turn a manifestation of wind. Wind is the breath of the universe, and it is the force that gives expression to human thought in speech” (83). When I read this I immediately thought about the iconic scene in “American Beauty” when Ricky Fitz is video-recording the piece of paper twirling in the wind. That piece of paper is given life because of the wind. The wind is created by humans speaking and learning from one another. The ability to speak is created by the ability for humans to think. The ability to think is created by…?
I may be getting off topic here but the quote above really took me to another mindset and made me look at things from a distance. I mean, look how advanced we are. I’m typing my thoughts into a laptop computer while over 8,000 songs are at my fingertips. 8,000 pieces of art are a click away. That is amazing. Usually, I take all this for granted. But at this moment I can see that none of this would be here if humans were not able to communicate through language.
Language binds us together as a race. It allows us to observe our past and discuss where we are going. The fact that many American Indian languages are dying out is a crisis that needs to be averted. Language is so closely tied to identity that the possibility of one becoming extinct signals not just the loss of words, but the loss of culture and history as well. Like I mentioned in my John Trudell post, I believe part of the problem is that we are not being taught about American Indian culture and tradition in school. I can remember learning about all the terrible things we did, but aspects of culture were always briefly glossed over in order to get to other parts of U.S. history.
If any classmates are reading this, please comment below. Do you feel that American Indian history is neglected or “glossed over” in junior high and high school?
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Heather said:
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree that the cultures of indigenous people are glossed over in the American school system. Growing up in Virginia, I was constantly surrounded by history and American Indian culture and I think my elementary school tended to incorporate more history in that area simply because it couldn’t be avoided. However, I think it is evident, simply in how much knowledge we lack about Indian cultures, that our educations as children were slighted to say the least. I mean, how can teachers and schools endorse a sense of nationalism when our very nation was founded on death and displacement. It’s quite a conundrum we have put ourselves in. In order to teach history accurately, we as Americans would have to admit wrong doing and in turn people would expect us to start doing things differently…even to start treating American Indians differently. I don’t think the government is quite ready to do that, and honestly, it most likely never will be.