#punpenguin72

[languagehealing]

Hi! I've never used an ask box before, so I hope I'm doing this properly. I have a question after reading your post about settlers studying Native American languages: If I understood right, you said that these languages should be learned by settlers (if at all, which is questionable) through interaction with people to make sure you learn them and about the cultures associated with them properly, but you also mentioned not taking up space and resources for Native Americans who are learning their own languages. These two things seem like they might conflict with each other, like just by learning within a community as a settler someone is taking up Native Americans' space. If you have time, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts about that conflict, or if I'm just misinterpreting things!

Hi there! Thank you for the question. And you really highlight a key thing I hoped to achieve with that post - to show that it is not a simple "yes you can" or "no you can't" situation, it has a lot of overlapping factors that complicate things, even seeming to contradict itself with certain things.

For the specific conflict you are asking about (learn from the community, but don't take away from the community), I feel the best way to navigate that is mostly through following the lead versus initiating the lead. I'll give a lot of examples of what I mean through below the cut to not take over anyone's dash!

1. Classes

Taking a language class taught by a Native person is without a doubt one of the best ways to learn these languages, in terms of ensuring that the community is respected and not exploited, and also in terms of ensuring that you get the best education and experience possible! When navigating this contradiction in terms of classes, here's what I recommend you consider: What is this class's outreach?

For instance, if there are only 30 seats, and 30 Native students apply and 10 settler students apply, if any of the settler students got a seat, leaving out a Native student, that would be a case of taking resources away from Natives. But if only 20 Native students applied, then those 10 settlers students would not be taking anything away. And if the class has no seat limit, and all who apply are accepted, nobody is left out regardless.

2. Educational Materials (Books, Videos, ETC)

With this area of learning and the specified contradiction, there are a few factors that go into this. For this, I'm specifically talking about books or learning DVDS/CDS, not just random videos freely available online.

Did you buy the material? If you bought it (and thus gave financial support to Native authors) then it is yours and that is that. It is yours ethically and your transactional contribution supports the community. The only exception I would say to this is...

Again, what is the resource's outreach? Perhaps it was rare-print book with only 50-100 copies available (unless someone wanted to spend hundreds of dollars to get more copies). Perhaps it was part of a low-cost/free giveaway of language resources to the respective community, that by nature of being a charity has a limited amount of things, and is made by and for Natives of that region. If you're catching the drift here, you can see how in some cases, there is more a clear-cut priority on who should get first access to these things.

3. Communal Involvement

But at the end of the day, the best way to ensure that you do not take away from the community is by learning within the community. The contradiction falls apart when you consider the way that guidance actually plays out in reality.

If you are actively and explicitly invited to learn by members of the community, and you learn from them, you can never take away from them because they chose to involve you! This circles me back to my original statement at the top of the post: Follow their lead, and you will never take away, because you are not "taking", you are "receiving".

And if you don't know "how" to get an invitation, then that right there is the key thing that shows you need to put in more work. Have you ever actually talked to a Native person? In a normal, regular, conversation? Have you learned anything about their communities? Have you supported them in ways beyond how it can personally benefit you?

And none of these questions are attacks or passive aggression, I am genuinely saying this gently. Because its true - most settlers have not met a Native person in real life in any meaningful way. Our populations were decimated, we are minoritized, and the reservation system affects this. For many settlers, their first exposure to these things has been online. And that is not a bad thing, its reality. But the good news is that exposure is only step one! Reach out! Make friends! Learn about the real Natives who are where you live! Or were where you live, before they were forcibly removed elsewhere to where they are now. You will never be punished for trying to build genuine bonds, but that's the thing. They gotta be genuine.

If you approach the community with the true ulterior motive of just trying to get access to exclusive language resources, you already lost. Let your motivation to learn the language be the fuel for so many other beautiful and meaningful connections and experiences.

Thank you so much for the respectful question, happy to talk more about it.