Page 69 - Restorative Journey: Indigenous Educational Wellness

Voice Perspective
Indigenous languages are still spoken in many communities. They are instinctively protected and taught. In other communities, there are immersion schools for children and adults. Teachers work toward repatriating endangered or at-risk languages, as identified by UNESCO, back into families, communities, and Nations.
Indigenous languages classes are now available at all levels of education, as well as via grassroots initiatives in communities that are either on-reserve or off-reserve.
Many language teachers work tirelessly
to protect ancestral words. These words represent honour and respect for the ancestors, traditional culture, and sovereign nationhood. These languages represent
the cultural deprivation that produced intergenerational trauma experienced by many families.
We are thankful for the work of these teachers who assist healing a monumental part of our collective trauma. Appreciation and gratitude are extended to families and students who work to gain, protect, and preserve this ancestral knowledge.
There are some Native people who still speak their Indigenous language as their first language. Many Native peoples speak both their Indigenous language and English, while many have only English. When the English language is the only means available to describe our historic experiences, there are limitations. The English language offers many words and terms, but the concepts found within them often reinforce a victim state, rather than a state of resilience, empowerment, hope, or healing.
Elizabeth Doxtater
Medical science has long understood that poisonous venom can be extracted and used to make antivenom to cure poisonous bites from the same species. This can be used
as a metaphor to understand how the English language, which was often violently forced on Indigenous people, can be part
of the cure.
There are many words in the English language that provide context for the collective Indigenous experience. The
list includes assimilation, colonization, exploitation, genocide, intergenerational trauma, manifest destiny, oppression, and subjugation. Initially these words can be misleading, in that they seem empowering. They also name profound injustices and expose hidden truths.
Although these words draw attention to the experiences inflicted on North American Indigenous peoples, they don’t convey a sense of empowerment, healing, resilience, strength, or hope. This limits our ability to fully describe our lived experiences.
Despite the ongoing trauma many Indigenous communities endure, important facts get lost in the tendency to exploit stories of suffering that too often neglect the spectrum of healing. Beyond the overwhelming disparities that are presented lies a truth about our communities. Indigenous peoples are resilient. Indigenous peoples are healing. Indigenous peoples are getting stronger.
Acknowledging this reality comes with
a need to develop new terms that express a subtle but powerful language- within-a-language.
Commemoration • Education • Healing/Wellness 61