Connecting Native youth and elders to save Indigenous language
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Protect the Sacred's 2024 Walk to the Polls event. Photo: Courtesy of Protect the Sacred
A new storytelling project aims to connect Native American youth with their elders and preserve Indigenous languages and cultures through modern media.
Why it matters: Culture, history and language have been passed down orally in Native communities for centuries; but geographic separation has made it harder to continue these traditions, leading to youth isolation and the disappearance of Native languages, according to Diné activist Allie Redhorse Young.
Stunning stat: Of 167 Native languages spoken in the U.S., only 20 are expected to survive past 2050, per a 2023 U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs report.
State of play: Connecting the Rainbow, the new initiative from Young's organization Protect the Sacred, will fund fellowships for Indigenous youth to connect with elders and tell their stories using modern techniques, such as filmmaking or podcasting.
- The end products will be shared through Protect the Sacred's channels to reach other Native youth and educate non-Natives, too.
The big picture: The project launches as the federal government cuts funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, longtime supporters of cultural preservation programs, Young said.
Catch up quick: Protect the Sacred launched in 2020 as an emergency response to the COVID pandemic to protect vulnerable tribal elders.
- It also encouraged young people who had returned to multigenerational households during lockdowns to learn about their ancestral culture and language.
- Since then, the group has turned to advocacy projects like "Ride to the Polls" to turn out the Native vote.
Zoom in: Chazlyn Curley, one of the inaugural Connecting the Rainbow fellows, will work with her grandmother, who lives on a sheep farm on the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona, to produce a podcast.
- Curley, now a senior studying human biology at Stanford University, recalled picking piñons with her grandmother in the wide open high desert of the Black Mesa during COVID. It was that moment that solidified her desire for cultural reconnection, she told us.
- She said her grandmother taught her: "T'áá hwó' ají t'éego," which translates to "It's all up to your effort and hard work and determination." It's one of the messages she plans to share in the podcast.
Between the lines: Young told Axios she sees Connecting the Rainbow as a mental health intervention for Indigenous people, who experience higher occurrences of addiction and suicide.
- She recalled the identity crisis she experienced when she moved from the Navajo Nation as a young person and said she found her path only after reconnecting with her culture.
The bottom line: "When you're in those formative years, all you want to do is belong," Young said.