Report On Oil Reserves In Cocopah Territory And Bilingual Education

In 1918 the Carlisle Indian Industrial School shut its doors permanently. What remains of this experiment started by Richard Henry Pratt are not just buildings, but ghosts and scars that refuse to be forgotten. The structures that once constituted this exploratory school now stand where the Carlisle Army Barracks are situated today, and while it may seem as if the only observable aspects to remind us of the past are tombstones and markers, the stories still swirl in this town that became flooded with the desire to assimilate Native Americans. Pratt believed Indians possessed the ability to become a complimentary asset to American society if they received the proper education. He insisted that it was necessary to remove the Indians from the confines of the reservation in order to separate them from their culture and traditions, and transplant them to a setting that encouraged the Native Americans to learn the English language, to work for a living, as well as become useful members of society.

In his article, Dan Carsen discusses the challenges with bilingual education in the Southern United States. Although he recognizes the obstacles present in this system, Carsen does argue for bilingual education. By appealing to ethos, pathos, and logos, Carsen properly describes the difficulties and importance in implementing bilingual education in the South. Carsen successfully appeals to ethos by conducting several personal interviews to capture real-world experiences. The first interview mentioned in the article is with Angelina Baltazar, a bilingual student at Tarrant High School.

The definition of bilingualism is fluency in or use of two languages. Martín Espada is the author of the essay “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School” which is about the act of Spanish being a forbidden language in a school full of multicultural children. In the essay, his main argument is the idea that the language of Spanish, or Bilingualism as a whole is interpreted as a burden for a young immigrant. Another author named Richard Rodriguez wrote about his struggle to juggle between his 2 languages, his public language (English) and his private

The Navajo language is an interesting and important language that influenced North America. The first languages spoken in North America were made up of diverse tribes from various corners of the continent, the most well-known one: Navajo (Bonsu, 2017). With a vibrant culture currently concentrated in the Southwest of the United States, the history of the Navajo people and language spans centuries having had an influence on the entirety of North America (Bonsu, 2017). The Navajo tribe is part of the Na-Den’e Southern Athabaskan language group and got their name from the Spanish who originally called the Navajo “Apachu de Nabajo” (Bonsu, 2017). Today, the Navajo language boasts of having more than 170,000 speakers, with 7,600 monolingual speakers; it is the second largest recognized tribe by the U.S. federal government after the Cherokee tribe, with over 300,000 registered members (Bonsu, 2017).

In the past weeks, I have done research on Navajo Rosetta Stone and its impact on the society around me. I am from the Navajo Nation so I decided to research the language tool because I do see it in my community and I see how it helps families reconnect through the language that helped the United States with World War II. This report contains a brief history of the Navajo people being stripped away from the language at young ages and being asked to speak it again to win the war through Navajo Code Talkers.

Soon to follow the acquisition, Choctaws in the east and Caddo peoples in the west were forcibly removed from their homelands, and instead given unstable reservation land in return. The title given to them would soon be “domestic dependents.” Native American children were taken away from their parents and put into school systems where they were educated on the “white” way of life. The rest of Louisiana’s populace, made up mostly of French speaking people, was far from celebrated. For years they were denied the right to vote, slowly introduced to democracy, and overall shown a lack of respect for the situation they had been dealt unwillingly.

Now, you might think that because the settlers recognized the problem and started putting new systems into place that it was benefitting the Native Americans. Well, it was in fact not. The US government only started pushing Indigenous people’s kids into these schools so they could destroy their culture! These schools started popping up in 1860 and were fully functioning until 1978. Not only were these schools

McCarthy, T.L., & Littlebear, R.E. (2013). Language planning and policy in Native America: history, theory, praxis. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. This book makes evident the importance of language planning, language education, and language policy for diverse Native American peoples. Based on long-term collaborative and ethnographic work with Native American communities and schools, this book examines the artifice of colonial language policies against the current community lead efforts to revitalize threatened native languages.

Despite the horrific conditions in these schools, many Native American children could maintain their cultural identity and resist assimilation. Today,

“Native American children have the highest drop-out rates of any ethnic group in the US” (Youth). The real issue at hand is trying to identifying the things that cause natives to drop out. Much of this has to do with the earlier governmental approach that the government took to educating Native children. These schools were later labeled as corrupt, with abusive teachers that beat and starved native children for speaking their native language or practicing their spiritual beliefs. The horrible conditions that Native American children had to endure at these schools had ruined Native Americans view "public" education.

The paper researches the issues plaguing the Native American communities in today’s America within their reservations, and the improvements that are slowly coming in the last 30 years. This research discovers the impoverished native communities, and high rates of poverty and unemployment. The focus is on the lack of an established education system, and the discrimination that Native Americans are still struggling with, due to the locales of their reservation and perceived culture. Through the passing of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (1988), an increasing number of tribes are improving living conditions and are experiencing economic prosperity. The history of Native Americans in America really begins long before the formation of America,

There have been efforts made to revitalize and preserve Native languages, recognizing their vital role in cultural identity and community cohesion. Language immersion programs, Native language instruction, and partnerships between tribal communities and educational institutions have been established to promote language revitalization. The representation of Native American history, perspectives, and contributions within educational materials and curricula has been an ongoing concern. Advocacy efforts have pushed for more accurate and inclusive portrayals of Native Americans, promoting cultural sensitivity, and challenging stereotypes in educational resources.

These schools have been described as an instrument to wage intellectual, psychological, and cultural warfare to turn Native Americans into “Americans”. There are many reports of young Native Americans losing all cultural belonging. According to an interview with NPR, Bill Wright was sent to one of these schools. He lost his hair, his language, and then his Navajo name. When he was able to return home, he was unable to understand or speak to his grandmother.

The author, Barbara Mujica, uses her niece’s school experience in Florida as an example of what not to do with bilingual education. Mujica’s niece called her feeling very upset about the decisions she had to make with her athletic scholarship, because her comprehension and writing skills in English were deficient. Although her niece had lived in Miami most of her life the environment was equipped to service people in foreign languages. During Mujica’s visit she observed this first hand; businesses, not just teaching, were conducted in Spanish. People and business think they are helping those who do not speak English, but in actuality it may be doing them a disservice.

His narrative shows this support and how having instruction in Spanish and English allows him to have higher academics. In less than ten years, one third of students attending public schools will not know English when starting Kindergarten. Are schools and teachers ready for this and will push for bilingual instruction? Is America ready for this? As for now, there is mixed perspectives.