July into maybe even August and September.
>> At the state capital budget riders are at work
fashioning the two year spending plan with
Republican leaders now declaring an impasse in
negotiations with Governor Tony Evers. One of the items
in the Evers budget allocating $11 million in
tribal gaming revenue for Native American language
revitalization. For a look at that work "Here& Now",
reporter Erica Ayisi spoke with Menominee and Ojibwe
tribal members who are bringing their indigenous
languages back from a past policy of silence. This
report is in collaboration with our partners at ICT,
formerly Indian Country. Today.
>> Scott Gaetz, Panchakarma, Co-Chair.
>> Trinaty Caldwell is learning how to speak
Menominee, an indigenous Native American language.
>> The ability to talk in the language freely that to
be able to do it now, today is a blessing because our
elders weren't allowed that freedom.
>> Caldwell's native ancestors spoke languages
that are now nearly extinct. >> Pewaukee Kamala.
>> Adult language learners at the Menominee Language
Campus are on a mission to revitalize their indigenous
language from a past of systematic erasure.
>> Like even just saying Pozo wasn't always the most
comfortable thing right away.
>> Really? >> Yeah, it wasn't
ubiquitous. I didn't really hear it a lot.
>> Netsky, wakizashi. >> Shannon Dennis Matsui,
comic time where. >> There was no meaningful
social or community access to the language.
>> Rohn Kern RFK, Jr, director of revitalization
for Menominee U. Says their doors opened in 2024 after
creating a community of native language learners
online. >> That means if you're not
looking to be a teacher or be a student, there was no
place for you in revitalization.
stipend to normalize speaking Menominee on the
reservation. of the places here on the
reservation, or do our business, be it at tribal
offices and or anywhere else that we might see people who
have taken their opportunity to join this revitalization
and do that same business in the language.
>> So we. >> Alexander Medina says
he's now exposed to more conversational Menominee
vocabulary that his non-native stepfather
dissuaded him from learning as a child.
>> Sometimes it was kind of heavy handed and kind of
bad. How how much he didn't want us to basically just be
Manam, be Menominee like, use rez slang. We'd get in
trouble. learning the language, does
it have an impact on your self-esteem and your
identity? >> Absolutely. It kind of
clicked to me that it's not illegal. It's not banned
anymore. So we should do what we can to salvage the
culture we have left. >> Martin Ranay is.
>> Schoenike language revitalization efforts stem
from a troubling past. >> Cieri coming.
>> A boarding school experience was very
effective in what it set out to do, which was to kill the
Indian, save the man and every man, woman and child.
And our ancestors. Three four generations over had
this horrific life experience.
>> For over 60 years, there were at least 11 federal
Indian boarding schools across Wisconsin, including
two here in Menominee Nation in Keshena. These schools
were designed to culturally assimilate Native American
children into American culture by forcibly removing
them from their families and banning them from speaking
their native tongue. >> The most common thread
that you see in conversations about language
loss really begin in the 19th century, and it often
revolves around federal Indian boarding schools and
Indian schooling in non-native institutions.
>> Sasha Maria Suarez, professor of History and
American Indigenous Studies at UW-Madison, says the
federal Indian schools across the state were
managed by religious institutions which colonized
Native American children and prohibited their language.
What was it to be replaced with?
>> English even if they went into federal Indian boarding
schools with no grasp of the English language, that was
really the only language they were permitted to
speak. >> Severed ties to
indigenous languages has been a generational issue
for all tribal communities. >> For over a century. These
kinds of policies that have tried to diminish and
disrupt indigenous language use.
>> My great grandma, she spoke Menominee. There were
some things that were passed down and some things that
weren't. And the language just was not one of them.
>> Menominee Ho-Chunk, Oneida, Ojibwe,
Stockbridge-munsee, and Potawatomi are some of
Wisconsin's indigenous languages.
>> Schimming and. Waupan. >> Suarez says Wisconsin's
indigenous languages did not completely lose their
voices. >> Those elders who had been
to schools, who maintained an awareness of their
indigenous languages, started using education to
teach their languages to the next generations.
>> In Bad River, for a new generation of language
speakers and singers, Dylan Jennings of the band Bizhiki
wants Ojibwe traditional sounds to be a part of the
modern music scene. [MUSIC]
>> What we're. >> You know, expressing
ourselves and making things that we like. But another
part of it, too, was us using our platform to
normalize our our sounds, our style of singing and our
language. >> Their song unbound is
about preserving Bad River waters.
>> We just have to remember to utilize our language and
all those tools that we've been given. And today, all
federally recognized native tribes in Wisconsin offer
indigenous language learning opportunities.
revitalization efforts in those decades following
World War two demonstrates really clearly how boarding
schools failed in terms of trying to dismantle and
disrupt indigenous languages.
>> In 2021, Governor Tony Evers issued an executive
order formally apologizing for Wisconsin's role in the
Indian boarding schools era through state and private
funding, language revitalization efforts. At
Menominee, you plan to continue?
>> I don't have an education beyond high school, but I
have a resilient spirit that's willing to give all
that it can to see through the revitalization of the
language. >> Macheel. IL Shaikh.
>> In Menominee Nation for "Here& Now" and ICT. I'm