用行动面对历史

Andrew Cowell is a 铜博尔德 linguistics professor specializing in language documentation and linguistic anthropology. In 2003, he, 还有语言学系的老师和学生, began documenting the Arapaho language to revitalize it for current and future members of the Arapaho nation. Cowell也是the 美国原住民和土著研究中心 (CNAIS), 哪一个, in partnership with the university and Indigenous community members, 学生, 教职员工, helped develop a campus land acknowledgment that CU introduced in fall 2022.

说说博彩平台推荐的土地承认. 

A good land acknowledgment does four things: It recognizes the current or former Indigenous inhabitants of an area. 它从历史上认识到, the removal of Indigenous peoples from the land often involved severe injustices and that those historical injustices produce continuing inequities and harms in the present. And it commits to try to mitigate and address those continuing inequities and harms. 

博彩平台推荐的认可 是一份历史和道德文件吗. Also very important is the commitment by CU to consult with tribes and local Indigenous people. You can’t truly address and mitigate harms unless you engage seriously with the communities themselves and get their perspective on issues and potential solutions. 现在最大的问题是, what actual concrete commitments will the campus make to back up its pledges?

How can CU continue to make amends for its early history with Native American and Indigenous people?

One important thing that has already happened is the 2021 state legislature bill providing in-state tuition for 学生 from any of 48 tribes historically associated with Colorado, 哪些CNAIS帮助通过了. 这个想法是阿拉帕霍, Cheyenne or other people would likely still be here in Colorado if not for forced removal, 所以他们仍然有资格获得州内学费. That has already helped greatly increase Native American and Indigenous enrollment. 

作为一个国家资助的机构, 博彩平台推荐对科罗拉多州的每一个人都负有更广泛的责任, 及以后, 解决社会问题并提供有效的解决方案. 通过向部落社区伸出援手, we can provide help with all kinds of things: language documentation and revitalization are one example, but there are so many areas for outreach and collaborative engagement with Native American and Indigenous communities.

What are some of the best aspects of having CNAIS affiliated with 铜博尔德? 

CNAIS is a teaching and research center where all 学生 and faculty can engage. But we’re also a support center specifically for Native American and Indigenous 学生, 教职员工. 因为博彩平台推荐的教职员工和学生来自校园的各个角落, we connect interested folks with each other — engineers who might want to work on reservations, 或者部落寻求气候变化方面的专业知识. 事实上, it’s hard to imagine how CU could take on the moral commitments of the land acknowledgment without having a specific Native American and Indigenous-facing component like CNAIS on campus.

是什么激发了你对阿拉帕霍语的兴趣? 

我妻子是夏威夷原住民, 我学了夏威夷语，从中学到了很多, 所以当我被加州大学聘用时, 我觉得我应该学习一下博尔德的土著语言. The Arapaho were the people historically most present around Boulder. 我意识到并没有很多公开的信息, so I went to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming to meet some speakers who said they could use help documenting their language. What started out as a personal interest turned into a career choice. 你永远不知道事情会走向何方.

在记录一门语言时，什么是重要的? 

Documentation is important for languages like Arapaho that are endangered, 这意味着不再有年轻人或中年人说流利的英语. 在这种情况下, 记录自然话语-对话, 故事, 歌曲, 演讲等等是关键. 如果你想重振一门语言, you need models to learn from — Native speakers engaged in everyday language activities and interaction. 我已经录了几十个小时了, 主要是视频, 你还可以看到手势之类的东西, 平原手语标志, 体定位, the way people use eye contact or not as they interact — subtle features that go into actual communication.  

你还希望记录和保存其他本土语言吗? 

I’ve written a grammar of the Aaniiih (or Gros Ventre) language of Montana, 哪本将在明年左右出版, and also done a bilingual anthology of legends and historical accounts in that language. I’ve also written a grammar of the Coast Miwok language of California, 哪一个 will be finished once I look at some archival materials from the 19th century. I also have created databases of the Southern Sierra Miwok language and the Central Sierra Miwok language of California. More recently, I’ve been working with the Quechua language from Peru as well.

你在空闲时间都做些什么? 

I enjoy hiking, camping, snowshoeing, birdwatching — generally engaging with the natural world. 我很喜欢了解这些植物, 能够识别鸟类和动物, 并且与环境有非常详细的互动. 这对我的语言学习有帮助, 太, when I’m working to document Native names for various plants or animals or Native ecological knowledge. 

博彩平台推荐还应该了解你什么呢?

我是一个进步的，常去教堂的联合卫理公会教徒. One of the things I see at CU is a tendency for many 学生 to view organized religion as being entirely conservative or entirely detrimental in relation to things like missionaries and Native people. 这个成分是存在的, and many progressive religious groups are working to confront some of the highly problematic aspects of their past involvement with colonization or conquest — in a way similar to the Land Acknowledgment movement — and I’ve been involved in that. 但同时, many of the Native Americans I work with are themselves Christians — and often simultaneously practitioners of Indigenous religions. So I think we need to keep a nuanced understanding of the very complex role of “the sacred” and not be automatically dismissive of organized religion — or, 相反, 对土著精神的过分简单化的讽刺. 诚实的跨文化交流是一项艰苦的工作，但却非常有益.