Native American Languages Act of 1990
Encyclopedia
The Native American Languages Act of 1990 is the short cited title for executive order PUBLIC LAW 101-477 enacted by Congress on October 30, 1990. Public Law 101-477 of 1990 gave historical importance as repudiating past policies of eradicating Indian Languages
Indigenous languages of the Americas
Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from Alaska and Greenland to the southern tip of South America, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language...

 by declaring as policy that Native Americans
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 were entitled to use their own languages. The fundamental basis of the policy's declaration was that the United States "declares to preserve, protect and promote the rights and freedoms of Native Americans to use practice and develop Native American Languages". In addition, to "fully recognise the right of Indian Tribes and other Native American governing bodies, States, territories, and possessions of the United States to take action on, and give official status to their Native American languages for the purpose of conducting their own business".

History

Native American Languages have undergone extensive decimation through contact with social politically empowered colonial languages. Estimates place the number of Native languages at the time of European contact from three hundred to six hundred different ancestral tongues.

Assimilation

Legislation mandated English as the exclusive language of instruction enforced on reservations in the 19th century. The Civilization Fund Act of 1819
The Civilization Fund Act of 1819
The Civilization Fund Act was an Act passed by the United States Congress on March 3, 1819. The Act encouraged activities of benevolent societies in providing education for Native Americans and authorized an annuity to stimulate the "civilization process". Thomas L. McKenney lobbied the Congress in...

 authorized allotted funds to organizations such as missionaries and agents and employees of the Federal Government to live on and amongst the Indians to educate and assimilate the Indian people into the standards of Euro-American society.
As the foreign culture became more dominant, racial overtones surfaced. Native American boarding schools
Native American boarding schools
An Indian boarding school refers to one of many schools that were established in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to educate Native American children and youths according to Euro-American standards...

 were the impetus for executing the paradigm of assimilation even further. Indian children were removed from their homes and placed in distant boarding schools run by federal government officials and missionaries. Many emotional and psychological issues today found in Indian communities have their foundations within the traumatic experiences of the children educated in such schools. The Dawes Allotment Act
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act, adopted by Congress in 1887, authorized the President of the United States to survey Indian tribal land and divide the land into allotments for individual Indians. The Act was named for its sponsor, Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts. The Dawes Act was amended in 1891 and again...

 was another further impetus to assimilate the Indian people into private land owners and away from the communal life of the indigenous community. This Act enabled outsiders to chip away Indian land. Many non-Indian men married Indian women to own land and property, as did non-Indian explorers who were given land if marrying Indian women in Alta California
Alta California
Alta California was a province and territory in the Viceroyalty of New Spain and later a territory and department in independent Mexico. The territory was created in 1769 out of the northern part of the former province of Las Californias, and consisted of the modern American states of California,...

 and New Spain
New Spain
New Spain, formally called the Viceroyalty of New Spain , was a viceroyalty of the Spanish colonial empire, comprising primarily territories in what was known then as 'América Septentrional' or North America. Its capital was Mexico City, formerly Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire...

 during early colonization.

Recognition

It was not until the Civil Rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...

 that there began to be found traces of recognition and cultural revitalization. This started with President Johnson’s
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...

 approval of the Bilingual Education Act of 1968. This Act was primarily an outgrowth within the Civil Rights Movement and it was to assist particularly minorities speaking Spanish in English schools to help students with English. Yet, Bilingual Education was expanded with the Lau v. Nichols
Lau v. Nichols
Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563 , was a civil rights case that was brought by Chinese American students living in San Francisco, California who had limited English proficiency...

 case. Lau reflects the now-widely accepted view that a person's language is so closely intertwined with their national origin (the country someone or their ancestors came from) that language-based discrimination is effectively a proxy for national origin discrimination. Though this act was aimed towards immigrant students, Native Americans took the opportunity to apply for funding to initiate projects for their own bilingual studies addressing their own language.
Subsequent reform initiated by the Nixon administration
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

 during the Self-Determination Era gave back some sovereign power to tribes within self governance, with choices as to what federal programs to apply for funding for schools and health programs.
In the wake of the Self-Determination Era, tribes and U.S. territorial communities were coming together to re-establish their cultures and language.

Executive Order

In 1974 the Native American Programs Act was enacted as Title VIII of the Economic Opportunity Act
Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
Signed by Lyndon B. Johnson on August 20, 1964, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 was central to Johnson's Great Society campaign and its War on Poverty. Implemented by the since disbanded Office of Economic Opportunity, the Act included several social programs to promote the health, education,...

 of 1964, to promote the goal of social and economic self-sufficiency for American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians
Native Hawaiians
Native Hawaiians refers to the indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands or their descendants. Native Hawaiians trace their ancestry back to the original Polynesian settlers of Hawaii.According to the U.S...

, and Native American Pacific Islanders through programs and projects that: (1) Advance locally developed social and economic development strategies (SEDS) and strengthen local governance capabilities as authorized by Sec. 803(a); (2) preserve Native American languages authorized by Sec. 803C; (3) improve the capability of the governing body of the Indian tribe to regulate environmental quality authorized by Sec. 803(d); and (4) mitigate the environmental impacts to Indian lands due to Department of Defense activities. Communities who were re-establishing their cultures sought support through these programs.
In response to the language decline in Native American communities and also responding to English-only attempts a powerful grass roots movement was initiated in 1988 at the International Conference at the Native Languages Issues Institute. The conference produced a resolution that found its way to Senator Daniel K. Inouye
Daniel Inouye
Daniel Ken "Dan" Inouye is the senior United States Senator from Hawaii, a member of the Democratic Party, and the President pro tempore of the United States Senate making him the highest-ranking Asian American politician in American history. Inouye is the chairman of the United States Senate...

, chair of the senate select committee of Indian Affairs
United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is a committee of the United States Senate charged with oversight in matters related to the American Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native peoples. A Committee on Indian Affairs existed from 1820 to 1947, after which it was folded into the Committee on...

. Two years later it became the Native American Languages Act which officially addresses the fundamental rights of Native American peoples.

Political figures/groups

The Act's provisions came from the International Native American Language conference with most of the texts drawn from a resolution adopted by the Hawaiian Legislature in 1987, which addressed Congress to enact legislation in support of Native American Languages. The founders of 'Aha Punana Leo
Punana Leo
Pūnana Leo are private, non-profit preschools run by families, in which the Hawaiian language is the language of instruction and administration. Initially opened illegally, the first Pūnana Leo opened in 1984 in Kekaha, Kaua'i...

, an educational program revitalizing the Hawaiian language, William Wilson, Chair of Hawaiian Studies at Hilo and his wife Kauanoe Kamana, were the major players whose efforts affected the Hawaiian resolution. Their advocacy to change national policy was joined by American Indian language advocates.
In 1988 Senator Daniel K. Inouye introduced a joint resolution, but Congress adjourned without any action.

The following year Inouye introduced a revised version (S. 1781) with nine sponsors, but the Bush administration opposed it because of the funding costs. Inouye revised the bill regarding the administrative concerns and was approved by the Senate on April 3, 1990 and sent to the House of Representatives ".
Key members of the House refused to allow the bill out of the committee because of the use of languages other than English in America. Lurline McGregor, Inouye's aide and manager of the bill looked for a bill with a title that did not mention the word 'language' in it.
A bill that Robert D. Arnold, on the professional staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is a committee of the United States Senate charged with oversight in matters related to the American Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native peoples. A Committee on Indian Affairs existed from 1820 to 1947, after which it was folded into the Committee on...

, who was managing a bill met the requirements. Inouye took the bill to the floor and offered an amendment with the text of his Native American Language Bill.
It was approved by the Senate and later concurred by the House. The billed signed by Bush was titled "Tribally Controlled and Navajo Community Colleges, Reauthorizations," on October 30, 1990, and he was also approving Title 1, the Native American Languages Act of 1990.

Amendments

President George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

 signed the Native American Languages Act of 1992 on October 26, "to assist Native Americans in assuring the survival and continuing vitality of their languages".
Senator Inouye introduced the bill in November 1991 for means of implementing funding for tribes and Native American organizations to establish language training programs, develop written materials, compile oral records, establish community programs and to construct facilites. In spite of testimony and support of tribal representatives, linguists, language groups and national organizations, Dominic Mastraquapa opposed the bill by saying that funding was adequate. Yet, no grants in the fiscal year of 1991 included language components. U.S. English support encouraged Inouye to present a substitution of the bill". The new provisions encouraged tribal governments to establish partnerships with schools, colleges, and universities. Grant funds would be used for recording equipment and computers for languages programs. Passed unanimously in the Senate, the bill went on to the Committee on Education and Labor
United States House Committee on Education and the Workforce
The Committee on Education and the Workforce is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. From 1947 until 1994 and again from 2007 to 2011, during Democratic control of the House, it was known as the Committee on Education and Labor.-History of the Committee:Attempts were...

. Harris Fawell
Harris W. Fawell
Harris W. Fawell was a Republican member of the Illinois Senate from 1963 to 1977, and was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1968 and 1988. In 1976 Harris W. Fawell ran unsuccessfully for the Illinois Supreme Court. In 1984 he was elected to the U.S...

 of Chicago opposed the passage of the bill. Even with provisions to increase local match funding of 10 to 20%, Fawell refused to allow the bill to go to the House. Hawaiians and language institutes and advocates were alerted and Fawell's phone received more phone calls from Indians and other Native Americans than all the terms he held in Congress. He was known to say "Please call off the troops, we'll let the bill move".

Effects

Congress found convincing evidence that student achievement and performance, community and school pride, and educational opportunity are clearly and directly tied to respect for, and support of, the first language of the child.

The Native American Language Act of 1990 has been a counter balance to the English only movement and has been the catalyst for bilingual education on the reservations.
"The Native American Languages Act of 1990 is the American Indian's answer to the English-only movement, and the Act's bilingual/multicultural educational approach is supported by the dismal historical record of assimilationist approaches to Indian education in the United States"Jon Reyhner.

Funders such as ELF
Endangered Language Fund
The Endangered Language Fund is a small non-profit organization based in New Haven, Connecticut. E.L.F. supports endangered language maintenance and documentation projects that aim to preserve the world’s languages while contributing rare linguistic data to the scientific...

 have helped start up pilot programs and advocates such as Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival have helped to create language nests, and immersion programs. The Blackfeet Piegan Institute and the Aha Punana Leo program are examples of this movement.

See also

  • Endangered Language Fund
    Endangered Language Fund
    The Endangered Language Fund is a small non-profit organization based in New Haven, Connecticut. E.L.F. supports endangered language maintenance and documentation projects that aim to preserve the world’s languages while contributing rare linguistic data to the scientific...

  • Language policy
    Language policy
    Many countries have a language policy designed to favour or discourage the use of a particular language or set of languages. Although nations historically have used language policies most often to promote one official language at the expense of others, many countries now have policies designed to...

  • Language revitalization

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK