Journal Entry 1

Life After Death vs. Love it or Leave it?

    What I find most ironic is the correlation between both articles. Imagine you open up your home, share your food and give a helping hand to teach a new group of people about the land. Then those same people turn against you, instead they take over your home, try to change your religion, and tell you that you are no longer allowed to speak your native language. That is exactly what happened to the Native Americans with the pilgrims. What saddens me the most is how they used the Wamponoag language to translate the bible to then force them into christianity. It happens time and time again in history but it is still very upsetting to understand the betrayal they endured. However, I do find it fascinating how ahead the Native Americans were with documenting all the legal documents for their tribe. That is what made it possible for Wamponoag to resurface after being dormant for 150 years. Jessie's dedication is truly astounding. My biggest question is Did she teach herself the language? If the last fluent speaker passed in the mid nineteenth century or was Wamponoag still spoken by the community just not written. Either way she is incredible, I love that she is launching an immersion school to teach children Wamponoag from kindergarten. That is huge and will definitely help in preserving the language.  

    Now the irony with Love it or Leave it, is how in the United States it is very common to hear "You need to speak english, this is America" yet realistically it is all stolen land and they never acclimatized to learning the languages that were here prior. I find it very egocentric how some Americans, not all, will travel abroad and except everyone to accommodate to their needs or just assume that everyone will speak english. I fully understand that English is spoken globally and is the "language of power." I also agree that if you relocate to another country, you need to learn the language spoken there or else you will struggle with day to day task. What I think happens here in the United States is that we will have people migrate but will only surround themselves with others of the same ethnicity, making it difficult to fully emerge themselves into the culture and language here. I am glad that this article mentions that if the founding fathers believed in linguistic, cultural, and religion diversity within the population when did we steer away from those beliefs. My take away is that I wish Americans would comprehend that the United States does not have an official language and to not be so negative towards others speaking different languages. I am very grateful that there are laws set into place for people to have accurate representation and human rights  here in the US.