S1E5: Maintaining the Language Around Those Who Don't Speak

This episode we opened up a bit more about our past and our family dynamics. We discuss what it was that drove us to have this life, how our families felt about it, barriers we face connecting with Anishinaabemowin First Speakers, and being noticed within community while speaking. We cover sharing our journeys with our families, how we maintain immersion in an English world, tips and stories, and who has impacted us along the way. A lot of laughs and cries in this episode. Grab a tissue if you’re passionate!

PSA: If you do not wish to listen to us speak Anishinaabemowin, skip to 7 minutes 50 sec.

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Many people have reached out to ask where they can donate or support revitalization efforts. This link leads to our Link Tree which has a Patreon as well as "Buy me a Coffee" where you can donate to our families cause and initiatives we do to support learning in the home and across our communities. Miigwech

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:07

This is our podcast about reading children.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

We will be talking about stories and element of triumphs and tests as we share out experiences about our host called the five.

SPEAKER_04 0:38

Honey. Okay, Chipotle Times and yeah. God diean. Yeah no uh um she may, she may, okay, she may see she may uh niche at the wear mark. Secret Seekers awards me.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Um so and so and sub and subonages.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

Umgum gaugi in nishnabe mo see apish and job. Ohiac uh Megamaka King Wabanung, Nova Scotia, Be Shore, Halifax, Javanang, I think, um B2 menacing, Gawin, Gawin, Beishore, Beish, Gitchagaming Beish, and I'm gonna go to the crazy random. Um Gay Gawin and Gyasi uh Games Mage Shimea Mekwa no schema we did mage abta mama, Nashime Brent Gushwan Jongso Jongso Bibonang Shwa Gi being the gay um Picond.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Um Edaming um gagged giga No sub teen meanwhile ghisa nan Nadu nong and da no gum, brand you da.

SPEAKER_04 6:42

Go anywhere going seal no come as minam show mess what me nom show mess key on idol key on it a more should we go key key and Idamor C one sunny winger one items one item sick going to For those that don't know what we just said, um we were talking about our family and Emily asked if I had two parents when I was a child and I said yep. And then she asked if I had any siblings and I said that I had two sisters or she asked if I had a younger sibling and I said no I have two older sisters only.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

And then I think to recap, he said, and you do you have any or did you grow up with both of your parents? And I said, um until about the age of three, I grew up with both of my parents. Um my dad moved ended up moving to Ottawa and my mom remarried, and did you ask me at that point where did I grow up or where did I live?

SPEAKER_04 8:48

Yeah, after you had said your dad is from Manitoba.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Yeah, so my dad's parents spoke and he grew up with a little bit of the language, um, but the dialect that I've picked up over here is just so different that it's just been too hard for him to be able to try and decipher what I'm saying. Um and so then I think he had asked me Ozawa had asked me, um, where did you grow up? And I was saying, like, I I was born in Nova Scotia in Mount Uniac. Shout out to my Mount Uniac family. Um just craving and earning like just really wanting to go back. Um, but COVID has has stopped us from doing so. Um and I had mentioned that I grew up in inland, um, not not near the ocean, and it so I was saying like McMawk territory, and that we live near a river, and I was just like super grateful for that. And then I think he asked me, Well, did you do you have any sisters or brothers? Um, I think you asked me, Do you have any younger siblings? And I just um wanted to introduce my brother Brent, who is nine years younger than me, um, did the cover art for our podcast, um, Enweighing, our sound. He was the one who um I collaborated with to create that beautiful image. And he we didn't grow up in the same household, we have different mums, and uh now he's um he's doing all sorts of cool stuff. So this is just sort of a segue into our um our family, our ma our immediate families, and uh that we grew up I think that's when I asked you, did you grow up or does any of any of your family speak?

SPEAKER_04 10:48

Yeah. And then I said no, they didn't. Um and my mother is from Oneida. And so my grandparents on that side spoke Oneida, but they didn't teach their children, so that's why my mother doesn't speak Oneida. And then my dad's side, my grandpa doesn't speak. So uh no one from my dad's side who's the Anishinaabe side speaks. Uh so yeah, that's part of our topic for today is us speaking around our family and friends, and we'll get into we'll get into that. Um and kind of our thoughts around uh the challenges.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

How we haven't made it a barrier within our life. Um the fact that we it is just immersion within our own household um doesn't mean that we expect our family members to all of a sudden just acquire the language and start speaking it, and what we do in order to try and maintain an immersion whosehold while we're still in public with family, with friends, um, and maybe some of those things through trial and error can help uh any of you out there who is on the same journey, um, what has worked for us and what hasn't. Um I think that you had mentioned you wanted to kind of talk about pre-babies, where we were with our families and kind of talking what we had expected um conversations we had had with them and what we thought their predictions or their expectations would be with us.

SPEAKER_04 12:40

So I I think both of our families knew like that we wanted to only speak in the language to our children and I didn't really know what their expectations were of that. I just knew of kind of our own expectations, which was just to use the language all the time with them with our kids. And there was no expectations for me, at least for my family to learn how to speak. I mean it would if they wanted to, I would be in full support. Um but I didn't have any expectations of them learning to speak the language.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

But did they expect you to be doing what you're doing? Like did did when you had those conversations or when you began began learning or when we began dating, do you think that your family w um understood that that was what we were going to do?

SPEAKER_04 13:41

I think s I think so.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Yeah, okay. That's what I'm wondering. I'm honestly yeah, we're I'm honestly here asking, yeah. Um, because for me, I feel like my my parents always knew I had a nick a niche for language. My mom was the one that supported me to take the program I took. I myself didn't know how far the language I would go and how far it would take me, but when I be fell in love with it, when I just like fell in love with Nishanabim when I just could not not share that. Like it's a it's a part of my body and that's what my children were gonna be. So I knew that I wanted to find a partner who spoke the language. We've all heard this story before many times. Um that's how I found Ozawa. And um I just don't know if people knew to the degree of how serious I was. I think they knew that I wanted to incorporate and perhaps I wanted to have a bilingual household, but I don't think they understood how serious I was in just making it an Ishnaabiman hostel because there's just such a lack of that um anywhere. Like that this is the only place we're gonna get it, right? So I don't think my parents really understood the degree as to how little they were expecting. Like I think in general, everyone was just expecting the communication ways to be very clear and easy. And it hasn't it is very com it is very easy, but two languages adds more cars on the freeway, you know what I mean? It just adds more to the to the shuffle, and it's just like figuring out our own way of navigating. And it's been it's been great, it's been fun. There's been no there's been no conflict at all. Our families have been completely supportive. It's just a first for everybody, I think. Would you agree? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:37

Um I've noticed like just because they're I think with my own learning, um, I I didn't speak in the language around my family, like before having kids, and I didn't really share it with them that way on a consistent basis. And so I don't know if that kind of took them off guard or not when I when we had kids and then they just hear me speaking only in the language around like two or first to Zodai.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Um I think that's what it was like for my side, and probably for your side. Yeah, like 'cause it was the same for both of us. Because no one had been in an immersion setting, let alone in an immersion Nishnabimwind setting. And then they kind of just get pulled into the ride with it.

SPEAKER_04 16:36

Yeah, like I know it's my family using the language, like just words here and there now that that we speak it all the time, like they'll say bojo or um up pee, things like that.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Beesh.

SPEAKER_04 16:54

So for me, I actually heard more Oneida growing up. I think because my grandparents were speakers and they had heard a little bit of Oneida, so I knew some Oneida words like with my Oneida family, like hearing them talk and my mom using it. Like just very little words here and there. And then I guess bringing in an Ishna Baemu and is kind of a new thing for our community as well.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

Yeah. This is like a first for a a lot of people, not just like even so I got married into Monty's community. Like I married him, and so because I don't have a community and we live close by, I feel like that is the community I'm now a part of. I feel like I've slowly began relationships and beginning to feel home finally. And in saying that, as I've gotten to know people, and we before COVID would go around with Sodai, um from my from my perspective, the reactions that we received were all pretty like we weren't expecting this. Or yeah, like we just weren't expecting this. I that's the only way I can really I can really put it. And it's not it's not a bad thing at all. And it's just it's just one of those feelings, right? We are like, yeah, this is what we meant, and we're trying our best, and we hope that you're along here for supporting us.

SPEAKER_04 18:40

Um Yeah, I think when we go out well even with our friends that don't know exactly what we're doing or go going out into the community, people are just kind of like stop, I think. Like maybe I think that's what I notice anyway, is that people kind of stop and listen and they're like What language is that? Or they know what language, but they're just like, why are they speaking not why, but like Is that how that really sounds?

SPEAKER_02 19:14

No, just kidding.

SPEAKER_04 19:17

Like they're actually speaking to their kids in the language? Like is this like they're kind of caught off guard or surprised? And I like it it I I don't know. I don't know what it brings up to them.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

I was gonna say it maybe it brings up some other kind of emotions for people, but like I don't know what they're experiencing, but it's something that it's like you're in a bubble together when everyone kind of realizes like when you realize that they realize and everyone's kind of like looking at each other, then it's hard to keep pushing forward and doing it because you're distracted and you're feeling like, oh god, am I doing the right thing right now? And they're probably going through a completely different process than us. And I I just let that and allow that be to be, but it's just like a twilight moment, like a twilight zone moment where you're like, What's what what what are we all experiencing at the moment? What's happening? And where do we go? Like, how do we get back into normal? It's I don't know what that is. Um and that's okay, that's okay for me, for me. Um, but yeah, so even as a community in in a sense, and out and even I mean in a community in London or in a community in the city, because we have indigenous communities um within our cities. Um it's just all such a new feeling, new process.

SPEAKER_04 20:41

And for me, like I'll like around family and friends, like sometimes I'll forget that they don't know the language and I'm talking to our kids and I'll think that they know what we said to them. And then I'll realize that they didn't, and then I'll have to translate for them what I said. So it's not like a huge barrier, but it's just kind of like a little anecdote, like I just forget, but You forget how much you know. Yeah, like I think sometimes I think everyone knows what I know or gets the gist of what I know when people when people don't have any idea.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

I'm with you, but like I'm with you in oh my goodness, this is funny, because I'm with you because I s I'm I know exactly what you mean, but I'm also in the other boat because you know so much more than me, so it's funny. It's just such a wild ride. I'm sorry. For all the it's just really funny. Um because I'm I experienced the same thing where I'm like, they know what I'm saying, like you can hear it in the tone of my voice, you know, like you under like and then you realize no, like there was a time I had no idea when people would say we sin and duh, and I was like, What are you guys saying? And they're like, We're saying let's sit at the table and eat, and I'm like, I don't under like how was that, you know, and I have to go back to that place, right? Um but but even so we're talking about immediate family right now, mostly I think. And I've just noticed like by no means do we have any expectations of them learning the language. That was not the point. Um, I mean, if they want to, we're both supportive of that, but it was a what uh us in our journey and our children's journey. And but I have noticed along the way, um, like you said, Monty, your family using it more. Um so my mom, I noticed she uses it a lot, as much as she can. And same with my dad, sorry.

SPEAKER_04 22:56

Yeah, I noticed your dad uses what he knows or what he remembers.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Yeah, like he started using it a lot more. Um and it I think it's like slowly kind of very slowly unlocking some new sounds and things that he's heard, which is kind of cool. Um and so that's just been kind of nice because I'm seeing it trickle down and it's not trickling down because they want to learn the language and carry on with it's more they want to support our children as they learn and they whew, I don't want to get emotional. You go.

SPEAKER_04 23:36

I'll just say I'll just say for us too, um, when we're in the community or around our family uh like we don't break into English, like just because we're around other people that don't know it. And we've kind of kept kept to that. So when we're in the community or if we're in around London or around people where we're talking to them, we'll talk to them in English and then we'll talk to our kids in the language. Same around our friends. And so we we maintain that kind of we're staying in the language with our kids. So they know that we're gonna speak to them in the language. And I don't know, I don't think they I think there's a there's a bit of an understanding for Zade. She's starting to see that there's a different way of speaking. But I don't think before she would she noticed like, okay, we're now speaking English, okay now we're speaking Shawbean one. I think for her it was just all one way of communication and she just understood us when we would talk to her, and then probably understood when we would talk to other people in English. Yeah, we we don't whenever we're in public we don't break into English. We'll translate for people, but if we yeah, if we need to, but we don't speak speak uh English to them and same with in public too, like I was we were somewhere in public and I was talking to Zade in the language and I was kind of like I forget what what I was telling her, but it was like some kind of like a parenting thing, like teaching her something or telling her about something and I was in my mind I was thinking, oh this person I wonder if this person's like judging me on my parenting skills and then I realized like and then I realized that then I thought I was like oh they don't know what I'm saying they don't they can't understand initial one so they're so they don't know like they they're not judging my parenting skills because they don't know what I'm saying. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

It's just so funny. Oh that reminded me. I was gonna say, hey, I had to cut off my mic while I worked through my emotions there on that last bit how you told that story. But yeah, for Zodic, I feel like it's kind of a more of a it was more of a flipped switch before, it would just go on and off, and now she's a little bit more aware that there's two different languages and that she can switch back and forth and that she can technically choose which one she speaks in. And so sometimes we're left saying like, nope, put that in a schnaubem one, please. Um, because she's now back. Well, she was in daycare. It was open for a couple of weeks there, which was a lifesaver for a bit, just to get her to be able to socialize again. But in saying that, um, so we we depend on our English families to like before before daycare and then through COVID, um, we depended on our families via Zoom or however to supply that English for our children since they're only getting the shnambimun in in the in the home. So there's TV, radio, people in the entire world, signs, restaurants, everything you can imagine in English because we live in an English dominant country. Um, so we weren't worried about the kids learning English. My kids English is probably better than their it's probably equal right now, right? But in saying that, um we looked at we look to them for that guidance. So I also feel like, for instance, my mom when my when my daughter um has the uh the chance to talk or visit with my mother, I know that she's gonna get really good English. Um not that it matters, but she can sit with her and help her with the sounds. Ugh, why am I so emotional? Which for me is just like I can't sit with her in English and go through the sounds with her. So it just makes me feel like I'm supported in that way as well, because all the things that I thought I would be doing in English, I'm not, and even though I don't want to be doing it in English, um I feel like I'm like not like that's some slack I should be picking up. Like she should still I should still be practicing those sounds with her that but we don't have them in a Shinabi one Fs and T H's and or you know, things like this, right?

SPEAKER_04 29:23

So I think yeah, I think I said this before too. Uh I think about it a little bit differently. Um I'm not really I mean it's good she's getting good English um spoken around her and um but I think about like the English terminology of like wrestling and like how um like it's cute and stuff to be if they knew how to say oh if that's deadly or Crazy. Like things like that. Um like sometimes because sometimes I want to say that to her, like things like that. And teach her how to say that, but um just like no I can't.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

I don't wanna open Pandora's box.

SPEAKER_04 30:18

Yeah, I just want to keep the English out and somehow I'll have to say that in the language. So do we want to get into kind of being around fluent speakers?

SPEAKER_02 30:35

Or is there something else you wanted to Did you want to talk about extended family and friends for a bit before we get into that? Um just in the sense of like we have friends that are language speakers that um we've talked about before, you know, that we can I mean this is pre-COVID or working around COVID, I don't want to get into that at the moment, but you know, visiting, however, online in the language um with Zodai's friends like you know um other families that are doing this um meeting in the language. But then we have a lot of friends also who don't aren't fluent in the language or who aren't high proficient or who don't share that. And it's I think we did kind of already touch on this, but what we end up doing is really just doing like a double translate. So especially when I'm around kids, um like with Zade at the park, or um if there's like a or daycare, like you know, when you're around someone else's children who don't speak an Ishnabim when and you know that they have no idea what's going on, and so I'm telling Zade like, kidan bojo, like say hello, kidan ani. And so then she says anni, and I realize Rig, like this child doesn't know what Zade's saying, so then I have to say, Kidan hello, and it just sounds so weird and it's just so strange, but it's like how do you navigate that on the playground, right? Like because you want your children to learn how to socialize, and that child doesn't speak in the Shnabimun, right? So I'm left being like, okay, like I'll say it in the language, like Nishkeosh Tata Hoggy, um, Maba Quasancia, Nabki Gwakim, um bibgoyon. Like, look, wow, she has a rainbow t-shirt, and I'm literally doing this so that that little girl who I'm talking about knows I'm not saying like a bunch of things, but I'm trying to get them to it's like a very strange dance to dance, but it's what I do because I want to maintain, okay, Zada, she's hearing me speak Nishna Abimun first, but I'm also realizing that there's somebody else in the space with me, and I want to meant them to know that like we're communicating with them, we're having a regular human interaction here. And I once I didn't learn how to do that as well, right? Um, I don't know, like when we visit we visited one of your friends, um, how you kind of like worked around.

SPEAKER_04 33:16

Yeah, it's kind of the same thing when we visited uh one of my friends who's got a daughter as well. She's a year older than Zodai, and so she's speaking English and understanding everything in English and and then Zodai at the time didn't understand as much English. And so it was uh like translating for Zodai and then saying or no, saying something to Zodai in the language and then translating what I said just for the other just for my buddy's daughter to understand when they were playing together. And then yeah, because that was the only time like I didn't translate what I was saying to her uh to my to my buddy, like if we were just hanging out but with the two girls were playing together, then I would translate just so that she knows there was an understanding.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

Yeah. Yeah. Um and then also with extended family, like pre-COVID we always had family reunions or like big family get-togethers at your house.

SPEAKER_04 34:39

My parents' house, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

And then on my s my side, my mother's side, um, I have some family who um have been just like super supportive and when they write me letters we do, you know, snail mail. Still, I still practice that with all of my family. Um and they write to Zodai and my my son in Nishnabimwin, and so I've sent her a dictionary so that she can write to the to them a little bit easier. Um and never ever would I have bet money on that ever happening in my lifetime ever. Not because of like who anybody is, but just because like I just never thought in our time it would be that accessible or that tangible or that like I could be that supported. So that's just been super wonderful for the kids. Um, in that sense that it's like kind of trickled down that far. Um just through love, like just through family, just through wanting to connect, wanting to to stay connected, I just love it anyways. I won't get too mushy because I know how much you love when I get like that. Maybe that's a good segment into um passing down the language, trickling down, um, the reason why it hasn't been passed on.

SPEAKER_04 36:12

Yeah, so I guess I'll just mention part of like I said with my with my mom's side, how her parents didn't pass down the language because of residential school and um Western society Um how it's kind of taken over and looks upon other indigenous languages and looks down upon it as not useful and things like that. And so that's kind of you know among a spectrum of of those reasons. Um that's why the language wasn't passed down and I found that it's it's somewhat difficult or uh just different for fluent speakers to speak in the language um to children. Uh for me like even for me sometimes I'll have fluent speakers that I'll I'll only respond to them in the language, but they'll respond to me in English, even though I know that they're fluent because they're teachers somewhere or I've heard them speak somewhere. And there's kind of something there, but there's there's also those other speakers that a lot of fluent speakers where if they hear somebody speaking to them, then they'll switch and they'll just stay in language with me. And I found that it for some reason changes when it's little kids or babies or kids and they wanna use English. And we we found that in different scenarios that um fluent speakers will sometimes speak in English to them and and we kind of we try and remind them to use the language. Um yeah, so there's that kind of I don't know if it's a challenge or a barrier sometimes when we're trying to get our kids to be around fluent speakers. I know that there's I mean there's also awesome fluent speakers like when we have a Ashkinish Nabemik who will just stay in the language and what like when I think we said before, that's where like we when Zodai was there, like everyone was only speaking to her in the language and that was awesome. I think too there's um influence speakers, like when we have gone to a conference, it's like they're surprised as well. Like these people are speaking the language to their child. I think you have experience with that too. Like when speakers were like Wow the Wow, this person's only speaking to their baby in the language, like 'cause they 'cause it's not seen or heard really. Like there's a few people that we know that are doing it, but it's not like out out there with the large group of people speaking to their kids in the language.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

It would start out like me walking by with a baby stroller and a speaker saying something to me, like someone that I I know, and then maybe saying something to Zada as a baby and or as a toddler and me responding to her and responding back to them and then them realizing oh, like she responded. I'm gonna ask her another question, the language, and you know, like, and then it's oh I've noticed she's speaking the language. I wonder if she uses it with her baby because she's speaking back to me, she should be speaking with her baby. Not all all not all people, but some. I I I feel like this is the narrative happening, and um, so then they'll ask me, like, you know, oh, do you do you use the language with your daughter and or or you with your son? And I'll say, Yeah, this is all I speak. I know I'm not a great speaker yet, but we're getting there, and and then we usually continue on the conversation, and usually that's it's this, it's met with that same little Twilight Zone bubble. It doesn't usually like it goes smoothly and there's nothing bad. It's a really positive, rewarding experience. But it's usually that, you know, I'm walking along and I say something, and then they ask me, and then they're like, What? So then they look at the baby and they start speaking to the baby, and then they look at me, and I'm like, Yeah, yeah, like just keep going. And then they're kind of like, What? You really want like you know, it's kind of this you really want me to keep going? And I'm like, Yeah. And not all speakers are like that, and not all people I meet by who have per proficiency are like that, but that conferences that in general, especially in the Shabin Muntake, that has been the general sense um when I've run into people, especially when they realize as she got older and she was responding, they were like, Oh, like she's not just running around as this mother speaks, she's she's actually responding and re um understanding, even though I know sometimes I'm butchered butchering it.

SPEAKER_04 41:35

So, yeah, we probably have like we have uh friends that are raising their kids in the language, and hopefully we can get um get them on the podcast too as as guests and we'll we'll have to figure that out for the future.

SPEAKER_02 41:50

But they probably have s similar stories as well to us and because everyone's kind of in the same I mean you do pass by those people and they they ask you and then when they hear your you're in a schnabbing when they go like okay, like okay, you're you're you um and they don't agree with it, like well you don't know like you shouldn't be t like there you do come across that as well, but yeah, we're just not going there today. Well there's like even among speakers and teachers of the language, there's a whole spectrum of attitudes and personalities and learning approaches and what their expectations are and And regular human behavior and politics between any group anywhere in the world, no matter what race or anything you are. Like when I spoke in the first podcast about learning Nishna Beimwen and learning German, how in deciphering what is just language learning and what is Nishina Beimwen and only related to Nishna Beimwen. And one thing is that like there's always politics that it's never one just big happy family, um, because you have personalities from all different sides from all different trainings of life. So one thing that you have to remember and always set aside is that you want it to be, you mentioned this the other day in the car, Ozawa, that you want it to be this big happy family where everyone's loving and revitalizing the language, and human behavior just doesn't allow it. Um, it's like one of the flaws of trying to do this as humans with everything on top of we have to fight through colonialism and whatnot, but I think you were kind of talking about that. Yeah. Okay. All right, where are we at it, babe?

SPEAKER_04 43:51

47 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 43:55

Something else I wanted to mention about our family and friends that we do in our house when we have friends and family over. I have, or or that I've sent even over to my mom's house. I have books that are in English and I have books that are in Isnabemwin. I never really send I never send an Ishna Bemwin books with my with anybody because I don't expect them to read it. Um in the beginning I meant I sent one or two that were translated in English, so that um I would send like me speaking the story in on uh an audio file and then have my mom read it in English. Um we recently found like one or two books that have like one or two words in them that my mom knows, so she can read those, but we really just we have the English books to set aside for those family members that come over and can do the English, and then we have um, and then we keep them out and we translate them on the spot with our kids. And then we also have like an Ishambouin books that we just only use when we're with the kids, so one of our strategies is um yeah, sending those English books with people who can read them, and so that they're getting to read and do um practice doing that or listening to stories, which I think is a very important part of childhood, no matter what kind of um medium, whether it is a book or a scroll or whatever, if it's I think oral is just as good, but storytell storytelling is how we pass down knowledge as an ishnaabic, and I just know it's just super important, so that was just one of the steps that we used.

SPEAKER_04 45:30

Um I think that from what people are seeing now is more people speaking, raising children in the language, and it's kind of giving inspiration to people and it's getting more out there. Like a few years ago it was a new thing uh to to even hear about oh someone's raising their kid in the language, is that even real? But now that it's kind of getting more out there, more people are taking notice of it, more people are hearing about it, and so like those speakers that might have been hesitant to talk to our kids, for example, now they understand and they're trying to only speak in the language to them, or when we see them, or more people are getting noticed for speaking to their kids in the language.

SPEAKER_02 46:23

Well, I think there's like a big I don't know, but I feel like there's gotta be a big part about trust and betrayal and protection of the language. And there's just been so much betrayal done on our ancestors and on our elders and on our language carriers that I feel like to just always give, give, give. We know as language teachers, as language sh knowledge holders, little knowledge, a lot of knowledge, that when people are constantly asking from you and asking little bits, it can get really tediously exhausting because little people are asking just all the time for like me, meh, meh, meh, meh, how do you say that? How do you say this? How do you with no and not getting anywhere, not becoming fluent, yeah, not sharing not taking it, not taking it seriously, tokenizing or or not just wanting it, not compensating your time, not so we as teachers can empathize with elders in that sense of years and years of little bits, little bits, little bits. Why would I, you know, there's gotta be a sense of that, and when they see something starting to happen, if it were me, I would be like, oh yes, but don't hold my breath, right? Yes, yes, yes. But then as like the surge grew as social media platforms grew and more people became connected and and resources grew, I feel like more families are beginning to do this and the demand that they're seeing is greater, and it's beginning to shift that that narrative of they really do need me to use the language. This isn't just a translate my name, what does this mean? What would this mean? What is my how do I say this is my whatever? Um to know they really are taking this seriously, and I'm not wasting my time. And I feel like maybe that is a bit of it because if it were me, that's how I'd be feeling.

SPEAKER_04 48:26

And I don't know how I can't speak for anybody, but yeah, and I think the more people like more young people see other young people doing it, it kind of inspires them that oh there's somebody that can do it. There's somebody out there that's actually that's become a speaker and actually teaching their kids.

SPEAKER_02 48:48

Yeah, yeah, you made me cry again. Just cause like uh I think it's important that I just like be authentic and that so and I tell the story and that's that like when we I can't remember exactly who if it was Justin Wasquanquet or who exactly was putting on the immersion weekend that weekend in Serpent River. Do you remember? Garden River oh yeah, Serpent River, right? Or Garden River. Anyways. It was a couple years ago, and um Monty and I just started dating and we went out for the weekend. It was just a small group of people, there were speakers there.

SPEAKER_04 49:30

Oh Christy Belcourt.

SPEAKER_02 49:32

Yeah, yeah, that one. Okay, yeah, that's what it was. Sorry, yeah. Um, I just remember being there with with them. And um Yeah, that was um That was the first time I received like uh me a Mikwan, Mikusamiquan. I'm just gonna say that 'cause I don't I don't need to share if anyone who doesn't know what that means and doesn't they don't need to right now. Um because they were watching there's a young couple there and now they're like amazing speakers too. So shout out to you guys if you're listening. I know who you are. And um they gifted Ozwa and I something. And um they said it was just because like they saw us as like leaders or role models in some way doing something good. And it was just the first time I felt acknowledged as a young person from another young person that I was doing the right thing. So I'm sorry to take you guys on this like really teary journey or whatever, but um like just to know now that like they're doing what they're doing and to know that at one point like it meant something to somebody and just like yeah, those are special times.

SPEAKER_04 51:04

So for us, you know, we've have we have our role models as well, and we hope that this what we share in this podcast can kind of help spread it even more, the message of how important we feel the language is and hopefully other people will feel the same and want to raise their kids in the language.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

Woo! Water is super good. Um letting the tears flow today. Thank you so much for um walking with us as we shared some of these stories. This was a deep one. I thought it might be a little lighter than it was, but that's okay. Um this is a whole part of this journey. It's a roller coaster, there's lots of up and downs and lots of emotions, and I just think that um this is a safe space for everyone to authentically feel all the things that are going to arise. So I just like welcome you in joining us in that process and um say Jimmy Gwej for for joining us today. Um, and I hope in some way, in some spirit, in some light, we've spread some inspiration in a way um just by doing what we're doing.

SPEAKER_04 52:14

So Jimmy Gwej, Gigwa Aunt Gigwa Anchit canish.

SPEAKER_01 52:24

Oh, Pamubi.