TEACHING YAQUI LANGUAGE (fwd)

[Phil CashCash]

TEACHING YAQUI LANGUAGE
High-tech tools
http://www.azstarnet.com/star/mon/31006PASCUAYAQUICOMPUTERS.html

[PICTURE]
David Sanders / Staff
Frankie Coronado, 9, left, and Estevana Buenamea, 6, work on a cultural
project with a movielike program using the new Intel computers.

[PICTURE]
David Sanders / Staff
Olivia Morillo, the Intel computer clubhouse coordinator, and her
daughter Angelica, 13, watch a movie Angelica made using the technology
that includes video, digital cameras and music software.


 By Sarah Garrecht Gassen
 ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Pascua Yaqui children will use the latest in technology to help preserve
and learn their traditional language through a new computer clubhouse.

The Intel computer clubhouse, which is sponsored by the technology
giant, will give Yaqui children ages 8-18 access to powerful computers,
video programs, digital cameras and music software through an
after-school program.

Students will team with tribal elders to make documentaries about their
culture and language, said Eugenia Echols, Intel education manager at
the clubhouse.

Fewer than 150 people out of about 13,000 tribal members in Arizona are
fluent in the traditional Yaqui language, said Maria Amarillas,
administrator of the tribe's language development department.

"We're on the move now and hopefully our language will not die," she
said.

Amarillas and other fluent speakers will record audio and video language
tutorials at the clubhouse. Children can pull those up when they're at
the clubhouse and will also make their own, Echols said.

The Pascua Yaqui Intel Computer Clubhouse is the third of its kind built
on American Indian land, Echols said. Intel sponsors 86 computer
clubhouses around the world.

Children are already linking their traditional culture with current
technology at the clubhouse. They created a short video of a Deer
Dancer, taken from a painting in the clubhouse, animated the figure
against a golden sunset and set the production to Yaqui music.

Kids at the clubhouse were joking about needing Hollywood agents to get
them big-time movie deals as they created their own short videos
complete with special effects.

"Remember how I made a bomb come out of my hand before?" 11-year-old
Miguel Robles asked his friend at the computer. "I erased that by
accident."

Students ask several adults for help when necessary, but they learn the
computer programs by doing and asking each other.

"I just play around with the computers and learn them," said Jasmine
Cupis, 11. "If I really want to do something and it sounds interesting,
I learn it fast."

Jasmine said the new technology will help her artistic side flourish.

"It can help you with your creativity and your imagination," she said.
"It can help you create things you didn't know you wanted to do - any
art you do could be abstract art or using color gradations or drawing
something the way it looks."

Jasmine, like several other students, was having fun putting her own
photo in improbable places, like outer space and in a rainbow. "You can
have your body with somebody else's head," she said.

"I think this will help me with my future and what I can do with
computers."

* Contact reporter Sarah Garrecht Gassen at 573-4117 or at
sgassen at azstarnet.com.