DOJ -Language Minority Voting Rights

Thu Mar 4 19:21:51 UTC 2004

here's a website (below) that deals with another
aspect of the whole legality question, where states
are attempting to supercede the sovereignty of
plenipotentiaries (us Natives).  It's probably legally
actionable under not only international law, but in
view of various gaps and chinks that were cobbled into
NALA and in the body of existing law.

I can't recall at the moment how OLA (Official
Languages Act of Canada)speaks to the issue of 'states
rights' (wow does that ever sound
pre-MartinLutherKing), but NALA plainly was not given
teeth in this regard.  On 4 occassions in the original
enabling NALA guidance, Congress merely 'encourages'
states to recognize and take advantage of their
'right' to acknowledge and support Native languages.
Nowhere in the document are there directives for
individual states for actual compliance with Congress'
findings and resolutions, or with tribal governments
or populations.

This should actually be addressed by ammendment, since
this constitutes baldly threadbare policy making, in
retrospect (I don't utter this as criticism intended
for the authors of this otherwise admirable
legislation).  But policy process is constructed for
tweaking and nuancing- and perhaps that's the most
that was able to be codified at the time in 1990.

Wouldn't surprise me in some ways, since the 5 or Acts
of Congress (ICWA, NAGPRA, NAACA, NAFRA, etc) were
primarily timed to cushion the world's attention on
the US, at the time of the quincentennial (stated as
opinion only, I need not mention).

I believe that states with official english-only are
actually defying several strata of federal law (which
is why I put the voting rights link below).  Courts,
for example are also legally required in any precinct
from national to local levels to provide translators
for due process in the language of any or all
concerned parties.  I think there are some test cases
waiting to happen there as well.  I think we should
mount these cases, and the defendents should be First
Speakers who present arguments in the Languages.

The whole construct in the US for advancing language
programming dollars is essentially based on Crawford's
model of Language as a Resource, rather than Language
as a Right.  Lawmakers are not appreciably paying any
attention to the 'our-language-rights' aspect of the
dialogue, and while the Resource aspect is the
essential thrust of most policy level adjustments
being advanced across the country, I think it is
important to triangulate on the rights aspect as well.

Part of this whole discussion in the US I still
believe has not only the minutiae of policy-level
stuff, but is ripe for convocation with the
denominational bodies that administered the english
only boarding schools for the feds in the first place.
 They have responsibility for some symmetrical
reparations, if not fiscally, then morally.

I grew up in an open adoption with a very influential
clergy family, so I know the guts of the church in
this hemisphere fairly well.  I also grew up speaking
my language for the first few years, so I have some
strong ideas for how this dialogue (which is entirely
seperate from the Rights & Resources dialogues) should
be shaped by our communities.

After all, we are now moving in a tektonic shift from
theoretical linguistics in the Academy to applied
linguistics in our communities.  We're leading a
paradigm shift in the Field.  International
linguistics acquired its legs through Native American
cultures, and after the whole Generative Language
discussion focused resources and attention away from
our communities, now we are leading the way back.  We
live with the world's only remaining superpower, by
common acclaim.  Therefore, if we don't marshall the
resources to fix this mess that we didn't make, how
will any continent, culture or community do it with
theoretically less resources?

If we don't stem the hemmorhaging (yes I need
spellcheck) there won't be any languages left to
study, except in the historical/theoretical framework.

So, I think there are 6 states where there aren't
federally recognized tribes.  That leaves a minimum of
44 states where we ought to see laws on the books that
accord our languages their proper status.  That's
probably a set of coordinated legal actions right
there until a class action can be achieved.

If the world is losing its intellectual diversity
through an unfortunate combination of coordinated
neglect, intentional greed and helpless stupidity (a
Barbara Tuchman treatment of the presentation of the
Trojan Horse); and if the likely result is
collectively stupider human beings, then I vote to
assert our Ancestral Domain and 40,000 years or so of
successful survival we have under our belts as
aboriginals.  And if the likeliest vehicles to achieve
smarter humans that won't destroy the earth and
everything therein, looks like a few hundred of our
prized durable languages I say lets have an afternoon
in the arena at Sparta and show some conservative
talking heads the meaning of vocal chords, until we
see not the whites of their eyes, but their tails
between their legs.  Those languages are medicines
themselves.

Peace
Richard LaFortune
Minneapolis

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/sec_203/activ_203.htm

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