A living history book (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

A living history book
Tribal-language teacher is spreading the word

Judy Nichols
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 4, 2005 12:00 AM

Danny Lopez, 68, worries about dying.

Not because he's ill, but because he's afraid of taking too much of the
Tohono O'odham history and language with him.

"Everything that I know I want to leave for my people," Lopez said. "It
belongs to them.

"When an elder is gone, what he knows, the songs, the history, whatever
he didn't set down, that knowledge is buried underneath the ground."

Lopez, who has worked for decades to preserve his tribe's culture and
language, was recently chosen for the first Spirit of the Heard award.

The award, given by the Heard Museum, is to honor a living member of a
Southwest tribe who has demonstrated personal excellence or community
leadership in a chosen field.

Lopez, who teaches the Tohono O'odham language and culture at Tohono
O'odham Community College, also has taught the language and culture to
hundreds of children at Topawa Middle School in Topawa and Indian Oasis
Primary School in Sells.

He also has taught the language to paramedics so they can speak to
Tohono O'odham elders when responding to calls.

A storyteller, singer and cultural expert, Lopez has taught key aspects
of the O'odham Himdag - the Desert People's Lifeways - to hundreds of
Tohono O'odham youths, adults and elders over the past 30 years.

"Lopez's commitment to his people and community in working tirelessly to
teach and preserve the life and culture of the Tohono O'odham Nation
makes him the perfect first recipient," said Frank Goodyear, museum
director.

Part of tribal identity

Ofelia Zepeda, a Tohono O'odham and a professor of linguistics at the
University of Arizona, said language is a critical part of tribal
identity.

"It's one of the main things that makes you a distinct group," Zepeda
said.

"The O'odham still having a number of speakers points to the fact that
the tribe is still cohesive in that way."

About 15-20 students enroll in Zepeda's Tohono O'odham language class
each semester. One of them was Lopez.

But Zepeda said he is both student and teacher.

"He will send me e-mails or call about an O'odham question structure,"
she said. "I can be his teacher in that way, but he's my teacher in
other areas because he knows so much of the language."

Humble beginnings

There is no public record of Lopez's birth. He was born at home in Big
Field on the Tohono O'odham Reservation on Dec. 24, 1936.

He attended the two-room Catholic school in Cowlic.

His mother, who spoke only Tohono O'odham, would cook and sew clothes.

His father, who spoke about second-grade English, would earn money
chopping wood and helping with the livestock roundups.

"Most of the English we heard was from peddlers who would come selling
canned goods," Lopez said.

The family would leave home in May, following the cotton harvest in
Coolidge, Eloy, Casa Grande, Picacho and Marana.

"When September came, we would go to whatever school was around," he
said.

"In February, the farmers would take us back home in big trucks."

Eventually, Lopez went to St. John's Indian Mission in Komatke. He also
attended Pima Community College, the University of Arizona and Prescott
College. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in education,
focusing on the Tohono O'odham language.

More English spoken

And he began to worry about the loss of his native language.

"Everywhere, community members were using more English," Lopez said.
"Meetings were conducted in O'odham, but when kids were playing
outside, they spoke English.

"I was concerned about the future. The elders are not going to be here
forever."

Jon Reyhner, a professor of education at Northern Arizona University,
said Lopez's fear is not unfounded.

Research shows fewer and fewer children are speaking the language.

"Within a generation or two if something isn't done the language will be
gone," said Reyhner, who has written books on indigenous language and
has a book, American Indian Education: A History, that will be
published this spring by the University of Oklahoma Press.

"For 100 years there was a concerted effort to wipe out the languages in
federal Indian schools and then public schools," Reyhner said.

"It was part of the assimilation effort."

Reyhner said that many tribes in California have lost their language and
50 or so are trying to revive them. Indigenous languages are being
preserved in New Zealand and Hawaii, too.

A living museum

"Preservation is important so that when an elder dies all that stuff is
not lost," Reyhner said. "Putting it all in a museum or an archive is
better than nothing. But these languages need to live and breathe."

Zepeda, who was the first generation in her family to speak English,
estimated that about half the tribe, mostly the elders, still speak the
language.

"It's wonderful that Danny is getting the recognition for what he does,"
Zepeda said "He's very good, very conscientious.

"He loves to learn, whether he's being a student or teaching. That's one
of the things that keeps him going."

Sharing a song

A video of Lopez receiving his award was played recently for the faculty
at Tohono O'odham Community College. Afterward they rose to their feet
in a standing ovation.

"When I heard that, I had to go lie down and cry," Lopez said. "I
thought of all the people out there, some of them gone, my parents, my
sisters, people who were willing to share a song with me. My
mother-in-law, I learned a lot from her. All those people.

"I wish they all could have been there. The recognition also goes to
them."