Native Nations, Native Voices, New York City, and Funding

[Gordon Bronitsky]

	Native Nations, Native Voices continues to gain publicity.  I thought 
you might find of interest this prepublication draft of a short article 
which will appear in the next issue ofTalking Stick Quarterly, 
published by the Amerinda Foundation in New York:

“Native Nations, Native Voices Festival

Bronitsky and Associates, an organization that has been working with 
Indigenous cultures worldwide since 1992, is planning a festival to 
honor and showcase Native languages and Native language writers.

Organizer Gordon Bronisky, PhD, with assistance from the Indian Pueblo 
Cultural Center of Albuquerque, NM, has scheduled the three-day event 
for July 2005.  Taking place in Albuquerque, the festival will give 
voice to those Native people writing in their own language.  
Translations will be made available to the audience at the option of 
each writer.

Amerinda Inc. is at the forefront of encouraging and supporting Native 
writers.  We recently published, in conjunction with Nation Books, 
“Genocide of the Mind”, edited by Marijo Moore.  This anthology of 
Native writers featured mainly urban Indians, and for all accounts and 
purposes the writers used the English language to get their themes.

Most of us were raised with English as our first language.  For many of 
us, our Native languages are a Grandmother’s whisper we barely 
remember.  For others, there is no sound to remember, only the sadness 
felt when hearing what is essentially a foreign language.  This loss of 
language is as profound and tragic as the loss of land, maybe even more 
so.  To speak like our ancestors is to be able to think as they did.

Amerinda fully supports the Native Nations, Native Voices festival.  As 
of this pressing, participants include those writing in such diverse 
languages as Cree, Otomi, Inuktitut, Greenlandic, Anishanaabe, Xokleng, 
Choctaw, Kawaikagamedzene (Laguna Pueblo) and many more. “

	I have been thinking about a Native language writers festival for many 
years and actually began planning Native Nations, Native Voices in 
October, when the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center agreed to serve as the 
non-profit conduit through which I could submit funding proposals  
Despite interest from across the United States and around the world,  
the festival has not gained significant funding support with the 
wonderful exception of the Sheraton Old Town Hotel.
I think much of the funding difficulty was best expressed in a 
conversation I had earlier this with people at a national arts agency 
about funding Native Nations, Native Voices.  The person in charge of 
literary projects said they couldn’t fund it because the writers were 
not writing in English or European languages; their folk culture 
official said they couldn’t fund it because it wasn’t a folk event such 
as a powwow or hula festival.
I have been privileged to read the works of the writers who would 
participate in Native Nations, Native Voices and I believe more 
strongly than ever that literature is the domain of writers, not 
particular languages.  Native language writers have something to say to 
the rest of us and I have set October 8 as a funding deadline.  If the 
festival does not attract a commitment of significant funding by that 
date,  I will be forced to produce it elsewhere in 2005, perhaps 
bringing it back to New Mexico in 2006.
Native language writers are creating a new genre, a new voice, powerful 
and strong.  They will be heard.  I’ll keep you posted.


					Yours,



					Gordon Bronitsky, PhD
					Bronitsky and Associates
					3715 La Hacienda Dr NE
					Albuquerque, NM  87110
					USA

					505-256-0260
					e-mail g.bronitsky at att.net




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