[lg policy] Menominee Seventh Grader Suspended for Saying "I Love You" in her Native Language

[Harold Schiffman]

Menominee Seventh Grader Suspended for Saying "I Love You" in her Native
Language

Levi Rickert, editor-in-chief in Native Challenges. Discussion
»<http://www.nativenewsnetwork.com/menominee-seventh-grader-suspended-for-saying-i-love-you-in-her-native-language.html#menominee-seventh-grader-suspended-for-saying-i-love-you-in-her-native-language>

*SHAWANO, WISCONSIN* - What's love got to do with it? Not much, especially
if you say the words "I love you" in the Menominee language in front of a
certain Wisconsin teacher.

[image: Seventh grader Miranda Washinawatok, Menominee]Miranda Washinawatok
Menominee

Seventh grader Miranda Washinawatok, Menominee, found this out. Miranda
speaks two languages: Menominee and English. She also plays on her
basketball team. However, two Thursdays ago she was suspended for one
basketball game because she spoke Menominee to a fellow classmate during
class. Miranda attends Sacred Heart Catholic Academy in Shawano, Wisconsin.
The school body is over 60 percent American Indian. The school is
approximately six miles from the south border of the Menominee Indian Tribe
Reservation.

"On January 19 I was told by Miranda she was being benched from playing
that night. I found out at 4:20 and we were back at school at 6:30 pm so I
could get to the bottom of why she could not play," said Tanaes
Washinawatok, Miranda's mother. "Miranda kept saying she was only told by
her assistant coach she was being benched because two teachers said she had
a bad attitude. I wanted to know what she did to make them say she had a
bad attitude."

At the school, the teachers and coaching staff seemed to want to cast blame
on each other, according to Miranda's mother. "I wanted to talk to the
principal, but he was not there before the game started," stated Tanaes
Washinawatok. Being a persistent concerned parent, Washinawatok was back at
the school by 7:30 the next morning to speak to the principal.

The principal told Washinawatok that the assistant coach told him she was
told by two teachers to bench Miranda for attitude problems.

The alleged 'attitude problem' turned out to be that Miranda said the
Menominee word

“posoh”
that means
“hello”

and said

“Ketapanen”

in Menominee that means *"I love you."*

Miranda and a fellow classmate were talking to each other when Miranda told
her how to say "Hello" and "I love you" in Menominee.

"The teacher went back to where the two were sitting and literally slammed
her hand down on the desk and said, "How do I know you are not saying
something bad?"

The story did not end there. In the next session, another teacher told
Miranda she did not appreciate her getting the other teacher upset because
"she is like a daughter to me."

By the time, Miranda was picked up by her mother she was upset for being
suspended.

"Miranda knows quite a bit of the Menominee language. We speak it. My
mother, Karen Washinawatok, is the director of the Language and Culture
Commission of the Menominee Tribe. She has a degree in linguistics from the
University of Arizona's College of Education-AILDI American Indian Language
Development Institute. She is a former tribal chair and is strong into our
culture,"

states Tanaes Washinawatok.

Washinawatok has had a total of three meetings with school officials and
was promised Miranda would receive a public apology, as would the Menominee
Tribe, and the apologies would be publically placed.

"On Wednesday, a letter was sent to parents and guardians. A real generic
letter of apology, that really did not go into specifics as to why there
was this apology,"

Washinawatok told the Native News Network Thursday evening.

"I still don't think it was enough,"

Sacred Heart Catholic Academy is operated by the Diocese of Green Bay,
which ironically has an option on its answering machine for Spanish, but
not Menominee. A call put in late Thursday afternoon by the Native News
Network was not returned by press time.

(forwarded by E. Annamalai)

http://www.nativenewsnetwork.com/menominee-seventh-grader-suspended-for-saying-i-love-you-in-her-native-language.html





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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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