Siraya petition

[Chun Jimmy Huang]

Hi all,

My name is Chun (Jimmy) Huang. I am the person who created the 
English version of Siraya petition (based on a Chinese version 
designed by the Tainan Pingpu Siraya Culture Association).

I would like to first thank Dr. Florey for introducing me to this 
list. I just subscribed to the list yesterday and have read in the 
archive discussions about the Siraya petition. I want to thank 
everyone who has contributed. Your opinions are all valid. And I 
really appreciate Dr. Poser's summary of the situation in Taiwan. 
His interpretation is indeed quite correct.

Here are some of my thoughts concerning linguistic activism. 
Basically, I believe that everything is politics. Especially, 
since most of us here, through our experiences doing 
anthropological or descriptive linguistics in the real world, 
could perceive language/culture (instead of "language, and 
culture"), and politics is part of human culture, it seems to me a 
strange idea to separate "linguistic work" from "political work". 
My feeling is that many linguists have shunned away from (talking 
about/ participating in) politics, even though they do encounter 
politics when they carry out their work, because of the Western 
scientific idea of objectivism.

For example, my task in the Siraya association started out 
concerning "language proper" only. I participated in 
re-constructing our sleeping ancestral language through 
researching existing texts and academic writing. Then I helped 
design some language teaching materials. I taught them in a few 
summer camps. And I worked with the language committee on a Siraya 
dictionary that was published last year. But, before long I was 
unavoidably involved in politics. For publishing the dictionary, 
we needed money. Funding to my personal research was not 
sufficient. So we needed to ask for funds from various sources. 
The central government has the most to offer. But they would not 
fund a people that "do not exist." (Eventually we were supported 
by the county government.) Besides, we are constantly subjected to 
censorship and evaluation by the govt (yep despite not recognizing 
us, they do feel that they have the right to decide how worthy our 
work is), who have organized several public hearings and/or 
workshops where we have to present our work formally. In those 
meetings there are politicians, governmental officials, and there 
are always "linguistic experts" who argue that the Siraya language 
has already gone "extinct" and reclamation would not work because 
whatever we reconstruct would not be "authentic" *_* Given the 
situation, I have actually received duel positions from the 
association: I am posted as a linguistic consultant in the 
language committee, but I am also a Special Assistant to the 
Chair, Uma Talavan. Whenever I am in Taiwan, Uma would bring me 
along to the political meetings she is asked to attend. Also, to 
counter the negative attitude in Taiwan's domestic politics, my 
people ask me to "reach out to the international community." So, 
while I am working on my dissertation here in Florida, I 
frequently get emails from Taiwan that ask me to translate this or 
that material into English and spread the messages out. The 
petition is just one of the most recent examples.

Last but not least, I would like to thank Piers Kelly and Jessica 
Denniss for their valuable comments. I, too, am not sure how 
effective online petitions are to reach the political goals. They 
do seem to create a "good feeling" for the people more than 
anything else. But this good feeling, we do need it. I have 
observed a stronger bond and solidarity among the Siraya people in 
the past few weeks in the process of signing the petition and 
preparing for taking the street on 5/2. A couple of my Siraya 
friends told me that they were so moved by the messages left by 
the signatories that they cried. I hence see "empowerment" as a 
core value in petition signing. And I appreciate Kelly and 
Denniss's suggestion that "the descriptive linguists step back a 
bit to encourage other skilled people to enter the space." I 
believe that this suggestion came from their utmost sincerity and 
respect towards the native people. So I'd just like to point out 
that sometimes there aren't "other skilled people" though... if 
"skilled people" refers to those who are adept politicians, or 
political activists. All of us in the Siraya movement are new to 
Realpolitik. The most experienced with politics would be Uma, and 
her experience is about 10 years young. We all feel stupid, 
na??ve, and frustrated from time to time when we confront 
Realpolitik. But we are learning as we are acting... (and yes I do 
heed the danger of some people getting corrupted or carried away, 
but that would be a different topic). Oh and I don't think 
indigenous peoples would enjoy the idea of hiring a professional 
lobbyist from outside, either (issue of trust and money).


And yes I will keep you updated in terms of how our fight for 
recognition goes.

Sincerely,
Chun (Jimmy) Huang
PhD candidate,
Linguistics, University of Florida
Linguistic consultant,
Tainan Ping-pu Siraya Culture Association