George Ann Gregory, Ph.D.

In the 1970's, Philbert and Lucille Watahomogie created an award winning Hualapai/English bilingual program in the Peach Springs elementary school. That elementary school is a public school. When a new superintendent was hired, he decided that the language program would go despite all the data that shows that bilingual children learn faster than monolingual children. So the program was ended. The curriculum was thrown away and eventually burned. 

The new superintendent now wants to revive immersion classes in Hualapai. In the interim, a whole generation has been lost. What is at stake here is not just a way a life that has evolved over centuries, but the very lives of young Hualapai. Suicides rates have gone up during this time. This despite the fact that there are growing job opportunities for Hualapai.

I am reminded of the study done in Alaskan Native villages that showed a positive correlation between language loss and suicides. In fact, suicides were completely eliminated in one village by simply reinstating the native language and instructing all the youth and children in the language.

This also reminds me that minority languages need friends to support the efforts of the speakers to reverse the language loss. Saving language diversity is everybody's business