Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), president of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, reads in 2020 from his aunt Dorothy Ramon’s 2000 cultural memoir, Wayta’ Yawa’: Always Believe, written with linguist Eric Elliott. This work helped save the Serrano language and culture. (Carlos Puma Photo)
Today we’re saluting the new generations out there saving and sharing Southern California’s precious First Languages.
What if Ernest Siva had said “no”?
From that first phone call in 2017 asking to meet at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center in Banning with Elder Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), to “possibly learn” the Serrano language …
… to working in 2022 at Morongo Reservation to teach the Serrano language, here’s a selection from an opinion article published in the the Los Angeles Times on July 15, 2022, by Mark Araujo-Levinson:
Op-Ed: Indigenous languages in California are facing extinction. Why I’m helping to save them
By Mark Araujo-Levinson
“The root of my fascination with Indigenous languages can be traced to a rock band from Finland my brother listened to called HIM. When 12-year-old me heard them being interviewed in Finnish, I found their speech oddly captivating. With a quick Google search, I landed upon some basic phrases, and I amused myself by trying to say them.
My path from there to working to preserve Indigenous languages a decade or so later is straighter than you might think.
Learning languages, I discovered, could lift me out of my teenage depression. I found solace and joy in high school by asking my Armenian algebra teacher or my Dutch geometry teacher how to say certain words in their respective languages. As a sophomore in high school, I tried to learn about 10 languages at once.
Still, I managed to graduate from my high school in Riverside without ever being taught about the Indigenous dialects spoken in the region. Friends told me.
Since then, I’ve learned that at least 100 Indigenous languages are spoken in California, making the state one of the most linguistically diverse regions in the world. And every one of those languages is facing extinction, a discouraging fact that caused my curiosity about them to spike.
In 2017, I sought out the Dorothy Ramon Learning Center in Banning, which promotes Indigenous culture, and met a teacher who became my mentor, Ernest Siva. He is regarded as the last fluent speaker of Serrano, spoken by the tribe of the same name that lived in the San Bernardino Mountains and other areas in Southern California.
Through him, I became closer to the Serrano language and passionate about learning and preserving Indigenous languages. That includes a keen interest in Gabrielino — the first language of Los Angeles — spoken by the Gabrielino-Tongva. Its extinction was hastened by the cruelty of the mission system, mainly through genocide and a boarding school system that punished the children for speaking Indigenous languages ...”
Mark Araujo-Levinson, now a senior at California State University, San Bernardino, tells a story in Serrano at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s 2019 Native Voices Poetry Festival, which celebrated the human voice in all the Native arts. (Carlos Puma Photo)
Read more here in News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center from Mark Araujo-Levinson’s journeys to save and share Southern California’s Indigenous languages:
What Owl Said: A Serrano Story from Older Times
Great Horned Owl in Joshua Tree (Courtesy of Joshua Tree National Park, Photo by Robb Hannawacker)
The Joy of Hearing Old Recordings of Chumash Voices
Three wax cylinders from 1889 from the collections of the National Museum of American History.
A Journey to Learn Chumash:
“The Words Sounded like the Waves of the Oceans”
For more than 40 years starting around 1915, ethnologist J.P. Harrington collected more than one million pages of linguistic and ethnographic notes from Native Americans. One of the challenges in studying the notes is decoding what the ethnologist wrote. (Photo courtesy of the National Archives)
Celebrate Saving and Sharing Native Cultures!
Morongo Reservation Cultural Department, and Morongo School, along with Serrano linguists from San Manuel Reservation who have been working for years with Ernest Siva, president of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, all will host educational exhibits at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s Aug. 13, 2022, Dragonfly Gala at Morongo Reservation.
Also exploring the gala theme of Native art with interactive exhibits will be Malki Museum; Mother Earth Clan with an opportunity to create art of your life with yucca brushes and old-style pigments; Sherman Indian High School of Riverside with an exhibit of students’ art; California Indian Nations College; Native American Land Conservancy; and artist Gerald Clarke of Cahuilla Reservation, who is scheduled to receive the Dragonfly Award for soaring achievements in saving and sharing Native American cultures.
Seating is limited! Please reserve your seat before time runs out.
Thank you! We welcome your EMAIL. Thank you from Editor Pat Murkland, July 20, 2022.