Speak it. Live it. Dream it.
You Won't Want to Miss These Events
You’re invited! Our Elder and President Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), and the nonprofit Dorothy Ramon Learning Center invite you to these exciting upcoming events. Join us and help save and share our Native American cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts!
Dragonfly Language Conference, Nov. 16, 2024
JOIN US: 10 am-4 pm, California State University, San Bernardino, Palm Desert Campus, 37500 Cook St., Palm Desert, CA 92211. FREE.
WHAT’S HAPPENING: This is not so much a “conference” but instead a CALL TO ACTION. You’re invited to join a gathering of Elders and a new generation of Native language speakers and teachers. Discuss the journeys and challenges of learning and living your language. Join workshops that share fun, useful, and innovative ways you can incorporate Native language into your life.
SPEAK IT. LIVE IT. DREAM IT.
Language is the ancestors’ voices. Language tells the story of the people. Ernest Siva said at our first Native Voices Festival in 2015 that he likes to open every gathering with a song because, “They are our books, our literature.”
Language holds cultural identity. If you don’t know who you are, you won’t know where you’re going.
Language holds the power to heal. To change. To transform. To imagine new paths and possibilities.
Language cannot be translated word for word. It holds unique ways of seeing the world. That helps us find ways to be present in the world. As Chumash poet Georgiana Sanchez explains, “The ‘real world,’ the world we see out there, the world we interact with, is shaped by the language we use to explain it.
“The worlds in which different cultures and societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.
“This is why we must reawaken our Indigenous languages. We must pray, sing, speak in our Indigenous languages. By doing so, we help to create a greater reality for all of humanity. As we perceive the world, so shall we act.”1
A Few Highlights
Along with singing, storytelling, a food truck, and discussions led by Native speakers, join our free workshops:
Join Casandra López for a creative poetry-writing workshop … in Tongva.
Casandra López is an award-winning Tongva/Luiseño and Chicana writer who’s received support from CantoMundo, Bread Loaf, and Indigenous Nations Poets. She’s the author of the poetry collection Brother Bullet and has been selected for residencies with Storyknife, Hedgebrook, and Headlands Center for the Arts. Her memoir-in-progress, A Few Notes on Grief, was granted a 2019 James W. Ray Venture Project Award. She is an Assistant Professor at UC San Diego.
Casandra López photo courtesy of casandramlopez.com
Join the San Manuel Band’s Education Department for a fun immersion session … in Serrano.
For years San Manuel linguists have been meeting weekly with Dorothy Ramon Learning Center President Ernest Siva as he carries on the work of his late aunt Dorothy Ramon in saving and sharing Serrano culture and language. Dive in and immerse yourself.
Join Kim Marcus and his daughter Mallory for a lively session of Movement … in Cahuilla.
Elder Kim Marcus (Serrano-Cahuilla), Dorothy Ramon Learning Center 2021 Dragonfly Award winner, and his daughter Mallory, share a fun and fast-paced session of Movement in Cahuilla.
Kim Marcus, a Tribal member from the Santa Rosa Band of Cahuilla Indians, often shares Native American traditional cultural arts on different reservations and with the general public, sometimes joined by his family members, such as Mallory. 2
Kim Marcus and Ernest Siva open Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s August 2024 Dragonfly Gala. (Carlos Puma photo)
Watch for more details!
Other Events!
Our Fourth Sunday concert series features beautiful music of all genres in Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s acoustically wonderful San Manuel Band Gathering Hall. And it’s a fund-raiser! Your $10 goes toward the 501c3 Learning Center’s nonprofit work to save and share Native American cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts.
Tomorrow! Enjoy our very own talented San Gorgonio Ballet, starting at 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 25, 2024, 127 N. San Gorgonio Ave., Banning, CA 92220.
Fall Fest, Oct. 5, 2024
Our leader Ernest Siva will again give the Native blessing at this free annual event that shares the history of San Timoteo Canyon. Bring your family and paint pumpkins, play vintage kids’ games, visit a stagecoach, learn about these Native American homelands and the people, learn about railroad history from the workers’ families, visit an 1800s classroom and the “school marm,” and more. Dorothy Ramon Learning Center and other Native American organizations will offer cultural displays.
Details: Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, from 10 am to 2 pm, 31985 San Timoteo Canyon Rd., Redlands, CA (just west of Beaumont). FREE!
Thank you!
As always, thanks for reading, sharing, and subscribing to News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, your FREE online newsletter. We welcome your ideas and contributions. PLEASE EMAIL Editor Pat Murkland. Sept. 21, 2024.
ALWAYS CALL THE DRAGONFLY. “The Dragonfly Song is a Serrano/Cahuilla lullaby. If you see a dragonfly hovering about and you sing this song, the dragonfly will either come to you, or stay away from you. It is a good sign if he comes to you, and not so good if he stays away. The teaching goes, if you are kind and have kind thoughts, he will come to you. Conversely, if you are troubled, nervous, angry, etc., he will leave your presence. The elders say, “Mehuun terrux!”, “Quiet your heart!” In other words, be calm and confident before proceeding with anything of importance.” — Ernest Siva, Voices of the Flute, 2004.
Explore more how language shapes the way we see the world in our December 2, 2020, News From Dorothy Ramon Learning Center newsletter:
Read more about Kim Marcus and watch a video discussion with Kim Marcus and Ernest Siva in our Aug. 11, 2021, News From Dorothy Ramon Learning Center:
