Maine Perspective Front Page
Kellogg Fellow Brings Global Lessons Home to Her Community and UMaine
For six days in mid-April, a conference room in the elderly housing complex at Pleasant Point became an impromptu theatre. Members of the community gathered each day to perform a play void of script, costumes or curtain calls. Yet in their heart of hearts, each of the actors was familiar with the plot.
Participants ages 8-55 were asked to recall moments of oppression - both internal and external - in their lives, then express those moments through non-verbal, physical communication. The goal of Theatre for Living is to begin to identify issues that restrict the development of individuals and the community, and to move toward real change.
For the Passamaquoddy community, the theatre workshop was a means of confronting conscious and unconscious barriers that are eroding the tribe's culture and silencing its language.
"In our community where some still speak Passamaquoddy, but many do not, I wanted to find a way that we could get on more of an even plane when trying to communicate," says Gail Sockabasin, who brought the Canada-based Theatre for Living to the Passamaquoddy reservation with the help of funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. "I want to go to the deeper level of what gets in our way when we're trying to learn, speak or teach Passamaquoddy. We need to get at these issues and work through them in order to keep the language alive.
"Older native speakers feel passionately about the language. We can't look just to the younger generations, who have English as their first language and are not Native speakers, to keep the language alive," Sockabasin says. "In 30 years, our language will be gone, if we don't act. That's why we have to intervene now. And it is important that we are taking the responsibility and that the impetus is coming from us, unlike language intervention efforts that have come from outside the community."
Sockabasin is in the third year of a fellowship, sponsored by the Kellogg Foundation Leadership Program. In 1997, she was chosen from more than 700 applicants to be one of that year's 38 Kellogg Fellows.
She knew from the beginning that she would focus on efforts to ensure that the Passamaquoddy language remains a vital part of tribal culture. In the past three years, Sockabasin has traveled the world as a Kellogg Fellow to visit other indigenous peoples and to find out how others gather together to strengthen their communities.
"People can muster incredible strength and commitment when they believe it's time to make changes in their lives. Leadership can be found in places you might never expect to find it. From the beginning with the Kellogg Foundation, I wanted to concentrate on Passamaquoddy language and why what we've been doing is not working," says Sockabasin, a UMaine alumna and director of the University's Wabanaki Center. "For me, this is not about curriculum development, or the tools and techniques of language
preservation, although those activities are important. There's more basic issues that we have to address. It is about how to regain the practice of having Passamaquoddy spoken daily in the community. If it is not spoken daily, it is not going to last."
"The work that we're doing, reaching back to reclaim Native language and culture, is important to youth leadership and development," Sockabasin says. "The work starts in the community, increasing awareness of the issues. The goal will be to move people to action. Native students will see that happening, and we will integrate that work into what we're doing with prospective students and those at the University.
"Part of the challenge of the University is to become a more welcoming place for Native students, as well as others. If we at UMaine can honor and support the cultures from which these students come, ultimately we can get to the place where these students will see themselves reflected in the University."
Sockabasin's exploration of language took her first to Hawaii, a state known for its success in restoring Native Hawaiian. Sockabasin was accompanying another Kellogg colleague who was focusing on healing.
"When we visited with people who had become Native speakers, it was a powerful experience," Sockabasin says. "We visited language immersion schools, where preschoolers through high school students we met are confident, positive, community-oriented and strong in their sense of who they are. Elders in the community are their teachers. They told us, and it was clear to us as visitors, that they are building a community through their language. Embedded in their language are strong family and community values. It was amazing to see."
Last May, Sockabasin also traveled to China. There, the focus of the Kellogg Fellows was on the country's health and education organizations. A highlight of the trip was a visit to a university that serves the indigenous peoples of China. Classes there are taught in several different languages. In addition, Sockabasin studied the expression and sharing of culture through music and performance.
"The Chinese seem to be very conscious of community and family, and creating beauty in everyday life. Those values are similar to many Native peoples and I wanted to learn more about that," Sockabasin says. "It is part of the country's cultural foundation and what the people believe in."
Back in the States, a workshop last August, led by Ysaye Barnwell of Sweet Honey In The Rock, focused on recreating community through song. The music of Sweet Honey, the Grammy Award-winning African American female a cappella ensemble, speaks against oppression and exploitation, and champions justice and activism. From the workshop, Sockabasin came away with the striking connection between the African-American and Native American oral traditions, and a new awareness of the importance of music in sustaining community connections.
Inspired and reaffirmed in her conviction that language is the key to maintaining cultural heritage and community, Sockabasin, with her husband, Allen, and her 8-year-old daughter, Kendra, joined three other families to start a small, family-based Passamaquoddy language group, which has been meeting for the past year. For this group, music and song are integral parts of language learning. Allen, who composes Passamaquoddy songs, routinely shares his music in his teaching.
This month, members of the language group and others were invited to explore concerns about language loss in the Passamaquoddy community by means of interactive theatre.
As a Kellogg Fellow, Sockabasin attended a workshop put on by members of the Seattle Public Theater Company who practice a genre of theater called Theatre of the Oppressed, intended to challenge oppressive systems by promoting critical thinking and social justice. Such theatre is not only based on learning by doing, but also on the philosophy that dynamic, visual images can be very powerful.
"It is intended to be experiential, visual and participatory," says Sockabasin, who attended a 1998 workshop focusing on racism. "It also is intimidating at first, but participation is voluntary.
"It works with the Kellogg Fellows who are a group of risk-takers. A big part of the process is in developing a level of trust in the group. For example, we might be asked to strike a pose to portray how it felt at a moment when someone put us down or made fun of our heritage. The process makes it clear that how we each feel and react individually are important.
"Some of those images were so powerful. I will never forget the courage of people putting themselves out there and confronting that inner voice that gets in the way when we want to do something. The beauty of the workshop experience for me was in seeing issues come out that people didn't know they were even thinking about."
In the Passamaquoddy community, the survival of the Native language is in jeopardy. Today, it is best described as a continuum, beginning with elders who speak Passamaquoddy as their first language. Use and knowledge of the indigenous language begins to break down among community members in their 40s. For those younger than 40, English is their first language, with minimal knowledge of Passamaquoddy. For most school-age children, English is their first and only language.
"I have been in plenty of situations where I can see the difficulty Passamaquoddy speakers encounter when trying to say in English something that does not translate well into Passamaquoddy. Speakers for whom English is a first language can easily dominate a conversation in English," Sockabasin says. "I want to bridge that gap and find a way for us to listen more carefully to each other."
The success of such an indigenous language revival strategy is important to the Kellogg Foundation, which is dedicated to helping people help themselves "through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations."
"The Kellogg Foundation is always looking for the global implications of fellows' work," says Sockabasin. "These days, many people who are trying to find ways to reconnect to their spirituality often end up relying on artifacts and ceremony without getting in touch with others on a deeper level. What we're talking about here is building relationships, confronting and working through painful experiences of the community in order to become more self-determined once again. It is a process that has implications for anyone who deals with conflict and racism. It has to do with how we work through these issues as human beings by building mutual respect."
Sockabasin's vision for the future includes a broad base of action in the community. "Parents would be sending youngsters to an immersion school. The Tribal Council would hold meetings in Passamaquoddy. The Tribe, schools, community organizations and employers would reward the people for learning Passamaquoddy. We would hear Passamaquoddy spoken everywhere in the community, and it would be taught at the University," she says.
"This intervention has to happen in a lot of different ways. We can't send our young people to school and make that institution solely responsible. The family and community responsibility for language learning can not be abdicated. The only way it will happen is if the community believes that our Native language is an important priority, and we all persist in doing our part."