According to Roy, American Indian leadership should preserve and maintain traditional Indian ways. Maintaining the traditional language is a cornerstone of this effort. Roy contended that the loss of native language is a tragedy for a culture.
Language determines how people understand and communicate about their world.
Often times, the essence of an idea or the humor of a story or situation are unavailable without the traditional language to capture them. Roy believes there is a loss when people are unable to preserve a way of thinking which is embedded in language. There is a further negative impact of using another language, such as English, which is more mean-spirited and has more negative words with which to label people than the native language. Roy's experience with leadership began as the first born of seven children in her family. Because she demonstrated care and concern, her siblings let her be the eldest.