Rickard-Weinholtz, who has been working with tribal elders to teach herself their language, had stood up during the discussion to plead for ideas and assistance. She and others struggle to educate Tuscarora schoolchildren in their language of their ancestors. According to Rayna Green, after generations of being punished in school and scorned in public for speaking something other than English, many Native Americans have stopped speaking their native languages. And the overwhelming influence of English-speaking television and popular culture have made native languages seem irrelevant to some Native American youth. Now, Durbin Feeling and others are working hard to convey the crucial relevance of Native American languages.
People seem to be listening, but there is much to do.
In so many tribes there are very few fluent speakers left. And even though you've got people that agree that this needs to be done, there's no one way to do it for so many different tribes. Green pointed out that Hebrew was successfully revived because millions of people devoted themselves to saving one language. But Native American tribal nations are often as small as a thousand people and, as is the case with the Tuscarora Nation, only a handful of fluent speakers are alive to pass along their language.