Waging War with Words: Native Americans' Continuing Struggle against the Suppression of Their Languages
![handle is hein.journals/ohslj60 and id is 915 raw text is: Waging War with Words: Native Americans'
Continuing Struggle Against the Suppression of
Their Languages
ALLISON M. DussIAs*
This Article explores how U.S. law has adversely affected Native American
languages, and how Native Americans have resisted explicit and implicit
pressure aimed at eradicating their languages. Professor Dussias also examines
parallels between arguments made by federal government policy makers to
support the suppression of Native American languages and arguments made by
contemporary English-onlyproponents who seek to make English the official
language of the US. government.
[A] part of the educational process [for Indians] ought to be such an
acquisition of the English language as will make it a natural and easy medium of
communication among themselves and between them and their white fellow-
citizens. That means the immediate disuse of the Indian languages and theirfinal
oblivion.
-Rev. JA. Lippincott, 18971
It is the policy of the United States to ... preserve, protect, and promote the
rights and freedom of Native Americans to use, practice, and develop Native
American languages.
-Native American Languages Act of 19902
We must have English as the official language. We are a great country....
[W]e are one Nation under God. We need to have English spread throughout
the land.
-Rep. John T Doolittle 19963
*Professor of Law, New England School of Law. J.D., University of Michigan, 1987;
A.B., Georgetown University, 1984. 1 am grateful to the Board of Trustees and the Dean of
New England School of Law for the summer research stipend that made this Article possible.
I Rev. J.A. Lippincott, The Education of Indian Children into Citizenship-the Most
Effective School, in Proceedings of the Board of Indian Commissioners at the Fifteenth Lake
Mohonk Indian Conference, 5th Sess., Oct. 15, 1897, reprinted in 1897 BOARD OF INDIAN
COMM'RS ANN. REP. 57,59.
2 Native American Languages Act of 1990,25 U.S.C. § 2903(1) (1994 & Supp. 1997).
3 142 CONG. REC. H9765 (daily ed. Aug. 1, 1996) (statement of Rep. Doolittle).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/ohslj60&div=25&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Waging War with Words: Native Americans' Continuing Struggle against the Suppression of Their Languages
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