Preserving Indigenous Culture

A member of the Loyola Marymount University School of Education faculty has documented the experiences of schools in a variety of settings in the U.S. and Mexico that are incorporating indigenous language and culture into their curricula and school practices.

Ernesto Colín, Ph.D. - B.A. ’99, M.A. ’01, an LMU double alum and SOE associate professor of Teaching and Learning, spent his sabbatical year in 2017-18 visiting a Hoopa Valley Reservation in California, Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, indigenous schools in Hawaii and New Mexico, and a university in Oaxaca, Mexico. He had previously conducted similar research at an indigenous school in Guatemala.

Colín notes that Native American indigenous communities continue to struggle mightily as a result of the dark history of oppression and abuse by the federal government. One result is that indigenous languages and ceremonies are in danger of disappearing. “These communities have been under assault,” Colín says. “They face enormous health, economic, environmental and criminal justice challenges. Education is an important way to open doors for their youth and begin to change these outcomes.”

Colín, who comes from an indigenous Mexican family and has been an Aztec dancer for more than two decades, has focused on ensuring in his scholarship that teachers are prepared to be effective in diverse classrooms. He chose to spend the year visiting schools that are attempting to incorporate indigenous language and culture because “as a teacher-educator it’s important for me to be on the ground talking and listening to teachers, students and school leaders,” Colín explains.

All of the schools were grappling with challenges well beyond what schools in better-resourced communities face, including high rates of poverty, substance abuse, suicide, incarceration, family separation and isolation, Colín notes. “It’s hard to preserve and revitalize language and culture when you’re concerned about students having their basic needs met,” he says.

The schools Colín visited were also hampered by high rates of teacher and administrator turnover. With fewer and fewer teachers who speak the indigenous language or are well versed in the indigenous culture, and many school leaders not staying in place for long, sustaining important language and cultural initiatives and obtaining necessary parent buy-in and involvement is much more difficult, Colín says.

These communities have been under assault. They face enormous health, economic, environmental and criminal justice challenges. Education is an important way to open doors for their youth and begin to change these outcomes.

Despite these significant hurdles, Colín observed many successful efforts to integrate language and culture into schools’ curricula and practices. At the school he visited in Hawaii, for example, students began each morning with a traditional Hawaiian song and took classes in ukulele and traditional music, as well as learning traditional art and agriculture. At an indigenous school in New Mexico, students learned to grind corn, and studied traditional prayers, songs and attire. Colín saw sweat lodges and organic gardens that cultivated native plants. He witnessed community elders being brought in for indigenous education. There were murals, powwows and other traditional ceremonies. One school sent a student delegation to a United Nations forum on indigenous issues.

“Everywhere I went, I was able to see the incorporation of indigenous ceremonies, music, art, language and traditional knowledge systems,” Colín says. “These schools end up being beacons of hope, resources and caring well beyond the instruction they provide. It’s both beautiful and inspirational, and it’s having a tremendously positive effect on the students.”

Global Classrooms: SOE Doctoral Student Visits Senegal on Fulbright Fellowship

Center for Equity for English Learners: Leading the Way in Advancing Bilingual Education