2001 NWSRD CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

Presenters: Carleen Anderson, Mark Azure, Alan Cartwright, Dick Corbridge, Tupper Dunbar, Eugene Edwin, and John Evans

>> Good morning. This is the session on working with people who are Deaf Native Americans, so if that's where you want to be, you are in the right place. My name is Kathy West-Evans. I am with Region X RSA Seattle. We work with the four regions of Alaska, Idaho, Washington and Oregon, and my co planner of the session Dan just flew in and walked in the room. So thanks for being here, Dan. (laughter) it's a long flight from Alaska. It's very exciting to be here and really exciting to see all of you interested in this very, very important topic. We have, as of a few minutes ago nearly 200 people registered for the northwest conference from about ten states and the Virgin Islands. So we are very excited to have you here sharing in this important information. We have built in time for networking and just getting to know each other and learning from each other and supporting each other. That's what it's all about, the opportunities to learn what we are doing in several different areas. This morning we have a very dynamic group of people and it's always very interesting working were people who are Deaf and people who are Native American. A lot of similarities, and it shows in the way planning happens and the saying of it will happen when it happens, just be flexible. So that's how we have kind of gone with the session. We are going to start off by having Dick Corbridge. He is my boss, really my team member in Seattle, and he has been one of the drivers of developing Native American programs on reservations, not one of the drivers, the driver, working with Native people and setting up VR programs on the reservations and he will talk to you this morning about the programs, where they are, where they are expanding to and how we can work together. And then Carleen Anderson, my co-worker from Seattle, as well, and John Evans, another partner, as well are going to talk about the similarities of Deaf and Native culture. So then we are going to go into some time with a wonderful friend Tupper, who is going to talk about language and similarities. And then we will introduce the afternoon team. We are very dynamic and kind of flowing here.
 (laughter)

>> Welcome. I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Dan La Brosse, and I work for the state of Alaska, and I'm trying to follow the interpreter a little, and I'm a northern region specialist in Deafness. I cover the whole northern part of the state of Alaska which is quite a bit bigger than the state of Texas, so I have one of the biggest regions in the country so because of that region I work with a lot of Native American folks. I helped establish two programs this past year one in Nome, and I worked with some of the speakers here to have the intertribal Deaf conference in Fairbanks last summer that was attended by over 250 people from all over the country and Canada. It was a very successful conference, this afternoon we will have several members from several board members from the tribal conference presenting the first one is Mark Azure who comes from Oregon here, and he is going to be working with the Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Tribal Conference, Eugene Edwin, who comes from Fairbanks and was born in a village but came to school here in Vancouver. He has a very interesting background. Also doing the presentation with these guys is going to be Alan Cartwright who is the director of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Center in Anchorage and a colleague of mine in Alaska and very well experienced working with the Native American community, not only in this country but other countries like Ecuador and Nepal. So that's what we have lined up for this afternoon.

>> Get comfortable, enjoy the experience. Feel free to ask questions, and we are just going to go with what we are going to go with. Here is Dick Corbridge from Seattle RSA.

>> Thank you very much for the planning committee for having the foresight to establish this track, this very important conference. As Kathy West-Evans mentioned the Seattle region office of rehabilitation services administration, your federal partner normally is a dynamic office. We have a self-starting team and you will have met Kathy and Carleen, and you know them to be dynamic people. I'm kind of the plodder that kind of hangs behind and picks up the pieces. So we work like an inverted triangle, and it's always inverting so we never know who is on top. Leadership evolves from all levels in our office.

 I'd like to introduce you to a very important part of the Rehabilitation Act. Are you familiar with the Rehab Act? Who is familiar with the Rehab Act? Good. Most of you. Okay. The Rehabilitation Act is an old act dating back into the 1920s. For a lot of years, the primary funding went to the state Vocational Rehabilitation agency. And that continues today. The state Vocational Rehab agencies are really the center fold of the Rehabilitation Act.

You have two documents that I -- we passed out that I'd like to refer to. One is an outline of the points I am going to try to make, and the second one is a listing of all of the existing tribal Vocational Rehabilitation agencies in the country. They are organized by state, and you will find them as you leave through to be represented in 22 states in the country.

In 1978 it says -- in 1978 the Navajo Tribal Group said hey we are not getting much services from the state VR system. We would like to help you write section 130 into the Act. That will provide funds so that Tribal Governments can have their own Vocational Rehabilitation agency. So that was done, and from '78 to 1986 the Navajo Nation had the only Voc Rehab program run by the Tribal Government and funded under the act. In 1986 they discovered -- the congress discovered that, hey, this Navajo thing is working pretty well. Let's open this thing up to the rest of the Tribal Governments. So they opened up the funding, and that year we had three additional Tribal Governments apply and were funded. Now we have 65 tribal VR programs. What are they doing? They are providing Vocational Rehab services in a different sort of way. Based on the foundation of the state Voc Rehab process he have they have brought the culture of the community into the system. The culture means a lot in Native American communities. As you know, it means a lot in the Deaf community. Culture often drives who we are and who we become. We are finding that Native culture various with the number of Tribal Governments and communities there are. Surprise. Surprise. So the Voc Rehab program in tribal communities varies with the community in which it's being administered. And we are helping that -- we are facilitating that action by helping to interpret the act as broadly as we possibly can. I'll give you an example, and let's go north to Alaska. That's a very important part of our Native American rehab community, because it has the most programs of any state in the country. It has nine of them. And for the first time in the history of the state, Vocational Rehabilitation services are available almost throughout the state. There are a couple of blank spots we are trying to fill for the first time. Because the state program has really become -- has became really an urban program, and that's important to know, because the tribal program becomes primarily a rural and remote kind of program. And for those of you who are curious about employment in tribal communities in villages where the Voc Rehab counselors have to travel by snow machine to get there, what kind of work exists? Well, a few years ago we helped Alaska think through employment in terms of the community where it exists, and so what? People who are living on subsistency economies are employed to survive. So we define employment by -- not by a paycheck or not by the number of hours worked on the job, we define employment by the function that it provides to the benefit of the community. So you will find a lot of self-employment opportunities developing in our rural and remote Native VR programs. Of course the state's using the same concept. So Alaska is quite different from the southern 48, and I believe it's important that we understand that the Rehab Act is so flexible it allows for that variation without confusing about what it wrote.

So in 2001 we have nine tribal VR programs serving well over a hundred villages. Well over a hundred villages. One grant of ours at Bristol Bay I think serves something like 32 villages throughout the huge Bristol Bay community, which is only available and accessible by a float plane or swimming or boating or whatever. And when the counselors go out to meet with people with disabilities out there, they don't know when they are coming back. They plan to come back tomorrow, but the weather can set in, and, guess what, they will be there for two or three days waiting for the weather to break. It's a different kind of rehabilitation. The reason I give you this experience is because that's the kind of Voc Rehab definition that we are applying in tribal communities. A little more about that in a moment, and please watch my time because I don't watch it very well. I don't watch it well because when I get into this topic, I really kind of have a lot to talk about because it's an exciting -- it's a very exciting topic.

We have several consortia you will find in the listing where one tribe serves other tribal communities and other reservations. So we have 65 grants out there, but we are covering 91 reservations and villages -- or reservations, plus the villages in Alaska. So we really have a broad sweep at this point in time. You may be interested in how this program is funded. When congress appropriates money to the state VR program, we grab from the top and say, "okay. Put this in the Native American Voc Rehab program, and then distribute the money to the states." so any -- that encourages the state VR agencies to promote partnershipping with their tribal communities because they benefit by bringing more rehab dollars into the state, and that strategy has worked really, really well. Because the state programs now are sharing cases with our tribal VR programs and each are learning the value of each other, a culture, plus the rehab technology that the states have had 80 years to develop. The best of the best is coming through. Some of the tribal programs don't want to adopt some of the state practices because they are too bureaucratic. So that's okay. Because we get into self-governments, and the real question is: why is this working so well? And the real answer is: no surprise, because they are running the program for their own communities. They are hiring primarily their own Native people to be Voc Rehab counselors. So people who are networked in the culture, in the community are the ones who are delivering services to their neighbors. With that comes a lot of problems about family members serving family members and all that kind of stuff, because there is a lot of -- there is a lot of very close-knitness in many tribal villages. So there is a lot of accommodations that have to be made on the tribal VR agencies' staff's part.

A major component of the program, and one of the reasons that I believe it's working so well is the recognition that spirituality is a key element of Native culture. Spirituality varies, but at the core, it's omnipresent. With spirituality comes an opportunity for people to fully participate and understand the program through the eyes and through the vision of the tribal Voc Rehab counselors. These people are -- those counselors are really getting challenged. It's a very, very difficult program when you start applying it in different cultures by the people themselves who are not trained in Vocational Rehabilitation. So the burden in the training falls on us. The burden of training falls on the state VR agencies to partner up with their tribal partners and do joint training. We funded training programs throughout the country that are available to our tribal counselors. Many of our counselors have Bachelor's degrees. Carleen did research about four years ago asking what kind of degrees we are looking at, and over half had a Bachelor, a Master's or a Ph.D., but under -- but also a half did not have a Bachelor's degree. So we have many, many mothers who have children and families who are themselves middle-aged who are challenging themselves as Voc Rehab counselors. They are learning, but that is the strength of the program. The mothers who want better for their children than has been available before.

Vocational Rehab is a program you may have been introduced to in a variety of ways. It's a program that is different, very different in tribal communities in that most tribal cultures did not have a concept of the language of disability. The term "disability" was offensive to many of them, is offensive to some of them. One of the more humbling experiences of my life was sitting across a table with a tribal leader talking about his Voc Rehab program and I kept talking about people with disabilities, and he put his hands flat on the table with a crescendo -- stop using that word! Whoa. The Rehab Act talks about people with disabilities. That's who we serve. He said not in this community. So what can we use to talk, sir? He said, "I don't care what you use, but use something that we understand." How about people with special needs? That will work. Okay. We are on our way again. Simple, hey. Who has special needs? How about the substance abusers? They have special needs. Damn right.

Excuse me. I don't know how you spelled that (laughter) so a lot of our clients have multiple disabilities including substance abuse, and they are very, very difficult clients. Certainly difficult because the state system had such a difficult time trying to serve the population. They understand that it really takes a special nature and preparation of the tribal member to do this program. Native healing is definitely a part of the Voc Rehab services. Native healing in sweats. Native healing in prayer, and Native healing however is applied are appropriate services in this program. And it's a key -- it's a center for many people. Family services are participating. Families of all kinds participate. Significant others participate and give the support that their friend or family member with a disability needs to be successful. Native communities have a lot of services available within them. Education, treatment, health care, public assistance. Social Security, again, Native healing, school-to-work -- all that stuff exists in many of the Native communities. So our VR program is finding its way into school-to-work transition. Into helping people that are held up in penitentiaries to return to their communities. Helping folks who are institutionalized for public health -- or mental health reasons -- helping them return to their communities, and as the leaders of the Tribal Governments watch this program emerge, they see its comprehensive nature, that it is not finished until it has helped the folks find employment and suitably adjust to it. We don't have a big drive on outcomes like some of the state programs have. Outcomes are important, but we don't underscore -- we are not totally driven by that. We are driven mostly by seeing sure the person is suitably rehabbed before we make the closure.

Just a brief -- a brief moment on the -- again, on the state tribal relationships. Again, the state VR, and the tribal VR are serving the same -- some of the same clients. One of my tribal programs or tribal programs in Alaska was started on that. It was all of the cases were going to be tribal and state partnershipping. Well, over the years, I was going to drop down now to maybe 50 percent are. I don't know what the percentage is, but earlier tribal VR agencies were improved because of the partnershipping with the state VR systems, and then as we weaned the tribal programs away from all of the bureaucracy of the state system and drug the best of the best out, that's what you are seeing in tribal VR programs now is the best of the best in a culturally appropriate approach. Economic development is going on. We have a lot of new businesses started with Voc Rehab funding, helping individuals start new businesses. We have transportation systems that have started. We have convenience stores that have been started. We have recycling centers that have been started with Voc Rehab Activity with consumers of Voc Rehab participating in self-employment ventures, and the agency developing opportunities for work hardening, work testing, and work experience.

The outcomes -- and I told you we are not driven by numbers, but in the year 2000 -- the year 2000 -- fiscal year 2000, 12 months, we served, 4178 people with disabilities. 4178. That's what that means. 963 of those people were successfully assisted into employment and closed rehab. 963. This was 55 programs reporting. That is a successful outcome rate of 62 percent, which means once you help the person write a rehab plan and start the plan, 62 percent will be successful. It doesn't seem too high. It's the same exact rate as the state VR agencies across the country experience. The value in this program is not only those outcomes, but the assistance in life that the 38 percent that didn't achieve a rehabilitation outcome receive from our cultural VR program. My last comment to you is a -- is one that's close to this conference. In a very quick survey I took yesterday, randomly selecting the programs to talk with, I think there were 11 programs I talked with. How many of your clients have hearing impairments or Deaf? The programs average three to four. One program said 50. Whoa. 50. That was an Oklahoma program. Yes, most of those are hearing impaired, not Deaf, and we are able to work with them. When they are totally Deaf we have a hard time with that so we partner with a state agency.

I think that represents the condition of the programs today. I think that's a good representation of what you would find if you talked with all 65 programs. I don't know think you would find too many of them that would say 50. I think that's an estimate. I think most of them would be three or four. There is a lot of work to be done, and I really salute again the planners of this conference to bring this track forward, to allow us to spend some time on it, and since there are so many states here -- I don't know if there are that many states represented in this group, but look at that listing of the tribal VR programs for your state. See if there is any way you can interface with them and help them to access resources, to access the network. I'm in touch with them, -- Carleen and I are in touch with them almost weekly. We have a lot of people -- a lot of the programs call in once or twice a week, and we do case staffings over the phone, and so they are going to bring the whole issue -- and there is a national teleconference that my team partners in Washington, Suzanne Tillman and Pamela Martin are the team partners in the Washington, D.C. office, and they have a monthly teleconference with all of these programs. So we keep raising the issues. We would love to see a high energy activity interfacing the two programs. I've recommended and suggested that the intertribal council of the Deaf make an application for a special d program this year -- special demonstration program this year to try to help that interaction take on more results. Thank you, and I know I'm over, but it's as small as I could say on a big topic. (applause)

>> Great to have this overhead turned off now. I was just noticing now how John removed the wire around the microphone stand. He took and lifted up the stand and removed it on the bottom, and I was thinking about it, and I thought well, I need to move that over the top. (laughter) And so I guess it's a difference in the way that we do things, and I think that today what we want to do is talk about some of the things that maybe we are a little different in and also to talk about areas that we are very similar in with the Native culture and the Deaf culture, and let me start by telling you who I am. I'm Carleen Anderson, and I'm a member of the Colville confederated tribes which is located in eastern Washington state. On both sides of my family were fur traders, and it's interesting to think about where we come from. In our language when we meet someone we tell them what our names are, and we tell them who our parents are, and then we tell them which tribes we are from, and in our language we greet folks by saying, "white hust" -- "in our language that means hello, what is in your heart? When John and I were planning our talk, I wanted to share with folks a little of the history of Native people in this part of the country, and I wanted to do that because I think that this area in particular played a big part in all of the tribes in the northwest. This was the area where most of the fur traders settled initially. This is the area where both my great grandparents came from. They came from Montreal with the Hudson's Bay company, and came to Astoria and this area, and both of them settled here, and as they traveled up the Columbia River before the dams -- long before the dams, they met my grandmothers, and in a nutshell, that's why I'm here. And so our history talks about very much of who we are and where we come from. John and I talked about our lives. I was raised a lot by my grandma in the little town in the center of our reservation. I spent a lot of time with my grandmas and my grandpas. My Grandpa Carson -- or my Great Grandfather Johnny Pachett was blind, and I remember taking him from our house outside from our house so he could go to the bathroom, and I can remember spending those good times with my grandparents. I remember also when I was six years old that I was taken to a mission boarding school, and I remember vividly that day. I remember those feelings of alienation, not knowing why I was there, who these people were, and I remember we had children that came there who spoke the language, and were punished for speaking the language. A lot of people think this is way old history, and it's not way old history. The first records I see where parents were taken away from their families and brought to boarding school was 1895, and I have seen letters from parents who wrote to their -- to the Indian agency saying why did you take my children? I need my children. So in those mission boarding schools, and I was there for seven years until I was 13, we lost our language. We couldn't talk about our rituals. Our sweat houses were considered pagan. Our winter Dances were considered pagan. And so in those boarding schools many of us -- and there were about 300 students there while I was there -- many of us lost who we were. Many of us lost that sense of identity of where we came from and what was important to us.

 And I think that experience -- that experience of being boarding -- in boarding schools is something that we need to link together to bond our partnership, and, John, do you want to talk about --

>> I hoped also to open with a bit of background about myself, and I notice that right away there is a big difference in our presentation style. Hers is very laid back, slow paced, and you see culturally how her mannerisms and speaking -- that's just way different. We are very animated very motivated I say let's communicate. We have this going on back and forth between the two of us, that's a big difference between the culturing of Indian people and with Deaf people and also east and west coast, Washington and so forth. Chelan, Washington -- I grew up there with three brothers and sisters who are all Deaf, and I also went to the school for the Deaf in Vancouver, and went to the Deaf program, and we did very well. I mean, we just -- it was a different experience for us in the Deaf education system. But the system itself wasn't all that hot. I mean, it's really more hoping for us to be in the school for the Deaf but we were yanked out of those systems and were placed in some place out of our home systems and placed in some residential institution and that was a scary experience. If you are placed in a residential program without any knowledge or reason -- what was the purpose of that? That was a scary experience, but let me tell you something. I learned to love it, and I learned that those people, those people there -- and I shared a commonality about being Deaf, our language, and we bonded with one another. We became brothers and sisters, and let me tell you I really appreciated that. That big difference between my home family and system, which that was my life. But I didn't know any difference or any better. I didn't know there was another world out there, something I could be involved in where I grew up. And then here I was placed there, and I wasn't the only person with this particular viewpoint of life. I mean, there were a lot of Deaf people. They were all placed in the residential schools, and we became a tribe so to speak. And I mean, we established a Deaf culture, and real culture with common values, and we came from different background, different families, we had different histories and so forth. Different ways of being raised. Both positive and negative but we shared in so many different ways, it was amazing, and as I traveled across the united states I see there is a lot of common experiences and bonds we all share. The frustrations we have had with the system both the positive and negative things of growing up in the Deaf world, and this -- I mean -- many denominators that -- common denominators that we all deal with, and we see parallels that have really made an impression on me about the commonalities that we share with American Indian and Native cultures, and in this presentation this morning I wanted to be open so we can share and do a comparison and contrast, and, with the structure that we have today, I want to talk about how we can identify the different issues that we have, and the next presenter that we have is really going to make some more specific points in a number of those issues, in service provisions, in resources, lps and so forth, so we would really like to put a challenge forth to the various service providers, professions to really deal with these particular issues that are identified because we do have many commonalities in our respective cultures and sometime this afternoon I think Tupper is going to speak about the various languages, the various sign languages, modes of communication that are involved and the challenges we face with those, as well. So you notice there is a different. I mean -- she is so calm. She is so laid back (laughter) I ain't going there. I mean -- but you can still see that her heart is there. The emotions are still there, and the undercurrent, and the compassion is not lost. And so, you know what we have there is not lost yet. There are people in the world that are going their own way, but I really encourage you, do not lose your culture. Maintain your roots, and do not forget -- you know, that some of us might be working toward the goal of breaking out of our ruts, our molds, because we don't really know where we have come from. So when you see people speak, you know, you speak from the heart, and don't forget we have got our brothers and sisters here. We don't want to forget our brothers and sisters, we don't want to forget our cultures, we don't want to forget what we face and our extended family that we have and the daily frustrations that we deal with. Maybe some don't, but there are a number of us who do, and don't ever for get that. Okay. Are you still with me Tupper? You got everything that I said up there on those captions? I hope you got it all, right? Okay. To begin with. So you know a little bit about my culture now. We have Deaf time. Deaf time. Do you know what Deaf time means? I mean we take our time -- you know, what's most important for us is to finish our conversations you can wait until we are done. We are going to change the schedule because it fits us we don't fit the schedule. This is this is very critical. That value is always there because Deaf people feel a sense of isolation and we see another one whether they are from Alaska or Oregon or anywhere else, that's our networking. Because we are out in the hearing world every day facing all of these challenges, and here we are with our own people, our own culture, and it's euphoria for us. And you say we are not punctual. It's Deaf culture, am I right or what? Now what about Native cultures?

>> he won't come to my place, I don't want to go there. Okay? (laughter) we talk about family. We talk about our extended family. We have so much alike in that area. Any time you go to a pow wow -- and I encourage you to go to pow wows. Any time you go to an Indian Reservation, you will hear folks talk about their aunties and their grandmothers and their grandfathers, et cetera. I am going to share a little bit about my life. I'm in recovery. I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict in recovery, and in my using behavior, I fell in love a number of times. And so my children have many grandmas and grandpas, and I can remember a friend of my daughter's crying to her mother, "mom, how come Michelle has so many grandmas, and I only have one or two?" (laughter) but those extended families, those relationships aren't necessarily by blood. They are by people who care about you. I look at my aunties, and my aunties are folks who would take care of me and teach me, and I'm not related to them by blood or marriage. They are just people who care about me, and I think that that's a similarity that we can find in common with us are those extended families that are so important to all of us.

>> So you have alcohol problems, in your culture? This is a problem you have in your community? So do we.

>> No --

>> Why is that? I wonder why? I put that question to you why is it our respective cultures appear to have more alcohol problems per capita. What's the cause, the etiology of that? We could end treatment programs. That's a real hassle. Cost prohibitive. What about our issues of confidentiality? We won't be able to keep confidentiality because we will be sharing with all these outsiders in the group and they will know who I socialize with and here we go to the same bowling alleys and so forth, we share common friends. It's really hard to find our own separate groups that we can open up to how about you?

>> Confidentiality -- let's start there. I grew up on my reservation, and I worked on my reservation or for my tribe for many, many years, and I can remember the Indian folks on the reservation laughing to ourselves when we had attorneys come to work for our tribe that said they had to create confidentiality codes so that everybody's information would be private. Do you know what it's like to grow up with people and know their history from the day that you met them until the day that they died? You have the same thing going on in your community. Confidentiality doesn't mean anything to us.

We all know what our history is in the reservation community generally. We know the good parts and we know the ugly parts, and we know the in between parts, and yet that's part of what makes us a community. That bond. We have alcohol and substance abuse issues on the reservation, and I think it would take a whole maybe two days to talk about where that came from and why we have that, and it would be a -- an issue of history. It would be a reason and not an excuse for it, and I think that as we look at those issues of drug abuse and substance abuse in general, one of the things that happens in our community is even -- even when I was the worst drunk and the worst drug user, I could be, my community still held onto me. My aunts and my uncles were hurt by what I was doing. My family was hurt by what I was doing. But they didn't throw me away. I was still a part of that community, and I was still cared for in that community. Is that what happens in your community?

>> Quite a bit. We have so many commonalities between us. Let me tell you. We have a propensity to see ourselves and our extended family environments because we know each other very well. Now, as far as confidentiality -- hmmm I don't know that's a hard one.

 I think it depends upon the profession itself. If they understand the value of confidentiality, a code of ethics confidentiality issues. Now we have a tendency to share quite a bit of information about one another because we are looking for one another to succeed. How is that person doing? Did you pay your taxes? Did you get that car? And so how is your marriage going? Did you succeed in recovery from dealing with your alcohol problems and we share back and forth. Our lives, our deaths, our births are all shared, and it's like a circle, a cycle for us, so we want to know what's happening with each other. When you talk about confidentiality, that's not an easy one. In my community it's well enough to know that the children are good, you know when you see them grow up, and they are going to become adults and then they are not going to have privacy. We know a lot about each other, divorcees, conflicts, each other's domestic violence situations, the good, the bad, the ugly. Let me tell you. You have to be careful. Confidentiality is a challenge, and the important areas that we see confidentiality are professional, interpreters, counselors, mental health, because we have these very important, very private issues and if the Deaf person shares it, then you know we have got to accept ownership in that sharing. But at the same time we have got to maintain confidentiality and keep quiet and allow them to keep their personal information personal, and we will say it, it's personal. Just personal and confidentiality rather are synonymous, so we do share something like that. It's also kind of interesting that our cultures face isolation. I mean, here we have isolated from one another and spare parts of the community and at home and work we are the only Deaf person, and we find its a critical mass. You know, when Deaf people get together. A number of us, not just one all buy myself or something, because I always face so much isolation in our respective homes and in Alaska I can imagine it's so much worse. In Washington we are lucky we have Seattle we have King County, Tacoma, Vancouver, but in Washington you know they are pretty isolated, eastern Washington, it's pretty hard. So how do you resolve that? Do you face the same kind of isolation? You have reservations, but, you know, to interact with a larger community might be kind of hard. I try to get out there and interact with outsiders but they look down upon me and I feel like I'm a second-class citizen at times, and but they look down on me because I'm Deaf they cop an attitude. Nobody looks at me eye to eye. That's kind of sad. Do you face the same kind of thing?

>> Very much so, John. I think that Indian people and probably minority people, folks from the African American and the Latino and also the Asian community share that kind of isolation. I think about I now work for reach and tend RSA. I'm the only Indian in RSA, and there are times when I feel so isolated, and I think that our people feel that same isolation when they are out in cities and off reservations.

 Within the reservation communities, I think that there is a lot of interaction. There are a lot of things that Native folks do together. We have senior programs. We have community centers where folks gather. We have name-givings where people come and eat together, and we have what we call our give-aways where people share with people in their communities by giving things away. We have memorials. A lot of things happen in our community that help us get together and stay together.

 There are also the pow wows. I used to work for Western Washington University, and one of the things that my colleague said there -- she said that I can't believe that no matter where you go in this country you always run into somebody who knows somebody you know, and I think that happens in your communities, as well; we are a small family in a big world, and I think that sense of who we are, that sense of our culture -- that means so much to us.

>> now, we have pride in our culture (laughter)

>> golly.

>> so I mean, with our culture -- we don't want people to change us. We don't want to be fixed. I mean, we want you to accept us for who we are. We don't want you to change our language. We don't want you to change our structure. We don't want you to kill our roots. We don't want you to remove our schools for the Deaf. This is our culture, and we are very, very proud of it. And you call me disabled, and I'm not. I happen to have this glorious gene called Deafness. And this is passed on in my family, and I am very proud of that. So why does the society want to fix me? Why? When I don't want to be fixed. Leave us alone. Let us grow, and accept us for who we are. I mean, why is that?

>> you know, John --

>> do you have those feelings?

>> I have those feelings. I do. It happens every day. I -- people want me to be something I'm not. I picked up a book at a bookstore a couple of weeks ago because of where I work, and not because of the people or the office I work in, but the book is, "how to write and speak better English." and I got that because I find that I didn't know I talked different. I didn't know (laughter) I didn't know that, and I think Indian people all over the country face the same thing. The rest of the world wants us to be like them, and, you know, how can a fluffy, middle-aged Indian woman raised on a reservation change at this tender age of 25?

 (laughter) it can't happen. But, yes, the world tries to change us. I think it comes, John, from that time when they thought we were kind of animals, that we weren't human. Did they think that you weren't human, too

>> oh, that we were all animals. We actually all are animals (laughter) they think we are, we sign. We move around. We are like crazy people. Crazy animals.

>> sometimes we are too. I jokingly say that sometimes I'm not quite house broken (laughter) that I live so close to my community that it wouldn't be too hard for me to go back to some of those baser instincts that folks call base but I don't think are so base. How do we deal with that?

>> well, I'm going to leave that to the next people over here. I mean, those are the problem solvers back there, okay? We are just identifying problems over here. We are going to leave it to those people to resolve the problems, all right? That's their respective field, is it not? I think it's interesting that in our culture that we deal with a lot of frustrations and when we go to service agencies -- I mean, rehab programs, the various programs that -- you know, they want us to be the same. They want us to bond. Excuse me -- we want to bond with one another because we find we have Deaf people and those are our peers our colleagues so in rehab services that makes sense. So if I have a Deaf professional they know where I'm coming from my educational barriers my frustrations and if I'm dealing with a hearing person they look down on me not understanding where I'm coming from. Don't misunderstood me I know as a counselor for a number of years the number of times, the limited number of times that I have had a client on my caseload -- and not because John is a great counselor -- they don't come to me because John is a great counselor they come because I'm Deaf. He's Deaf too, all right. Do you feel the same way back there? I mean, Deaf counselors are popular. We get a big caseload, and what's the reason for that? I mean; is that right? Is it possible for the system to handle something like that? I mean, what's wrong with hiring more Deaf people, more people who actually have grown up understanding the feelings, have the same experiences in their heart so they can provide those services for those people. Do you feel the same way in your communities?

>> yes, we do very much. I think that's why the Native programs and the VR programs within the Native communities are able to make -- how many successful rehabs? 963. That's why we are so successful in doing that in our own communities. But we are also successful in partnering with folks to get those successful rehabilitations, and it's these partnerships that we create in meetings and in sessions like this that we bring you into our community so that you can find out how better to serve the folks with disabilities within our communities.

 I think Native people should be hired also within the general agencies to provide services and to teach people how to work with our community. How many people went to -- have gone to social service agencies and not been served and went away thinking you were not served because you were just too damn hard to serve? A lot of people. And I think that's what's happened with your community, as well as our community. We are just too Dang hard to serve sometimes. We are not easy. Have you found that to be the case, John?

>> uh-huh. We have a lot of similarities between us. One thing we would really like to promote and develop is training of people that actually our clients can identify and build a rapport with. We need that. Not just intraculture but outside of our culture as well. We need to have success stories. And I'm wondering about your role as an elder. In Deaf culture, you know our elders are the ones that hold on to our culture and they show us about our roles. They -- rather they are our role models that we look up to, and there are times that I look up on these older Deaf people, as my parents, my father, my mother. They are the ones that have known us all of our drives as we have grown up. And they have leadership roles, and at times those leadership roles maybe are not the best, but -- might not be very current, but let me tell you, this is a glorious society that we have. Our elders pass on to our young people -- it's very difficult, very powerful and it's a heritage that we want but sometimes the elders will hang on to that, they will just hang on to it, because it's like a hierarchy in our culture that begins on a local level and it goes up to a state level, and then up to the national level and then you have all this political stuff going up to the top of the hierarchy, and there is a world level, as well, but our elder's role are very significant, and in Native cultures do you also have elders and what are their roles

>> our elders, too, are very important to our people, and hold a very special place in our communities. We look to them for sharing the culture. We look to them for teaching us the language. We look to them for direction. I would not be presumptuous to say that I'm an elder. That's a description that someone else would have to give me. I would not take that description, and I think that when people look to our elders, that's a very special -- that becomes a very special relationship. Because it is, as John says, a nurturing, a teaching, a bonding that takes place between people and the folks who help us carry on our traditions and our culture.

>> our youth are really going about their own ways, and they don't seem to recognize a lot of our values. The important parts and structure of our culture and our heritage. It seems that our youth have other priorities now. Why is that? Do you face the same kind of things?

>> (nods head up and down) our children --

>> what's happening in our society that distances us from one another? I mean, our culture seems that we are a number of subcultures, a strata of cultures. We have the African American subculture within our culture. And we have the Native culture within our culture. And we have the gay and lesbian subcultures within our cultures. We also have the Asian subcultures within our larger Deaf community, and there is a lot of -- not only striation, but discontent from one another, and we are trying to bring one another together, and it seems like everyone has their own agendas and their own lives, and we are looking at what's going on with this, and what's happening. Are you facing the same thing?

>> I think we are. I think that in looking at our history, there have been attempts from this area, at least, for 150 years to take away from our people who they were, their identity. There was -- there were attempts at termination, which would have taken our reservations away from us and sent us out and away. There was what we call relocation, which was taking Indian people and sending them to big cities across the country like Los Angeles and Chicago, San Francisco, to get them away from reservations so they would lose who they were and they would join the melting pot, and we would become more like everyone else, and what happened in those instances, especially with relocation, is that when the Indians got to the cities, they found the other Indians, and now you see major cities with major community centers where Native people get together.

 the issue with our youth is the same issue that you have. How do they -- how can our children learn who they are with all of this noise around us? The media, the toys, the violence, the fighting one another, the conflict, the Chinese taking our airplane, the, the, the -- the media, the news that is going on in front of our eyes and our being every day. It's easy for our children not to know who they are, and it's easy for our children not to appreciate where they come from and to value who we are. It's hard for them to carry those seeds. It's hard, but it's not impossible, and I think that's where we have to work hard is that by these relationships that we forge with one another, that we find those good things that we can share with our children that hopefully they will pick up.

>> okay. Our cultures -- I can't speak for everyone, but we have a value of money, and we also should value our societies -- our social structure. Our baseball teams, our bowling teams, and the lack -- our Deaf camps. We value our social activities, and that perspective really is an important part of information sharing, of bonding, of getting together, because we work all the time and make money, and invest and so forth -- that's a new concept for us. Let me tell you that's a new concept. I mean Deaf people are investing now. There hasn't been that many but thanks to Gallaudet -- we put value within our culture, and we are really bonding more with people and these assets, and it's a higher value. And that's because these Deaf people are our family. Do you feel the same?
 

>> okay. Let's dispel some myths, first, okay? I don't get a check every month. I don't know whether there are any tribes in the country that get a check every month. Not all of our reservations have casinos. There are some tribes that have casinos. Not all of us are on welfare. A lot of us are like you folks. We are in the trenches plugging away at it every day. There is something, though, about money that I think we kind of do -- or not do, I guess, would be a better description. We haven't learned how to bond with it generally very well (laughter)

>> same.
 (laughter)

>> we share that. It went in one hand and out the other. I spend it right and left. The SSI checks right at the first of the month go away. I depend upon that government check. We are all going to be in Seattle at the same time on Friday. The first Friday of the month every month to get our check, the second, third, and fourth day of the month, don't worry we are not going to be there because the money is gone.

>> it's kind of like hunting and gathering. When you have it you use it. Why put something away that you can use? And I think that generally speaking, I guess, for most of the people I know is our employers didn't put money away for retirement, and we weren't able -- if we were able to get to it -- if I could get to it -- to hell with 62 or 65.

 (laughter) we believe that if you have it you share it and you use it. That's something that we do in our communities, I think, that's really vital in keeping us who we are is sharing and giving. I alluded a while ago to our ceremonies that we have. And I want to share with you again a piece of my life. My mother passed away in 1996. For the last two years of her life she was very, very sick, and she did not want to be in a hospital so we kept her home, and my sister and my dad and I took turns taking care of her. When she was getting close to the time for leaving, she told us, "I don't want any police here, I don't want any sirens here. When I leave I want you to take care of me." and so when she finally drew her last breath, we called the physician's assistant that we knew we had her come and do whatever paper work they had to do, and my father and my sister drove her to the funeral home, and when it came home -- came time for the services they picked her up and brought her to where the services were.

As part of our funeral ceremony, we had to wait where people sit and talk about the person and laugh and talk, and we have the person who has gone on with us right there at that time. And we eat. Two times we eat together in that period of time. We eat the evening before and then after the services and after the person's resting in the ground. We also honor them for a year, and by honoring them for a year, the person who has gone on -- we don't go to celebrations, we don't take part in any of the activities in our community, and we gather things in that year. We gather things and we make things in that year. And after that year is over with -- after that year is over with, we have a memorial, and that memorial is our family getting together and inviting people to come and share with us a meal. And after that meal is over with we sit around and pass around pictures of the person who has left, and we do a give-away. Everything that we gathered in that year we give away. We give away -- we gave away towels, pots and pans, clothes, socks, blankets, hats, gloves, personal things from the person who went on. And those give-aways are something that is vital to our community. Giving away happens when there is a naming. A child gets a new name or a person gets an Indian name. Give-aways and meals are done at that time. It happens when people have what we call in this part of the country or our part of the country a winter Dance or a Chinook Dance. Part of that is giving and sharing Chinook. And I understand that happens in you're community, too, giving and sharing?

>> I think that we have a -- interesting material bartering system. I mean, you do something for me, I do something for you. We scratch each other's back. We have this interchange. I mean you know, it really takes school, though, at times because here I'm sharing something with you, you have got skills you can share with me. It's not just material things but also intangible things. Knowledge can be shared with each other. Expectations of our culture. If you are a cultural member, you have some knowledge. You can give advice. You can be a counselor in rehab and so forth. In mental health we have an exchange -- and this is no cost -- the expectation is not that I'm going to pay you for your skills, I'm going to pay you for your knowledge. I mean, we are both Deaf. So the expectation is that you share your knowledge with us. I think that's. In rehab all the clients -- I go bowling, and here comes my clients, and they want counseling services. They want to be rehabilitated. Excuse me I'm here to have some fun. I want to enjoy myself have some fun but they pull me in. So where is the etiquette? Where is the respect? It's not like that. They are not insulting me and I don't insult them back it's just a mutual explanation we will be available for one another and we will have that interchange of one another's knowledge. Do you have something similar?

>> I think that's -- the idea of giving and sharing is different in our Native communities or as I have seen it, and I guess now would be just as good a time as any to tell you that I'm not an expert on all Indians across the country. I don't know everything that happens in this nation with Indian people or within their cultures across this country. I can only talk to you from what I know from my life experience.

 in my experience with giving in our community is that when you -- when you -- when I give something away, I'm done with it. I don't expect something in return. I have let it go. And one of the things that RSA has a -- such a hard time with, and the federal government is I guess this is unethical that you give things and apparently there is always supposed to be reciprocation. Giving something says I'm done with it and I don't expect you to pay me back anything. Knowledge -- having special knowledge -- I think our people in our community expect us to share that knowledge when they ask for it. If you do

>> (audience member:) if you do receive something and you try to give back because it's part of your culture -- you receive something, is it an insult or -- so you are not doing something incorrectly?

>> I would have -- if I give you something and you gave me something back, I would probably accept it, but I would also tell you that you did not need to do that. It's -- that -- and I guess I would feel hurt that you would want to give me something back, because I think it's really important for people to know -- and I can only say this for me -- that when I give something, it's because I wanted to give it, and it's because I want you to have a piece of my life.

>> (audience member:) and not feel that you are owed?

>> you don't owe me anything

>> (audience member:) okay

>> and I think that's a very, very significant difference

>> (audience member:) giving away can also be associated with a new birth or rebirth or a dramatic change in your life --

>> can you hold on for a second. We have some people using the mike for an assistive listening device. You need to talk into the mike so they can hear what you are saying.

>> (audience member:) giving away in some Native cultures can be associated with a rebirth, a renewal, a dramatic change in your life. You are threw with that old, and you are making way for something new. It's kind of like spring cleaning. Everything goes and then you start new with a new year.
 

>> now, let me tell you. We expect s si. I mean we expect that you are going to pay for our interpreters. You are not going to charge us a dime for them. Let me tell you we expect that you will have service provision free for us, and you are not going to charge us a dime. We expect that we are going to have our medical card, Medicaid. Our hearing aids will be free, and you are not going to charge us a dime. That's kind of interesting. Our expectations are the society owes us a living. I mean, that's a little different, and that's something that probably needs to change and we need to change that. But our expectations are kind of interesting. Do American Indians have any expectations that society owes you something?

>> well, (laughter) I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you (laughter) let me tell you that in Indian country -- and I have to share some history here -- please bear with me, and I can only again talk for my tribe -- for those familiar with the state of Washington, our tribes' area of being was from the cascades over to probably the Montana border, up into Canada, clear down to priest rapids. When Stevens in 1855 and those years started making treaties with tribes, what -- part of what he said -- and let's remember that in English law, which is what u.s. law is based in -- contracts can only be made between equals. And Indian people did not know generally the meeting of -- the meaning of ownership of land. We just knew where our areas were that we traveled. So when treaties were made and we were put on reservations -- our reservations has 12 bands, and we didn't necessarily get along with each other when they put us together, either. That agreement, that executive order or that agreement said the Colville tribes will have this piece of land 3 million acres in perpetuity. I looked that up in the dictionary. You know what that means? That means forever and forever and forever, and our chiefs and our leaders agreed to that and not willingly.

 a year and a half went by after that agreement was signed, and gold was discovered on the north half of our reservation. Well, then the government said, "oh, we changed our mind, you guys. You need to move to this half part and stay down there because we are opening this up to mineral exploration up there." and they did. They took the north half of the reservation away from us. And so perpetuity only meant like a year and a half really (laughter) when all of that happened, the agreements that were made said you will have education, your welfare will be taken care of, your health needs will be taken care of, but you have to stay within this reservation. This is where your people have to be. Our people took those words seriously. We don't expect everything to be handed to us, but we do expect the u.s. government to keep its word. So, yes, we do have Indian health services, yes, we do receive some educational assistance. Yes, our tribes run themselves and yes, within our borders we say that we rule, but that's, in a nutshell why we feel this way. Do you think that our people would take commodities if they were able to go out and hunt and fish and gather if they were able to get what they used to get wherever they used to get it? I don't think so. But because of all of those things being taken away, what we got was commodity, and what we have today are the last vestiges of what was taken so many years ago. There was no war here. I had somebody say, "gee, why don't you guys just get a life? Those treaties happened years ago. My family didn't make those treaties. Why should I live with it?" and I said, "your constitution of this country -- or our constitution of this country is old. Do we not pay attention to it because it's old?" that's why we expect some things.

>> (audience member:) who is going to interpret for me? Will you interpret? Something bothered me that you said a while ago -- it bothered me that you said Deaf people expect to get SSI. I don't think Deaf people expect SSI. That's what we were trained and told all our lives from the schools and teachers get your SSI. They told us repeatedly. So I don't think it's fair to say we expect it because we were trained to do so, and in regards to what Carleen was just saying about our expectations -- the government said they were going to do it, so let's take it, and we will use that government support to go get our education and whatever. We were trained that way all of our lives. So, you know what I'm saying?

>> well, that training -- that training led to the expectation. You know, I was taught the same things. Since I was 18 years old they said go get your SSI, and I said, "what? Why? You are Deaf you are qualified. How much is it? Oh, $340 a month? Okay I'm there, sounds good to me (laughter) every month I got that check, and I was still a junior in high school. So that's a lot of money for a kid my age, let me tell you. But, you know, it's like they trained me from cradle to grave to get everything from a to z at the school for the Deaf so you say the white man made promises, well, all these hearing people with their hearing attitude made us promises. They said oh, if you are mainstreamed in the most appropriate environment educationally, then you can give up your Deaf school so you can be mainstreamed and you have the most effective schooling in those systems. But what I see is the communication completely disintegrated and there wasn't qualified people that could communicate with us at all and the promises were not kept so I can relate. One of the things I'm curious about that I'm like to ask you about is the research says that you carried -- that you brought your sign language from South America -- from centuries and centuries ago, the Native people were all able to sign intertribally with one another. Various tribes and nations could all communicate with one another and understood each other, and Deaf people have received this gift from you. Our signs that we have that we cherish and we value -- we are very proud of our sign language, and we pass that on, and sometimes we fight to keep the integrity of our language. Our visual gestural language, I'm wondering about you. Where did you lose it? What happened? You invented the sign language, and you passed it on until, what, 1910, 1920? And it's like all gone from your culture, and I'm wondering why? I don't understand.

>> first, let's back up for a second. Everyone who is here in this session needs to go out and talk to six people that you know and ask them to share with another six people that it wasn't the Indians who got a monthly check. I think somebody got mixed up (laughter)

>> oh. We do have some differences, as well. I get it now. All right.

>> and, John, I wish I knew what happened to our sign language. History shows that our tribes, even though they spoke different dialects and different languages talked to each other by sign. I don't know what happened to it. Maybe when we were put on reservations and weren't allowed to roam any more and have contact with other tribes, it just died away. And isn't that sad? Because it was a wonderful gift that we had, and if we could rekindle it today, that would be so good for everybody, not just Indian people, but for everyone. That's where even our Native languages are today, as well. In my tribe there are probably only 20 -- maybe 25 elders who still speak the language, and they are trying desperately to share that language, and I hope that we can hang onto that, because, again, I think your language and our languages help keep alive who we are. And our cultures -- the Native culture and the Deaf culture -- hopefully we can work together and from this meeting today we can make our circle and our bond with one another stronger and better for both our cultures.

>> ladies and gentlemen, our presentation was not designed to disseminate solutions. It was not designed to present and preach and tell people about the glorious majesties that we have and what we can resolve. But just to identify the similarities that we have amongst ourselves, and a number of the key areas -- language, isolation, communication, education, employment, oppression -- those that exploit us, and those that -- the services and resources that we are out looking for and we don't know what's available for us. Our inability to know how to get out of it, and at the same time to hang on and to cherish these things so we can function independently and still maintain and preserve our culture. We don't want to be changed. Our presentation this morning was to sometime late your thinking, because this afternoon you are going to have an opportunity to hear from the professionals that are on the agenda. People like Tupper that can talk about language and cultures. I mean, he has lived all those. He lives it every day. We can't speak on that because we don't live it every day. I'm not Native but he is and so are the other speakers on the agenda this afternoon. So we have a great wealth of information. It's right here, and we hope we can stimulate your thinking enough so when all of you come to the presentations this afternoon that you be chock full of questions and be able to hear and solve some of the problems we have talked about and come up with strategies to help our communities success not just Deaf culture but Native cultures as well and for American Indian and Alaskan Native cultures as well, and we want to give much expression of appreciation for all of you today. Thank you we really appreciate it a great deal (applause)

>> I have three or four disks with the Native listings on them for those of you who need it in that format let me know.
 
 

 *** (noon break) ***
 

4/4/01 1:35 To 3:15 (Part 2)
"Serving Individuals In The Deaf Native American Community"
Eugene Edwin, Tupper Dunbar, Alan Cartwright, Mark Azure, Dick Corbridge, John Evans, And Carleen Anderson, Presenters

>> okay. Is everyone able to hear me or is it too loud. Why did they hand me the mic? I'm Deaf. (laughter)

>> I'd like to introduce Alan Cartwright. He is the director for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Center in Anchorage, and he is going to be the facilitator this afternoon.

>> Thank you. Thanks to my partner there, too. Anyway. I'd like to start this afternoon -- by first telling you we are going to jump in and just start swimming and that's how we are going to learn. When I first got to Alaska, I didn't know anything about Alaska. Of I've been there 25 years and I don't know it all still. So I'm asking you all to join me this afternoon. You have had lunch. Don't fall asleep. I'm expecting everybody to be wide awake and keep up with me. We are going on a journey we are going to fly. Some people say I look a little bit like a bald eagle. Can you picture that up here? I'm asking you to fly with me. Take a trip to Alaska. I understand some of you have never been there. I am sure you have read about it, dreamed of Alaska, in fact. That's not good enough. You need to be there and experience it. . What you read in books just isn't enough. What you hear in stories just isn't enough. What people tell you isn't enough. You need to have that experience firsthand in order to understand what Alaska is all about. So. A lot of people hear the word Alaska, but what I'd like to do today is I'd like to draw Alaska. I will draw a map. I'm not a great artist. Drawing isn't my strong point. But I'm going to use a map -- I'm going to tell you of how I think of Alaska. First of all the back kind of like the back of the head is always flat. That's the easiest part (laughter) the top of the head of Alaska goes like this, kind of the forehead, can you picture it? . A nose. Did you know Alaska had a beard? Remarkable. Alaska. Right? That looks like Alaska. Oh, what a beautiful map. Perfect. Alaska looks like a face. So now let's see who is behind that face. It's bearded. You see the nose. You see the forehead. Wearing a hat, right, and the long braids. I'm going to introduce a real live Alaskan for you. See some of the Alaskans in the room have beards. Another one in the back there. Right? Alaskans have beards: the men have beards. The men have beards. Now, I didn't ask Trevor to stand because he doesn't have a beard, and he's not from Alaska anyway, he's Canadian. (laughter) now, I have a picture of Alaska. No. No. Well, Alaska hasn't had a lot of women. There are more and more women coming to us now, and the numbers are pretty even now, but traditionally Alaska has been mostly male. What I'm going to do now is I'm going to conduct an interview. We are going to imagine that you want to go to Alaska, and you have never been there. Who has never been to Alaska. Tell me some things you know about Alaska. Alaska is cold. We hear that a lot. What else do you hear about Alaska? You hear there is fishing. That's another thing. Mother? We have very long days and -- right. Right. The sun goes round around in the sky and doesn't set. It also goes around and around below the horizon and is very cold. We have cold. Long days or long nights. We have one more comment about Alaska. Oh, bears. I'm looking for another one. Igloos. And someone asked me if I live in an igloo all the time I have another story once this is finished we will go into igloos. You might be interested in how an igloo is built. We will talk about that later. Oh, Alaska is far, far away. Those are the three big myths that we hear about Alaska. That it's cold, that it's dark, and that it's very far away. .

>> and it's those three myths that prevent the people we meet from coming to Alaska. The pay in Alaska is very good. But what we have is attitudinal barriers against Alaska. First of all you have a very beautiful state. Clearly very beautiful. People have heard of the state of Texas? Yes. If you took two Texases, they still wouldn't be as big as Alaska. A lot of people think of Alaska as being five different states in one. There are five distinct environments. There is the forest, the glaciers, the ocean, volcanic and they are all quite a bit of distance from each other. I'm not going to talk about all of the towns, but most of the communities -- we are going to talk about the communities in Alaska. Who do you think -- what community lives in the north of Alaska. No, not you. Something saying something about the North Pole? No, I'm sorry. The North Pole is way off our map here. Somebody who doesn't know their geography. I'm talking about in the state of Alaska. First community I'm going to talk about is Barrow, Alaska. You could call that the eye, in a sense. It's kind of in the top of the head. It's not really the place for the eye. Nome? . Here we have Kotzabue -- that's the eye. So Barrow and Kotzabue are signed similarly. Somebody keeps telling me -- somebody keeps telling me the nose, the nose. That's the nose, and right there is Nome. Working our way down to the mouth. We don't call it -- we don't call that city "mouth." does anybody know? Bethel is the name of that city. We have Fairbanks, right. Somebody spotted that one. Anchorage, correct. Juneau, everybody knows Juneau, Juneau, Anchorage, and Fairbanks, everybody knows those. Now, that you have got a bit of a picture of Alaska, let's talk about the roads. I come to Oregon, and boy it seems pretty easy to drive from place to place. If I want to go to Burns, I can drive there. Pretty easy to get from place to place in Oregon. In Alaska, though, we have got roads. That's all the roads we have got. To get to any of these other cities you have to fly. Okay. Are we getting a clear picture of Alaska now? Let's talk about what kind of services we have in the state. Deaf services tend to be center in Juneau, Anchorage and Fairbanks. And there are pretty much no services for the Deaf in any of these other cities. That's a giant challenge for us. And you get some services that -- in some of the smaller communities near the borders in the east and the south. Now, I'm a director of a program centered in Anchorage, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Center we provide a variety of services, interpreting services, counseling, and we have the largest center. Ask we have clients who come to us because we are Deaf, and I believe in providing direct service to clients, and that's what's bringing people in our door. Dan's office, called Deaf Community Services, is a smaller agency. -- that was an interpreter error, I am with Deaf Community Services, Dan's with VR: they don't have any Deaf counselors in that program, and the interpreting services are kind of spotty. In Juneau -- Juneau is the state capital, and they have only got one person providing services for the Deaf and hard of hearing in Juneau. No interpreting services at all. They have to bring in interpreters who usually work in the schools. So if you fly into Juneau -- because if I fly into Juneau because I want to testify to the legislature, there are no interpreters there. So access is a major problem. The Alaska School for the Deaf. The student living center which is a group home, part of the school, is in Anchorage. Let's talk about some of the outlying cities, let's talk about what their situation is like. They have no services. There is no office there at all. And to fly someone out there for service costs a tremendous amount of money. For you to fly from Seattle or Portland into Anchorage is cheaper than to fly from barrow to Fairbanks. Far cheaper. So when a Deaf person needs services what can they do if they need an interpreter, if they need some kind of guidance counseling. They are on their own. That's a major problem. We talked a little bit about isolation this morning and about identity, and that is a giant issue. People are very separate and very isolated. How are we going to deal with the issue? Should we put offices in the -- in every city? How can we get people to come to Alaska if there are no services. There are very serious gaps in our service model, and it's a giant issue. About three, four, five years ago we got some grants to do some rural outreach. From Voc Rehab to provide some rehab services. We brought on two people, people recently out of college, recent graduates. Had no idea what they were getting into. I'm looking for people who have experience, who have knowledge, professionals in the field. But when I talk to the people I know they are married. They have their jobs. They have their lives all set up. And it's tough for us to bring them in. The people we tend to get with are the people who are just finishing college who are happy to fly from place to place, and they don't necessarily have the special skills the special credentials the ability to work with Deaf people or Native people. We need Deaf people, that's absolutely an issue. We also need Native people. And when I look for those people I don't find them and I am stuck and I have to work with what I have and bring in who I can. So anyway we got that three-year grant. Hired those two people and put them on airplanes, sent them out to the outlying areas just to get a count of how many Deaf and hard of hearing people are out there. We need to identify these people for statistical reasons. We just need a count. Something we can show the legislature. Just so we can talk in terms of how many people live where? And each of these communities does have Deaf and hard of hearing people, but the numbers vary a lot. You will get one. You will get three. You will get five. There is one village near Bethel, that for some reason has a tremendous number of Deaf people. A tremendous number in Bethel. Way out of proportion with the population. Juneau has very, very few. Barrow, Kotzebue, somewhere in the middle. We looked into why there were so many in the Bethel area. We are talking about Native area. What happens is there a is a lot of intermarriage, marriage of cousins, and so genetic traits get passed down. I know an older person who now lives in Anchorage who talked about all of his cousins and eight of them were Deaf. That's an example of the genetic passing down of the trait. That glorious gene is preserved in their heritage. It's going on in Bethel. We got that money. We put those people on the airports and after a while the money was gone. We wanted to continue the service, and we had promised -- we had commitments that the money would continue. But they told us after three years we'd have to find another funding source to replace the money that they had given us in the original grant, and it was tough to get it. We didn't want to just out and out stop the service. What does that mean when you start providing service? Flying in counselors, interpreters, and start to open up peoples' minds and suddenly pull all of that? You have raised hopes, and then dashed them. We hooked up with another program for mental health -- rural out reach for mental health programs. They have an ongoing source of funding, and we are working with them right now. With that same model. But, again, it's very limited. We used to have two people flying from city to city. We are down now to one staff person. Carry fisher is one of our two staff people who did all that. So if you are curious about the program how it worked, you might want to talk to -- for information to talk

>> talk to Carry Fisher, she has some wonderful experiences with her travels throughout around the state of Alaska. Again we have a major consideration about interpreting issues, interpreters, please recognize that do I seem like I'm signing fast or slow? I have to adapt my presentation to fit the interpreter's understanding of what I'm presenting. In Anchorage, Deaf people in Anchorage they sign of course they are not real fast signers like where I was born in new york. They have a tendency to sign fast. I have Deaf parents cousins total signing environment. It's a slower pace. You go to Fairbanks it's almost slower yet. Almost in slo-mo. You take your time. You gesture. It's a different pace. You have to adapt to the different modalities. Just like when one person was talking about when they went to Kotzebue -- didn't catch anything. So even though they are both Deaf still you have to monitor the pace, and it takes time. You have to take your time. You get down to Bethel, how are you? Signs are very short and very stilted, but you still take your time. The pacing -- you want to be calm. You stand back and you observe. First of all, and foremost, their culture -- you don't make eye to eye contact. The eye gaze kind of shifts from side to side, and I grew up in a very strong Deaf culture, you maintain eye contact always so what are you looking at over here, you are distracted. That's rude. You aren't supposed to do that; you have to understand the needs of the various communities, and it takes time. Sometimes it takes time to converse. I fly into a city and sometimes they need counseling needs -- first of all we might be in a crisis, and I get there, and I stay in the hotel, and airline tickets are awfully expensive. You are there for two or three or four days. You run up quite an expense bill for your food and accommodations. So it makes it really impossible to go to these other communities, and it's very limited in terms of resources and services provided to the community. There are a lot of expectations for the government to provide. I wish. But it just doesn't happen because of the situation we are faced with. These outlying cities or -- here is another story. Me as a Deaf man and Native Deaf person, also educated -- I meet somebody in Bethel, and the person was called upon to go to court. So we showed up in court. Go into court, and they needed an interpreter. You are here in town we want you to work. Hold on, wait. I have never met this person before. Deaf of course, and start to communicate a little bit and there is no ASL. No sign language. It's all gestures, and I'm in court, and there is the judge sitting up there. There is the attorney sitting there, and I'm trying to interpret and trying to mediate and saying hold it time out. We have all the time in the world. And in Bethel time is not a factor. So you take your time. And go to find out that the person didn't understand law. Some of the other neighboring communities they allow drinking. Some communities don't. And Deaf people don't know this about different changes. You know, changes in the law. Was it -- is it a wet town or a dry town or Deaf people are not knowing about this so they go along happily drinking and they get busted and go to jail. So those are some issues that there is a lot of information that is not common place for a lot of folks that live in Alaska. Issues about Deaf culture. There is a lot of conflicts about the cultures. And you notice in 95 percent of all Alaskan Deaf Native Alaskans have already been in jail. 95 percent. Can you imagine that? They have already been jailed at one time or another. Why? Because they didn't understand. The school didn't educate them. They didn't talk about the law. A lot of misinformation or a lot of bad information. What a bad stop. And labeled here and there. No Deaf people in these other areas, they look up to -- there is no role models for Deaf people to look up to a successful adult, men and women who have been married, successful. There isn't any. So with all of this lack of identification -- like you say, the self-identity is completely lost. That's an issue, and I go and serve and I try to explain about these gaps in services. Sometimes I'm successful, and sometimes I'm not, and really I take you support -- advocacy support. I'm sure family support may I provide that. A kid comes down they are very successful they have that family support. They have that back bone support from the family. Other kids are just thrown out. The families can't deal with the child or the individual and so there is a lot of unfairness, and this is another issue that we are constantly confronted with all the time. We also provide services for independent living skills. We get a little bit of grant monies for independent living. The purpose of it many Deaf people come to our office for services, and it's a very simple request. They get a letter from SSI. All these big words in a letter format. What does this mean? Okay. Your rent is going to increase. They still don't understand why am I going to pay more money? We need to interpret basic every day correspondence. Oh, wow. You gesture, a frown on the face. This is what it means, the government is coming down, and a lot of misunderstandings. Again maybe you have noticed this too. You may be aware. Sweepstakes. You get those sweepstakes. Hay you are a winner. Hay I have won a million dollars. I am going to be rich. Okay here we go again. We go behind closed doors, and I explain and they have a temper tantrum, and they say you are making a fool out of me, and I say no calm down I need to explain to you this is -- you are qualified. You have a number that's placed into a drawing and if you are lucky they might draw your number. Suppose if I wasn't there. If it was a hearing person you are talking great you go through an interpreter the Deaf person still doesn't get the information and they fume, and they get angry, and the anger turns to -- this is something I obsess about. Isolated. I do what you tell me to or I depend upon you to give me information. This is something we are faced against all the time. Let me shift my focus. I have been talking about VR, independent living skills, grants. The states get a certain cut of the pie. Now the future trend is looking like we are going to focus on mental health and development disabilities. Because developmental disabilities are long term support. We are going to be ongoing, because a lot of Deaf people need continued ongoing support. They don't understand English. The family support system is not there. It's a constant struggle. So it's going to be a long -- a long hard journey to focus in on independent living skills. Services -- services -- now let's focus. I'd like to maybe tell a story about a famous Deaf Native American Indian, and I talked about this person. They have had some successes, and they have had some life ongoing challenges, not total failures, but we will call these challenges. Everything challenges. Struggling challenges. Remember the guy standing here earlier the employment services. Employment means what, money? If I work I get paid. I get taxes. I do a time card, that type of thing. In these outlying communities there is no such thing as that. There are no jobs like that. What can we come up with that will fit their home environment, their work environment? Fishing. You betcha. The fishing industry. Netting cutting, preserving, hunting. Those type of things do fit the niche of these communities. But interesting this person lives right in the Yukon River. The Yukon River runs like so. It's a big river. One Deaf individual who happens to be an artist, very successful with their work. Went to school I believe in Utah. They had struggles. They went back home to Alaska. Worked in the post office. They worked, always on time. Boss always on their case all the time do this do that. No life. And their life basically growing up they didn't have a life growing up so they decided to go back to that spot on the Yukon River, a very small town, a very small village, and they were working as a fish guide, helping, you know, basically troll the ships or the boats as a fish guide but they didn't earn enough income to support themselves all year long but what they did like to do is draw and paint very artistic. And they thought of like a deer, moose -- they would basically have perhaps like maybe half of the antler or half of the side of the moose. You know -- the culture -- Alaskan culture is that you use everything. You never waste anything from an animal that you kill and what happened was this person used the antler of the moose as a background to paint and they would sell this art. It was really fascinating. Beautiful work. Take my word for it. Just gorgeous, and one time I was up in Fairbanks, and there was about the size of this antler -- really billing, and they sold it for 5,000, and they had this beautiful painting on the antler, and that's the way they make their living through art, through trees, the fungi on the trees. We call it the burl. You break that burl off and you paint on it. For your home, like a desktop piece, and they sell these little mementos and are very successful. Using the creative skills to live on that Yukon River. Anchorage isn't the answer. Fairbanks isn't the answer. So you try to find these little niches that will fit and meld with the peoples' personality and their home and their culture. This was something that was successful for this one individual. Here is another situation. A challenging place called Nenana, and Nenana is located right here close to Fairbanks. It's a small village. It does have a road that goes through and there are people around. And this gentleman was raised -- never went to school, totally Deaf. He has a home. His mother took care of him. Goes throughout the village. Village people accept him. No in depth communication, just superficial communication. The individual is 44 years old. His mother died. The whole village was shocked. What are we going to do with this man? He is 44 years old. No schooling, no education, no language, just walking around, really a nice guy. Big heart, and would show me pictures, and that was pictures of his family, and so we brought him into services in Fairbanks, we taught him independent living skills, taught him -- it was a slow process, but again it was direct one on one services, trying to make a life for this person, and really I think this person grew quite a bit, and this was one area that we had figured that this person would benefit from. Here is another situation. Alcohol -- alcoholic situation. A big issue. Alcohol is a big issue. Quite a struggle. There were two men probably in their 50s, very smart, and went to the Vancouver school for the Deaf. Washington School for the Deaf. Alaska doesn't have a Deaf school so they would always send students to Vancouver, Washington to the Deaf school there, and these two men did attend Washington school for the Deaf. Went back to Alaska. One man went to barrows and the other man lived a little bit north in of Bethel and they signed just fine. They knew many things, and like that one guy back there, the same idea. Has common sense, has conceptual accuracy in dealing with life. And these individuals are fine. What's their problem? They couldn't find a job. 50 years old still trying to find a job. What do you want to do? What about this? I can't help it, you know, I'm accident prone. I drink too much, and I said well, can you say no to drinking? And it's kind of like no, relapses. The individual was having constant relapses and saying I just can't say no, and it was a cultural conflict, a problem. And so they had to share everything, and so you bring in a bottle of whiskey or beer or whatever it is you share. This is part of the cultural norm. You don't dare say no. So you take a drink, take a sip. Pass it on, and it leads to drinking profusely, and all of a sudden you pass out drunk, and I explain you need to get treatment, therapy. I know. I know. And this has been going on for nine years that I have been the director for this one service agency, and you know what you need to do. Grow up you are 50 years old, man. You have a life. You have skills. He is a carpenter. Use those skills. Three months ago -- just three months ago, and again, going back to drinking has gone out and has relapsed quite a few times, and passes out drunk to the point where he died. He froze to death. He froze to death. Drunk and froze to death. That guy could have had a role model -- if he would have had a role model -- could have been a role model to Deaf children someone to look up to. I have videotapes of his stories, very beautiful, fantastic stories, but we lost a very good man. A similar situation happened to another guy who lived in barrow. He came to Vancouver here. He was in the Deaf Olympics at one time. He was a runner. He was an Eskimo who went to the Deaf Olympics. Who ran in the Deaf Olympics. He went to school here in Vancouver and went back to Alaska and had a tough, tough time. He just couldn't fit in there. Things that worked for one person don't work for another, and you can't transfer things that work for one person to someone else. If I have a solution for me, it may not be a solution for you. What you have to do is you have to be creative and look at people and work as a team with other professionals to help these individuals, and that kind of work takes a long time. I talked before about the importance of experience and just diving in. I don't know everything. I read books. I learned a lot in school. I became a professional. That's not what makes you professional. You are not really a professional. You are a human. And humans make mistakes. You need to learn. You need to get experience and learn through experience. I never go into a place and say, "hey, look, well, gee Anchorage has this but you don't have it here or Fairbanks has this and you don't have it here." what you have to do is land in a place and see where you are and what you have there. At one time I was in the peace corps, and when you go to a country and start talking about back home we have got computers, back home we have this. And the people look at you and say, "oh, yeah, show me. And there you are standing there and you have nothing. The idea of the peace corps is you go there and live with the people and you learn from those people. And that's the same thing with Alaska I never go to a place and say what we have in Anchorage. They have a lot of moose antlers. That's a means for one guy to live. You can't bring ankle. You have to start from where you are. I have to talk about a personal experience of mine. This happened in barrow. I have been there 25 years, and you think that I'd have enough experience to know that I need to respect peoples' cultures. But here I go. I show up in barrow. This was three years ago. My wife who is also Deaf was with me. There are about 5,000 people in barrow, a small town. My wife and I were walking along, and there are no trees. You just see homes laid out around you. It's cold there. Very flat. Very white. And this man comes running down the street toward us. And he is talking -- he is obviously not Deaf he is talking and pointing and we are trying to figure out what he is talking about. We can't see anything out of the ordinary what he is pointing at. I can explain to him I'm Deaf I don't know -- and he is doing this sign like this, gesturing like this. And I don't know what he's talking about so I'm trying to figure out what it is, and it comes to me he is talking about a whale. He gets very excited and he runs off. I'm left there trying to figure out what's going on. I am looking around eventually end up at the police station. We go in and get a piece of paper. There is a white guy in the police station and I write a note to him and he makes a face like I don't know what you are talking about and I'm trying to tell him what's going on, and the police officer gets on his CB and he comes back and says yeah, yeah, there is a whale out there. There is a sighting. What you want to do is go out north -- and my wife and I thank him. And they have taxis out there by the way. We hail a cab. I think there are a total of two or three taxis. So we are out there waving like idiots, and this Filipino guy comes over. And -- can you imagine -- we jump in the back of the cab gesturing this way and he thinks we are totally weird: and he drives us off where we want to go, and what we see is a group of -- a bunch of people -- eventually we look at what's going on, and there is a beached whale. And they have a crane dragging this whale. As you know, hunting is a tradition, something passed on from generation to generation. So we are watching this whole thing. We are just visitors, and we are standing there looking at what's going on. Obviously tourists. And the chief or the leader whoever he happens to be comes by and pushing people out of the way and he pushes me and he goes come on help. And he gestures "pull, pull," and they open up the whale's stomach and start butchering him, and this is not something you can sit there and watch. That's just not done. Everybody works, and you are in there, and blood is spurting everywhere, and they are butchering this whale. And it takes a long time. And I get tired and I stand back to relax and they go no, this is not a 9 to 5 job. You work until you are done. So we started I don't know sometime in the late afternoon, went all through the night, and eventually they did let the tourists go but they worked through the night until they were done. This took two days. So eventually we are ready to leave, my wife and I, and we are walking again down the street, and we spot one house. It's got this giant long line of people standing outside. Again, we are wondering what's going on. Some kind of party, gathering? And we walk up to this house with this giant long line of people down the street, and they have these packages -- or piles of whale meat. They are all set up and you come by and pick up your pile of whale meat, and they are giving it out to people in line. And if somebody else had a whole bunch of whale meat then everybody would go to that person's house. They all work together to survive and share what they have. Okay. Coming to the close here. You have got a little picture of what Alaska is like. Now I'd like a real person to come up here and talk to you about it.

This is a Deaf Alaska Native. His name is Eugene Edwin. Eugene? (applause) this is Edwin and this is Eugene's name sign. Eugene Edwin. He was born and raised -- he will talk a little bit about his background. I wanted to show you -- I can stand up here and talk -- I'm a white man. That's not really fair I don't speak for any of the Alaskans. Eugene can speak for himself. You can ask him about his experiences, life, the time, the weather. He is the right man to know because he is the right man to ask, because I'm a service provider and I have that experience. Now I want to take you on this journey and I want you to fly into this -- you know with the bald eagle -- I want you to fly into my experience here, and Eugene will talk about his experiences and growing up in Alaska. Right now, I'm going to kind of lead Eugene into his story telling so it sort of follows a certain presentation here. He has on his traditional regalia, authentic. If you have any questions, we are very flexible here. Does anybody have any questions right now? Do you want to wait? Okay. I will turn the floor over to Eugene. This is going to be very exciting.

>> hello everyone. Thank you Alan for your introduction. My name is Eugene Edwin. I'm from Alaska, and this name tag doesn't really go with what I'm wearing, so I took it off. I am more of a natural man here. Now, I'm from Fairbanks, but that's not where I was born. I was born in the village of Denyma, about like this. The language is Chueho. Which means the two big rivers where they come to a point, and that's the river -- the Yukon River and the Tanana River -- that's where I was born where they merge. Kusyukon is my tribe. I moved to the city of Fairbanks in Alaska which is where I live to this day. Now, my education -- if we could change the slide -- -- talking about my experiences and background. I was born in my home village, and actually born with the ability to hear. And at about four or five years old I became Deaf and it was caused by an ear infection, as well as having my tonsils out, and I was taken to the hospital with a fever. There was a white man that came down from Juneau, a legislator, and he saw there was a Deaf kid playing, part of his family, and the legislator said oh he is Deaf, and he is trying to talk to me, and my mom said go and play, and I can figure out what was said, and the legislator is commiserating with my mom, and I don't know what's going on in my house, so a little while later I come out and they place me in school. And I was excited because I thought I was going to go to the village school like the other kids, and they took me far away to Vancouver, Washington to the school for the Deaf. Which is where I grew up, right there. I spent the first five years of my life there, speaking the /ab a bass can language, and I come down to the lower 48, and they try to teach me English and I end up signing ASL, English, whatever. As far as my work, my job, I started when I was 14 years old at the Tanana hospital. I worked there quite a while at school. My family -- I have five brothers -- let's see. Six sisters. So what is that, 12, 13 of us -- but we were all scattered, and there is a number or two that are gone. There are about three of us that stayed together. And let me tell you about my drug use and times I spent in jail. Alan was talking about some of these issues, the alcoholism and abuse, and I've been there. That was a big part of my life. I lived on the streets. You can imagine it's not like the streets that you see around here. But -- and I was one of the few Deaf people that was out there. They would throw me in jail because I was drinking or might have been a problem. The police would call emergency interpreters. I don't think so. A lawyer would sit down and write notes for me and say, "are you guilty? Well, yeah, I wasn't really guilty but I said I was because I didn't know how to answer. I just said yes to whatever they said. It was quite a problem. Okay. Some comparisons here. With Native and Deaf cultures. The Native people the culture is very close-knit. Native people can be close too. White people have their own cliques. So do Native people and Deaf people. But some of us kind of fall through the cracks. I really don't -- I can't speak for hard of hearing people. I am a Deaf man. What would I say about hard of hearing people? You don't have to say anything about them. Talk about Deaf and hearing. Oppression. Native people and Deaf people experience the same kinds of oppression. If they are Deaf, whether they are white or Native, they experience that oppression. A lot of times I have been through that myself. Anglos who come up to me -- or I will come up to them and want to be a part of the group and they shove me aside. Excuse me we have to go. I don't have anybody to communicate with like that. White people would say okay. We get together and Deaf people get together. Native people get together. But Native people might go to an individual, man to man, work things out when the person is Deaf rather than in the groups. Okay. Talking about sharing. Native people share a lot -- our food is shared. If you have a problem with clothing it's not a problem because we share with one another. Anglo people or Deaf people -- what can I say about sharing? They share their jokes, they share information, their stories. What else? Now, Native people -- they share the same feelings. They have the same common attitudes. They are all part of a group, part of the circle, and they get together for the Dances. They all share that. Deaf people share ideas -- let's see, what was I going to say? Let me think. Oh, yeah. What they'll do is they get together, they play. They get involved with one another, kind of -- in sports or something like that, go hunting, fishing together. So we will gut the fish and clean them. So we have Native families and Deaf families. And a Native family -- what's really cool about them is they will have their own Native language that they share. But if I'm Native and I'm Deaf I don't have a common language that I can share that with those people. So where is my whole family? I have to write notes with my family, and it's really not enough to get clear information about what's going on to share the pain of someone's death, someone has an accident or something -- they don't bother to tell me. They forget, and I don't hear about it. Now, we have got Deaf storytellers. I mean, they are good at it. They are funny, they are humorous. And there is a lot of sports stories involved in the Deaf community. Native people will pass on the stories that have been passed on for generations through all history, which I have never learned from my own Native people. I guess I started learning when I was 18, 19 years old. My grandfather would try to teach me. He would say, "hey, you look at those trees over there, you look at the river. You see how things grow like that, the grass and so forth. So I would sit there, and I would look. I was over there talking to myself. There was nobody out there to talk to me. He tells me to keep watching. Stop being distracted and day dreaming you just watch and be silent. And I would sit there and contemplate, and messages would come to me. Today I'm very grateful to my grandfather for sharing that with me. He is very dear to me as is the rest of my family. So that's how some of the stories were shared with me. With Deaf people -- some of the stories can be kind of off the wall, you know. They kind of bring some of their own personality into it. It all comes in, and they might not all be true. Some tall tales out there. They take a lot of things from TV and movies and make stories out of them. That's not part of the Native tradition. They brought their traditions from way back, and in some of those Natives went back and forth across the Siberian land bridge. People from England or Spain ended up down in Florida, South America, but they were -- there were migrations both ways. Native people, Indian people had a lot of bitter experiences with their losses, not just the loss of their land, but the loss of their stories. Comparing Deaf and Native people -- Deaf people congregate together. They have a lot of -- they might get together for different events, Dances, and they will share food with one another and their stories with one another. That was Native people. Now, Deaf people -- it's not all one nation. I mean, they are black, they are white, the Asian American, Japanese, Filipino. It's a mixed community. They have fun. They have boating. They go fishing together. They all interact with one another. Native people kind of hang out with their own people, their own community. Now, me? I'm Deaf. But I still hang out with my Native people. Now, when Native people marry one another -- you know, we have Deaf people marrying hearing people or Native people marrying non-Natives, it ends up being a lot of abuse and a lot of exploitation, too. But if you have something in common that you can share, you can both communicate with each other, it's the same thing, Deaf people like to marry Deaf people, and Native prefer to marry Natives. Native languages -- I don't speak Native languages any more, but I'm still trying to learn Native languages in written form to share with you hearing people. ASL, American Sign Language, Deaf people have a wealth of information that they can share, and I can talk with you no matter what ethnicity you have. It doesn't matter. And I can learn from your experiences, as well. Deaf people who will talk about acceptance -- you know, they will go be with each other for supporting events or gatherings, be accepted with one another. I think we talked more about respect of Native culture. Respect. If somebody makes an offering. They might go back, consider it, talk about it, and then go back and accept that offering then. I notice white people sit there, and they start talking about stuff, and something tells me that they are just not right. They are kind of off track. So I might say, "excuse me. Do you mind if I try to clarify something here?" so you have to have kind of flexible guidelines with the way we work with one another. Excuse me. Let's get going here. Services. What I would really like to see is for American Indians and Alaska Natives is to be able to work together with the Deaf culture and have interpreters that share all of those things. Today Alan was talking about the jails. What happens with the communication barriers there. You have got these -- the white people come in, and they are able to communicate with one another. And they look down on me as kind of low -- on a low level, and they are way up here. But if they brought in a Native interpreter, they could probably understand each other on a more equal basis. Let me tell you. I have been in jail a lot of times. Back when I was drinking, back when I was fighting. Here I would be jailed, and I'd wake up and look around and try to get the police officer to bring me an interpreter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he'd say, and he'd go off and I'd wait and wait and wait, and I have to go to court. And I show up at the courthouse, and they have the jail cells in the courthouse, you know, and I'm going where is my interpreter? Where is my interpreter? I'm going to have to write notes here. They are going to write me a note in court, and I don't understand what the note says. Here is the officer using all these big words, and I try to make do, and so I nod my head, yeah, yeah. I just feel like it's not going to go right, and it's a lot of times -- I'd say maybe 25, 27 times I have been in jail without an interpreter every time. This year it's something I have really been thinking about is getting Alaska Native women, men, whatever as interpreters and recruiting them so they can be there for Native Deaf people who need their services. Because they are able to share the communication because of the same cultural background. Now, white Deaf people, when they go to jail they don't hesitate calling emergency services and getting an interpreter in there. I look -- that's not fair. How come the white people get interpreters and I don't. Native people get aggravated about that, getting pushed aside. White people say we go first. We are way behind, and we have some catching up to do to be fair. We need justice. Now, I'm not a counselor, but I've learned some stuff from Alaskan Deaf services. I have been able to pick things up. And I go to state agencies, and I learn from them, experiences that are shared. People express themselves what the priorities are. Politicians, educators, how do we teach people independent living skills? I have been learning this stuff. And I'm still working with Dan La Brosse with Vocational Rehabilitation, and there is another person with DVR. What's his name sign? Duane Mays. Who else is there? Let's see there is the Alaskan Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services, Alan Cartwright, this man right here. So I appreciate being able to learn from all of your experiences, and that way I can communicate that with others that are Deaf and Native American out there, and I can share and pass that on. Any questions?

>> Could you explain a little bit about your regalia.

>> I'm on the Intertribal Deaf Council or IDC, and I'm currently the vice president of Intertribal Deaf Council, and last year something that really took me by surprise is we have our traditional chiefs. I mean, those are the chiefs -- and I'm kind of like a child. I have been like a child to them. But now I've been made a traditional chief which you can see by my chief's necklace, and what I'm wearing here on my side is a commitment I have to always be honest, to never lie, to always tell the truth, and this vest is traditional, as well. This is a traditional chief's necklace. This is from doy unlimited. Their logo. Our tribe is incorporated as doy unlimited. So we are shareholders in that corporation instead of a reservation system, and they provide services to those that live in the outlying villages, including the Deaf. I'm able to go out there and work with them, and I did some recruiting for them all to work with Intertribal Deaf Council, and to honor each of their respective cultures. Something that I really value is our language. American Sign Language. We value our homes, our families, and all these things are a very dear part to us, and so we want to share with one another and I'm able to share with you and what you share with me I can learn from your own experiences, as well. Other questions?

>> (audience member:) I have two questions. You have three cultures and three languages, there is the Indian culture, the Deaf culture with ASL, and the hearing white, essentially English. How are you able to meld all those three cultures? And who makes decisions like the way you are dressed today. That's my first question. And as a second question, you said at one time you drank a lot. How were you able to stop and what changed you?

>> The way I was able to stop drinking -- well, I'll share my story with you. Up until about 1993 when I was -- when I woke up in the hospital after a long drunk, and I was still alive and I was supposed to be dead. My father's hands was on my chest, and it was cold, but I thought it was a nurse trying to wake me up. I felt it was very cold, and I got up and I looked around, and he wasn't there. But my father, he woke me up. And a year later it happened again just as it had done the year before, and I got the message. It was time for me to stop drinking also something I've left at home is a medallion from doy unlimited. It comes on my keychain, and this was given to me by my younger sister, and I've held onto it. I don't have it with me today, but I've kept it all these years, and it's been something to keep me sober from '94, '94 -- I mean, from the year '94 on I stayed sober. I have remained sober and when I heard about the Intertribal Deaf Council conference in Oklahoma City I tried to go, but I wasn't able to, and the reason is is because financially I couldn't handle it, and I wasn't able to have the time to get together with doy to sponsor me with that, because it was only about a week before the conference, and they needed at least a month to collaborate on that. So the following year they had a conference at Albuquerque, New Mexico and I went to the conference there, and there was a spiritual advisor there and I learned from him. I was able to benefit from his experiences, and I went home, and I started offering my own prayers in the Native way. And then doyen made an offer to me if I would present -- and let me tell you something -- never in my life have I spoken to an audience in the school for the Deaf or any wherever in my life. And doyen says, look, we want you to do this, and I got up in front of everybody and said, "i was drunk and alcoholic and an abuser, but now I'm able to go through recovery, and I'm very thankful to my father's spirit who came to me. I want to express my appreciation also to my parents. I would love to have been able to see my family, my parents see me while they were still here get back on the road and be balanced again. But I know their spirits are still there, and I can share that with them.

>> you have answered her second question about the drinking. But about her second question, are you first an Indian, first a Deaf person? How do you identify yourself among the three cultures?

>> well, I am first of all Deaf and secondly a Native at first. But now I have changed that around and consider myself Native first. That's what's in my heart. That's what I'm with. Now, white people ask me -- and I'm willing to change that around to work with the services -- with Deaf services, because what I'm able to get from that, I'm able to share with others so that they can deal with employment or education issues, counseling, things like that. Any more questions?

>> (audience member:) Wow, what a moving story. What would you -- the Indian peoples want from us as white people? White people that want to learn from us? Is that what you are saying? In general? I was placed in a residential school for the Deaf, and it was all white people, and I became white. I was assimilated. When I went back to my people, to my village, my family, my culture and relearned about my culture, now I'm able to go back, and we can share what we have with one another -- our respective cultures. Your feelings, my feelings, and what we have inside. If we can meet together or not meet together -- if we can agree or disagree -- -- it would really depend upon your disposition and mine (laughter)

>> If I can add, we -- Eugene and I work together, as you can see. When we find a family that has a Deaf child, there is always that choice of sending the child away to school or keeping the child with family. That's a giant issue even until today, and as Eugene talked about, when you send that child away to school, they learn to be white, and then when they come home into their Native environment, some are able to undo that. Some stay home amid that family support system and never in a sense become Deaf or learn to be Deaf, and that can work, too. There are choices, what I believe in is our options and letting people have options and make our own decisions. Decisions were made for Eugene at one time, and that's the way it was, and there are more options today.

>> What he's talking about -- there are a lot of parents that try to hang onto the children instead of sending them away. I met one Deaf man -- I guess I was about 16 years old in my home village of Tanana, and I'm going along, and I see a bunch of people here, Deaf people signing, using body language, and I think okay, great, and I go up and I start talking to them, and I go hey, are you Deaf?" and they kind of mimic my signs, yes, are you Deaf, and they sign it back this way. I'm Deaf and I don't talk. I say do you sign? And I get kind of a negative response. I find out that their parents would keep them so that when the legislators come by to try to find all the Deaf children in the out reach program because they want to take them away to a residential school they didn't want to lose their sons and daughters so they would hide them away and send away the legislators. As they grew older and what they were able to learn from -- oh, they learned. They had a good life, and they worked with their parents. They were productive members. They chopped wood. They had physical labor. But they weren't able to read and write, and the communication was more limited. It would between us -- and it seemed like they used a lot of body language. You could understand when they are talking about hunting or cutting or sawing wood or carrying things or the birds, duck hunting. There are different signs that would be used like this, and they were able to communicate. There was a lot of body language. So it was quite different than what I grew up with. The Native Deaf who didn't have communication accessibility and those who did. The whole world of difference between the two.

>> And I have to say there is no right answer. There are many factors you have to consider. Is the family supportive? Can the kids succeed in the village? If not, can the school provide them the tools that they need, the reading, writing, sign language. Maybe once they have acquired those tools they can go back to the village if that's an important connection for them. Maybe they do need to go to the school in Vancouver. Sometimes when they come back after that experience, though, the family won't accept them. I think Mark is going to talk a little bit more about that. They may be white inside, in a shell of a Native people. The school talks about words. Words -- puts words and brainwashes them in a sense.

>> I agree with what Alan is saying. With my life, I'm very thankful to my teachers because I learned from them, and I'm able to go back and forth between the two worlds, white and Native, and whether they be white or not, I'm able to go back and forth.

>> (audience member:) Are there any Native interpreters, children who have Deaf parents?

>> no

>> (audience member:) So all your interpreters are white, then?

>> That's true. That's why we are trying to recruit Alaska Native and American Indian interpreters, as well. We are trying to provide support services for those Deaf people who are facing those difficulties in the jails or with alcohol or drug substance-abuse problems and the like.

>> I have a question. Do you sometimes feel uncomfortable when you have a white female interpreter? Is that kind of the situation for you? We are trying to be honest here. A white female interpreter?

>> Well, I have learned to deal with white counselors. It's about five years now. I have been learning from them. And others like him over here -- not just those two. There are quite a number of them. It's been a frustrating experience for me. They like to use all those big words they throw at me, and I'm trying to say, "well, if they are going to use big words, how can I talk back on the same level with them except what I say to try to use the big words to accept what they say so I try to look back on the level with them to try to be peers and try to get people to be more flexible in the way they talk.

>> Next question. In the back.

>> (audience member:) You talked about Alaska having no interpreter who are Alaskans, Natives, there are none at all? That's interesting. That's my first comment. And my second one is are there any Deaf Indians who have degrees who are working with VR, advising VR?

>> No to both questions.

>> (audience member:) 20 years ago we identified the same problem in the lower 48. There were no Deaf professionals, none whatsoever. No interpreters who reflected different races, and our goal at that point was to find bright Deaf people we could send to Gallaudet University to could become representatives of the Deaf culture. People would could get into a good education. So there are none. You are so far behind the times.

>> Yes. He is right. I agree with what -- is it John? -- John Evans was just saying. It's not an easy experience for us -- for any of us here, and so you are not alone. We are all in that same boat.

>> okay. The one in the back?

>> (audience member:) As a white male who provides counseling services for Deaf clients as well as Native American clients, addressing the physical or the spiritual or the cultural issues -- which would you prefer and which has served you best as a recovering Native man?

>> American Indians have a path that they walk. We try to do it as a Native man. I was young when I saw my grandparents when they taught me to be able to see things on a spiritual basis, how to stop certain things and how to show respect. The way I was able to go straight was in a spiritual way. I went to treatment, but treatment didn't help me any. I mean, after the third time I went, and they weren't able to put -- to rehabilitate me. So I focused on what was inside me within my own heart. You have got to look inward. You have to look inward. It's my suggestion to do that rather than go through all these treatment programs. Deal with yourself as a person, and when you work with someone, work with them person to person.

>> (audience member:)

>> are you going to sign? Okay. Sorry Paul. I'll interpret that.

>> (audience member:) you said there were no Indian interpreters in Alaska; is that right?

>> yes

>> (audience member:) how can we encourage Indian people to become interpreters? What can we do?

>> it depends on Alaska people -- Alaskan people. What do they want?

>> well, what we are saying is you can't force people to be an interpreter. They have to want to be. Am I right Eugene? Is that your point?

>> uh-huh.

>> any other questions?

>> (audience member:) the question before about the female counselors and how that conflicts with Indian culture and how it's difficult for you to work with white females

>> men, too. (laughter)

>> (audience member:) now, as a woman, I'm curious, why is that?

>> Indian men -- they enjoy looking at white women (laughter) I mean, so sometimes you have got to work with those issues, and it depends upon which way you go.

>> let me talk about this a little bit. You talked about sharing food and sharing Dance. Now, when we say you share a Dance, does that mean you Danced, a couple -- male and female Dancing together? When you say you feel uncomfortable working with a woman -- that's not what you say but when you say you feel uncomfortable you don't mean in an oppressive, looking down. Can you tell us about Indian culture and about how men are when they hunt and fish. It would be best for you to answer that.

>> that's right. In my culture we have male-to-male things. We get together and go hunting. Our interactions male and female -- it's kind of hard for me to express what that's like. But men do things together and women do things together. Can you help me with this Alan

>> let me ask you a question. Do you feel you can open yourself and speak honestly to a woman about your feelings, your frustrations, the problems you are having? Would you bare your soul to a woman in the same way as you would to a man counselor? That's why she is asking that. Why do you feel that way about unburdening yourself to a woman? Am I interpreting that correctly?

>> are you talking about as a counselor? Treatment?

>> (audience member:) the answer is I am a counselor, I'm a woman, yes. I grew up in New Mexico with Indian people, Hispanic people, white people, and I understand there is some kind of cultural reason that you might not -- you can't feel comfortable with everything -- maybe there are rules in your culture that limit how open you can with be a woman because she is a woman

>> sometimes I will open up and sometimes I will close up, and the reason is because these things are private, they are personal. And I keep that private and personal. There are things I can't tell you. I mean you are a woman. You are white. We can't share those things. You are right.

>> when we had that list about respect and acceptance, I think the white culture is willing just to accept that. Let's move on. Whereas in Indian culture there is that issue of respect and needing to look at that person -- even just your regalia -- the belt you wear that represents respect. You need to earn respect before an open and frank discussion can happen whereas a white person can say you are here I'm here let's go. Indian people are very different. They are going to sit back and look at what's going on and take their time. As you can see in the signing style Eugene uses -- I'm a little wild when I get up and sign. Eugene is much more deliberate. And he is from Fairbanks. But if we were up here from a small village talking it's even a bigger difference. We have time for one last question. Nothing more? Thanks very much. Thanks to you, Eugene. (applause)

>> I do have another announcement I'd like to make. The Intertribal Deaf Council -- we have raffle tickets that I am selling, and you can buy them six tickets for $5 or a dollar a piece. So after the meeting come up to me, and I'll be glad to sell some raffle tickets to you. Okay. The prizes are a laptop computer, a wooden flute, a medicine bag like -- yes, like that, a Navajo rug -- Navajo woven rug. We have what's called a ribbon shirt. And a wood carving. Plus many other prizes.

>> where is this drawing going to be? In Albuquerque, New Mexico. This June 29th will be the last day you can buy one.

>> okay. According to the --

>> you don't have to be present to win. They will be mailed to you. She was talking about the pow wow in Albuquerque. I really recommend you go there. Last year in Fairbanks the Intertribal Deaf Council put on big doings there and Eugene was the one that coordinated all of that it was very effective. They had a sweat lodge ceremony. They had a sacred fire going day and night. What was it four days it went? I couldn't believe it they kept working in shifts and taking care of the fire and kept it burning and kept the spirit alive. That's part of their value system. Where do we have anything like that. Our value system is keeping the tv remote system going, clicking channels. (laughter)

>> all right. I apologize for my burst of white hearing culture. I think according to the schedule it's time for a break. So we will go ahead and break until 3:45 until we come back here for more presentations.
 (break)

>> hello, welcome back. I'd like to introduce the next speaker. It will be Mark Azure who comes from Oregon, and he is going to talk a little bit about his background and his involvement with the Intertribal Deaf Council. And if you see one of these brochures, it's announcing the next conference coming up this summer in Santa Ana, New Mexico, and I have seen pictures of this resort. It's a beautiful place. I will be working to get there. So I will introduce Mark Azure.

>> hello everybody. Hi. Excuse me, do I need the microphone? No, thank you. My voice isn't just quite what it should be today. (laughter) hi everybody. Here is my name and my tribal affiliations. Now, you can see that there are two different tribes listed here. My mother was a Tsimphain, and my father was Hunkpapa, which is a band of Sioux or Lakota. Tsimphain -- I don't know what the sign is. I need to see it with my own eyes before I take your word for it. So I want to go ahead ask introduce myself and talk about my background just briefly. I was born able to hear until I was three years old. I had German measles. I lived on the rosebud reservation. Some of you may have been familiar with that from the movie "Dances with wolves" that's pine ridge Indian reservations. Mine was right next to it in South Dakota. That's where I grew up and my parents worked there in a town called mission Saint Francis. It's a very small town where the bureau of Indian affairs, the BIA, office was located. It's the federal government's Indian program. People often compare our state's services -- we have DVR here, and b I a is kind of a similar concept. Okay. I want to set a few things up and just a few things for this workplace so everything works outs well. Ideally we should have everyone sit in a circle which is kind of the Native way. The circle is the symbol of the earth and the sun and the moon and all those things work in a circle and things -- each traverses in a cycle that never ends, so I will talk about that and use my power point presentation to talk about that. The reason I'm talking about harmony is because I have learned there are three worlds. The Native world, the Deaf world, and the hearing world. So I live in all of those worlds, and I like to keep them all in harmony. So I have quite a few examples of each of the different worlds, and there is representatives from each of the different worlds here, as well. As Eugene was talking about this afternoon he was talking about doyen corporation. Doyon corporation in Fairbanks. And how they asked him to give a presentation, and talk about his alcohol and addiction issues. That was really -- that really hit him very hard, and from that there was a lot of opportunities to work between the Eskimos, the Natives, the various agencies and so forth that are involved. Now, what I'm doing nowadays is I work for the state of Oregon, and I -- my position title -- I'm an agency trainer working with the state of Oregon regarding Deaf and hard of hearing issues and their needs for access, assistive listening devices and all those sorts of things. I travel around training about that, interpreter services, work with interpreters developing their skills. Work with Deaf and hard of hearing consumers about how to make use of interpreters and that kind of thing. That's basically what I do. That's my one world. In my Native world you may wonder what I do. I try to take all the information I have from my professional life and inform the Native community -- and I don't approach it in the same exact way but I give out bits and pieces of information as I deem necessary to try to keep a balance, try to maintain harmony.

 that's my primary goal. This is a medicine wheel. We were just talking about how it's divided into quarters and you feel each part of the circle is equally balanced. This medicine wheel is very traditional. And in modern times we have seen it change slightly. The application has been changed, but it works well traditionally as well as in modern times. It's a very flexible concept. I remember when I was a young boy growing up on the rosebud reservation, we always had to see the sun rise to the east. Our doors always faced east, and the sun always sets in the west, and so that's something that I really internalized, and I remember one particular celebration where a lot of people were sitting in a circle and the door to going out side was to the east -- facing eastward was very important, and I came in, and I looked around, and I noticed one way that I communicate with my family was by observation. I had to kind of observe and analyze what was going on and pick up clues about what was happening. It was interesting. I have to tell you, I didn't really understand exactly what was going on all the time, but I had a pretty good idea. I think over time more and more Deaf people will be exposed to the concept of the medicine wheel and what that looks like and what that all means. And these ideas develop from their family members and communication. I continued to go, and I didn't always understand what was going on, and I learned more and more each time I went, and bit by bit my understanding would grow. And, again, the key concept is harmony. No need to rush about and do things, just approach things harmoniously. I really started my own study of the medicine wheel last year, and that is just a very basic picture of what it looks like. You notice the colors are also very important. We have black, red, yellow, and white, and the four different directions, north, south, east, and west. You see we have white, black, red, yellow, which are also represented in the medicine wheel, and here we have blue, green, and purple. This is from Aleut -- they made these tobacco ties, and they gave these to the members of the board for the I D.C. for representing their various Native communities. The blue represents the father, the sky father. The green represents the mother, mother earth, and the purple represents the people -- the center where I stand. So I brought this here to be with me during my presentation to represent all Deaf Native people now and in the past. This was given to me by a medicine woman, Mary Atu from New Mexico, and I think she made 11 or 12 of them for the board members of the IDC, and they all took them back to their homes. There is tobacco in each of the little bags, and they have all been blessed. They have all been smudged with sage, and they have been blessed in this way, and then they were given to each member of the board, and I have learned about how all these things work. I'm really very enthusiastic about learning Indian culture and applying it to my work in the Deaf community. It's funny working with the Deaf community, I always felt kind of a disconnect from parts of the Deaf community, and now with my learning more about my own cultural and traditions, it's really helped me balance out internally and helped me improve my work with the Deaf community. This is a traditional healing. We have meditation, which is balancing of the mind, prayer. You will notice the sign for prayer here is not the traditional kind of white European way of signing prayer or approaching prayer it's more of an open-handed Native sign. Counseling. Having fellowship and support for each other within the Native community, sharing resources. And then herbs. For improving a person's feeling of health and improving their feeling of over all wellness. Here in the green sack, representing the mother earth, the mother earth grows herbs for our mental health and energy and the blue is from the sky father, rain -- provides us with rain and feeds the plants on mother earth, and the purple is for the heart and the spirit. I know that many of you have dreams. You wonder if they are -- if they actually have meaning. Is there some reason for your having a particular dream? Sometimes things will happen and you will have certain experiences of the day, and then you will have a variety of dreams in the night, and you may be being sent a message or some function of brain chemistry and perhaps you remember it enough when you wake up to write it down, so that's what dream interpreting is about. Values. Values are something that are affirmations for you that give you value from life experience. So you can see the circle operates in this direction. It's not -- you can't skip around. It flows in an even circle. The feelings -- the reaction to your feelings when the emotions arise, and then implementing action. So, as you can see, it continues in a steady cycle. Again, you see we have four parts. We have mental, spiritual, emotional and physical. Again, we have other kind of English words that we are matching with the medicine wheel, mind, soul, heart, and body. We have Native culture. Deaf culture. A sense of community, meaning the Deaf community, the Native community, and their interaction and what services are provided, what kind of functions go on, meetings, those -- I'm including all those things in my definition of community. Here we have service, meaning activities that are done. It can be from either a Native community or the caucasian community or any combination as long as they all work in harmony together. And then there is the center, the self, making sure that all is balanced. Let me give you an example. When I was going to the school for the Deaf, we never talked about Native education in a positive way. And as I became immersed in white Deaf culture -- and I really lost my Indian culture, I felt really out of whack and really unbalanced. And then I came back to Native culture in '95. I really -- I think I left the culture in '63. I was born in '57 and then I ended up back. I left -- as I said, I left in '63, and I entered the -- here in the community section here -- kind of on the community in service side. As I said I went back to Indian culture in '95, and this is me, here, the center self and trying to achieve balance in all these areas. Nowadays diversity is more and more encouraged. Rights for women have been advanced. The women are no longer forbidden from working when they were pregnant as they were in the old days. So women are still allowed to -- are given the opportunity to balance their lives, and that has changed a lot from traditional values. I met one Native fellow, and he said, "I'm not Native I'm white," he was half Indian but he was sort of in denial. He said no, no, I'm white. And his center self was really out of balance, obviously. I think it was really here hanging on the outside -- the center self I think of it kind of a diamond shape, referring here to the purple bag that's on our string here. I met a Deaf person. He had grown up in a hearing family, and I said, "well, you know, you are Deaf. He said no I'm not Deaf, I'm just hard of hearing." well, look, you are here at the school for the Deaf and you still call yourself hard of hearing? So it's kind of a parallel with the person who is Native but denies their Nativeness and says that they are caucasian, and they are on the reservation. Can you imagine that? So I think there are a lot of parallels where peoples' centers get out of balance and now and more diversity is being recognized and respected so there is a better opportunity to achieve balance. Let me just go back to this for just a minute. I went up to Anchorage, Alaska last summer. I went to visit my niece who is a doctor, and she works for a Native Alaskan hospital in Anchorage that is their sole work. I went into the office, and into the entire facility and I noticed a lot of differences. For one thing, in the waiting room everything was arranged in a circle so people could sit in a circle and wait. I thought that was fascinating. When you go to your standard everyday American waiting room no one is sitting in a circle it's all squared off in rows you have a nice square room and I was really struck by that. And the ceiling tiles are awfully low. But in this particular waiting room in the hospital in Alaska, the ceiling was vaulted and kind of in a cone shape with a sky light at the top, and also there was five different floors. My niece told me to go ahead and take a look around the hospital. I said, "why should I do that?" she said go see it with your own eyes. So I did. I took the elevator up to the fifth floor, and I got up and I looked around, and there were some Eskimo regalia on display there. Eskimos basically live here in the northern half of Alaska. So the fifth floor contained artifacts from Eskimos. Their clothing, their tools and so forth all displayed in cases. Their artwork, their carving. That was in the waiting room on the fifth floor and of course it was still arranged in a circle. I had a chance to look at that. It was absolutely fascinating. So I took the stairs down and there is windows in the stairwell. They also had displays of different kinds of artwork, and then I got to the fourth floor, and I looked around, and then there was different tribes' art work and clothing and so forth represented on that floor, and then I got to the third floor -- it was the fifth floor -- yeah, the third floor -- that's where things on my tribe -- actually my tribe was on the first floor, so I knew it would take me a while to get down there so I took a look at the art on the fifth floor so I finally got to the first floor where my art work was, and it's kind of funny how the hospital was -- it has the state divided up into five different regions, and the island people were also -- especially that was on the first floor. And by looking at the artwork I really sensed the value of harmony -- traditionally institutions such as hospitals are built in kind of a boxy european way, and more and more you will see -- you will notice Deaf centers of course have to be appropriately lit for Deaf people and the right kind of lighting and the right kind of design and the importance of architecture to suit different groups is very, very important. Wheelchair accessible, ramps all kinds of accommodations are being designed to suit the needs of people who use wheelchairs. Deaf people have buildings that are Deaf friendly. Rooms are larger so that when a popular speaker or meeting occurs -- that kind of thing. So I was really happy to see a parallel like that in Native culture. And something I had never seen before. It really took me back there. And it was interesting to see an example of a building that really suited Native culture.
 now, my niece told me that the patients when they come it see the doctor -- what they do is they must meet in a room with a round table. There is no -- no one can sit behind a desk or anything. This shows again the example of the medicine wheel. And I know that Deaf people -- the first thing they like to do is find a round table and if they can't find a round table then maybe a rectangle table will have and that's something similar shared by the Native culture. Here is my representation of the Deaf community. The family, meaning your birth parents whether they be hearing or Deaf. Deaf culture. This is really got nothing to do with Native Deaf community. I'm talking about the general Deaf community here. I am an agency program trainer, and what I try to do is to educate people, state employees, to learn about what's over here and what's over there. I think that people should be able to -- should not be so specialized. They should know a little bit about this and a little bit about that. They should know something about what Deaf peoples' potential is, what their parents might have been like. State workers need to have a lot of collateral knowledge around their central function in order to be able to work things -- to be able to work together with the professionals and the Deaf community and the Deaf consumers, not just the medical model. So I want to provide enough background so that when a Deaf consumer meets a state service provider that they are, in fact, able to work well together. One thing I notice is that Deaf people are very good at picking up on the vibes of a hearing person they are working with. And they can really get the body language from someone, and if they get -- receive good vibes from someone, they feel that perhaps this person is able to work well with Deaf consumers. It's similar with Native people. If they get a good vibe from -- if there is some kind of white person who comes in there and is over enthusiastic and they don't seem to have any kind of center and they are not really interested in learning, and they don't seem to be deserving of much respect, there is a barrier there. But if there is good vibes there, then the person is welcomed in to this circle of harmony, and it gives you a basic idea. If they are willing to come over and learn about that. We have all been oppressed for years and years, and it's left an indelible Mark, and so because of that people are much more cautious and more sensitive. And it takes a while to break through. For example, this morning Eugene was talking about feeling uncomfortable about opening up to perhaps a woman counselor, and that is his reading of the vibes there. So a lot has to be done to establish respect before things can really proceed. And then we hear that the center self again -- my parents and my brothers and sisters are all here, and they are not signers. When we get together it's kind of a "hz, hz, hz," kind of a experience. And I will go there with an interpreter, and that's the service angle, and I go in and bring the service from one side to the other, and that really -- my family didn't know what to do with that. They were just not accustomed to that kind of thing because all those years when I was growing up they seemed like oh, Mark doesn't mind that we all talk. It doesn't bother him at all. So that was really a lesson for him, and I said, "I really need to have access to the information that's going on in my family," and that really gave me a feeling of balance. A feeling of self. I have kind of a sad story here. My family still is very resistant whenever the interpreter is around. They never will talk about anything very in depth. It's all a lot of hi, how are you, very superficial kind of communication. Well, there -- you talk about your primary family, which is your birth parents, your blood family. If there is no communication there then you opt for your secondary family, which is you all. People with whom I can communicate. Who I can have within my center, my self. And I'm not a parent -- for example, my best friend has children, and so when I visit there, I gain positive feelings from my interaction with my best friend and his children, and I include them in my center self to keep me balanced, but I wish that I had that with my primary family, but in this case I don't. So I use my secondary family to maintain my balance. It's really been a wonderful experience for me having that secondary family there and something I really value, and it really gives me an opportunity to heal and to get me past a lot of negative feelings and anger and frustration. I like to talk about parallels a lot. We can see a lot of parallels. All morning we were doing a lot of comparison between the Native community and the Deaf community, and we are going to do that again. I'm going to start with the Deaf community on one side and give you an idea and then I will put the Native community on the other side. Here we have some examples from Deaf life. The Deaf school, the dormitory, the slapping of the hand -- remember in the old classrooms: "don't you sign. Don't you sign." learning how to speak. Wear your hearing aid. A hearing teacher, see signing exact language. Not ASL, not authentic language. Hassling with VR. You have to fill in all your reports every month: how are you doing in college? What are your grades like? Feeling harassed. (laughter) and then Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. now, let's take a look at the Native community. I think you will notice a lot of parallels. Boarding schools. It's the same way with the Deaf school, on a separate campus. It's funny that at Indian school we didn't call it a dorm, we called it boarding. People would spend a lot of time in the dorm and the dorm would have a lot of positive kind of feelings for students. I went to visit my parents Indian school, Chimewa, and they had talked about the boarding experience there, and this is how it's signed. And I said isn't it a dorm? And they said oh, no it's boarding. That just seems to be the Native term for that. Haircuts. Back in the 60s, I remember -- was it '69 -- '72 '73, I thought oh, this would be so exciting to see Native folks with traditional hair and long hair and braids and I was really looking forward to that, and when I got to the school, everybody had a buzz cut. Unbelievable. Because I remember when I was growing up on the reservation in rosebud, I remember a lot of traditional Indian hair styles and I thought it was really a very important part of the culture. It feels kind of like branches on a tree. You know nowadays when you see some fancy homes have trees that have been cut back kind of like topiary to make funny shapes. That's kind of what it looked like to a Native kid with all those kids with crew cuts. Maybe the person who did the landscaping had some kind of internal problem. You need to do it the white way. That's it. That's just something that is drilled in morning noon and night. My father was a teacher in Sunday school -- interpreter's error. Social studies teacher, and so I went and looked at the books that were on his shelf while my father was getting some things done. So I was looking to bide a little time. And I thought the book would be packed full of all kinds of in depth information about Native people and I looked through the book and it was the story of white people, cowboys, and more white people, where are the Natives? It's the same kind of idea at the school for the Deaf. I would open a book and it's oh, it's the story of hearing people. Where are the Deaf people? A lot of parallels there of underrepresentation. this has some similarities about you have to wear your hearing aid, as opposed to the Indian school, you must wear white people clothing. You certainly can't wear any kind of Native dress. Having white teachers. I remember at the Indian school there was a lot of white teachers and no Natives, not a one, and in the boarding, they allowed Native people to work as houseparents there, and it's the same idea as the school for the Deaf. There white houseparents but hardly any Natives. Again we have to learn to write the language the white peoples' way. (laughter) it's funny the va which is kind of like the VR -- the same kind of issues with Indians, you must go to the va. You must go to the VA. People are not happy doing that. Gallaudet is the university Deaf people think of and Haskell university in Lawrence, Kansas -- I went there to visit and the people are very proud of their Native heritage the same way Gallaudet was very proud and militant in their views, and Haskell is similar to that. They wear Indian logos on their caps the same way you see the Gallaudet people wearing the "i love you" signs on their hats and coats. I will let the interpreter catch up. I like to give guidelines. For example, if you were to go to a pow wow or some special type of ceremony or meeting, just some particular Native event, it's very important for you to keep some things in mind, and that will be these guidelines. If you were to go into a reservation, for example, and sit down and people there will not say to you before you start, "okay here are the rules." it's something you have to know beforehand. So for example if a Native person were to speak into a microphone and they give out information, you would not want to interfere with what was going on. So I listed these guidelines here to give you some basic ideas that might be helpful. We are working on developing a videotape for caucasian Deaf people who would like to go to a pow wow -- they can go ahead and watch the videotape beforehand and have a better understanding of what they have to do. The videotape will be in American Sign Language. no alcohol or drugs. That's a very important rule. People realize the Danger of alcohol and drugs, and it really can throw off one's sense of harmony. This word here you see the term grand entry. Often at a pow wow or a particular celebration or a prayer people are anxious to take pictures, and that is just not permitted because during prayer, if you were to take a picture, it would really negatively affect the spirit from being present there. If you were to take a picture of a -- someone at a prayer session perhaps, you would end up carrying the spirit home in your camera and you'd have bad luck or something would happen. So after the prayer is over and then the celebration actually begins and there is eating and carrying on, that's fine. But not during either the grand entry or the prayers. Similar to the idea of taking pictures, during a prayer you should not be carrying on with your neighbor. That's something that the spirit will notice and could end up being in your hand or coming into your body in some way and then you could end up at home not feeling well or having bad dreams, and in this way your center and your self will be out of balance. So that's very important. Well, perhaps you as a Deaf person were to go to a prayer and there was no interpreter present. Please don't say, "excuse me. I need an interpreter." wait until the prayer is over with and then try to approach the problem with somebody who can help you with that. I'm trying to think of a parallel. Oh, I will talk about that in just a minute. this is a paramount principle of showing respect to elders. This is our sign for elders. It is of the utmost importance. The elders have been through so much they have managed to live their lives in a way that has kept them balanced. Often younger members of the tribe will go to elders and seek advice on how they can have balance in their own lives. If you were at a pow wow or some kind of ceremony you will notice how the elders always get to sit in a circle at the front. I know they are good seats. You don't want -- you need to show respect and clear the way for the elders there. That is very important. please ask permission. Perhaps if a Native person is in their regalia, you need to ask them if they are willing to be photographed. Again this is a case of the person will sense what kind of vibes you are putting off. What kind of reason would you want for that? For example, if a hearing person were to ask a Deaf person, "ah, what's the sign for this? What's the sign for that?" if I go ahead and -- they say oh, geez here they go again asking all the questions and it's another case of where you feel the person out and see if they are really taking advantage of you for language and go ahead -- if that's the case you teach them some other sign than what they are asking for. It's similar to Native culture. Here take a picture of this. Why don't you take a picture of a beautiful forest instead of me. This term here, regalia applies to the Native form of dress, whether it's the pow wow clothing, the headdress, for example, my medicine bag, and the various things that Native people use to represent their heritage. Always ask before you touch. In some situations people say oh, this is really cool can I touch? Can I feel that, and that is really not permitted and it can really throw one's center off, and the spirit -- the general throw of the spirit is interrupted by that. So you need to ask permission first. Say, "is it all right? And if the person is feeling that it is you have to give them an opportunity to protect themselves and allow them to say no if they need to. perhaps the feathers from a person's head dress or from their regalia were to fall on the floor, don't ever put it up and say, "here is your feather. Please do not touch them. That's something that must be left alone. I'm wondering. A human hair when it -- if it's cut, if that were to fall on the floor, would you touch that? Or would you touch a feather? The Native view is it's the same kind of thing. Hair falls out. Feathers fall out it's a part of nature. Perhaps the eagle will need a feather and will pick up one that's dropped out of a head dress. That's something we leave for them. The eagle apparently needs it back for someone in his tribe or her tribe. So if you pick it up, it's gone so it's not available to the eagle who may need it.

There is different perspectives which are traditional. maybe I should have you read this rather than carry on about it because I don't talk about women's issues so I will just let you read that. I guess I should get some -- a Native woman to come and talk about this perhaps. I am not able to talk about that. So it's more of a Native woman's issue. I'd like to make one note about the Native perspective on disability on the reservation. Let me just go ahead and show you this and see what you think. This word "force" I'm not so sure about that. I guess it's really a Euro centered value of forcing. But depending upon a persons' physical limitations, functioning, they are just kept at home. The families provide the support system for them. The Native people don't necessary see disability as oh, gee, this is something sad, deserving of pity. That is not our perspective. Let's say if the person is born without an arm we will help them out. We would like them to feel positive about their own lives. . Basically the euro centered value is if a person is missing an arm or leg, oh, my goodness, they are disabled and they receive that label so they are looked at primarily -- they are looked at with the disability coming first rather than they are a person and they are someone who can't do this and can't do that. Let's think of the analogy of a tree. If a tree were to lose a limb or two, is the tree disabled? (laughter) that's my question for you. Native people see both of these things in the same way. So you agree? The fellow in the wheelchair said he agreed with me with that Native perspective. Many years ago, if there was a Native person who was not able to walk, they would be carried on someone's back. Kind of like a piggyback. That's how it used to be. Something interesting about this note here. There is sort of the issue of an Indian person's perspective and a white person's perspective. Like, if you look at a Deaf person and they use see, and they have good -- and they sign in English and oh, isn't that better and they sign -- this is the way I would sign this is signs like hearing sign -- so if this was an Indian version of writing it would be like an apple, red on the outside, white on the inside so it's kind of like white writing, and Native people don't like to use Native terms in their -- when they address people when they write, and Europeans have all this negative vocabulary. The negative words in the white peoples' language is just immense and now as diversity becomes more and more powerful we are trying to lessen some of that negativity that is brought on by a Eurocentric point of view. We have the medicine wheel and the concept of ying and yang, and we are trying to stop the negative influence coming from the past and work toward more positive directions. we have two perspectives here. There is the European perspective and the Native perspective. We are going to talk about values here. I think that when you take a look at these two value systems, I think it can really help you to do your work. For example, what should i, I say -- European -- what did I call it here? Hearing American values, and there is Deaf American values. So you can imagine what it's like in your office and who comes in for you to work with. Okay. I have a handout here that lists all of these things. I can pass these out so you don't need to worry about taking notes or anything. this is from the Choctaw nation put out this particular handout. The Choctaw are kind of from the southwest Mississippi area, and this is their sign interpreters from the southeast in the kind of deep south region. in Alaska, as Eugene talked about this morning, at first we take things kind of slowly. There is no need to be overly assertive. It's best to sort of assess the situation before one proceeds, and of course also the concept of time is fluid, and then once everything is in place then we can go ahead and get started. There is a lot of value in the establishment of rapport. I think there is a lot of interesting things here in these two perspectives. do we have a question here? the word hour -- I mistyped. It's a typographical error. Under Native American values next to share. Pardon me. That is supposed to be honor, not hour. Thank you for noticing that. I was kind of in a hurry to get this typed up. Okay. The term respect in Native perspective -- this morning Eugene was talking about Deaf people tend to just accept things and respect is a more important quality among Native people. I'm trying to think of an example that would illustrate this. Okay. Currently the way we work in our offices, we have appointments, and it's important that we have someone come at 10:00, and we have someone come at 10:15, and if a person is late for their appointment -- let's say they show up at 10:30 -- your case is closed. -- I mean, that is really our culture. That's the way we do things. In state offices, federal offices. The structure and the importance of time is king, and it can be frustrating. What's worse for Deaf people -- Deaf people may be in a hurry to get there and to be prompt, but there can be some communication problems for example calling on the tty or if the tty in the office doesn't work because of disuse and they have to find somebody to make a call for them, and there has to be so many things that can happen. That's the Deaf perspective. The Native perspective -- we don't have any kind of complicated technology. Perhaps we have an appointment and we may ride a horse and be out enjoying the -- enjoying nature and taking in the beautiful view, and we get to the office, and we sit down, and it's 3:30, and you are supposed to be here at 10:00 in the morning, and there is no formal communication protocol. We sort of take life as it happens, and the response that they receive is, "too late. Your case is closed." so I think the solution to this -- if you provide services to a Native person, perhaps you can say, "let's have an appointment sometime on Tuesday." let's not say at 10:00. So you could be going about your work, and then someone can tell you, "oh, your client is here," regardless of what time it is. That way you can have a very harmonious experience. Back to the idea of the medicine wheel, maintaining balance. I'm trying to remember another example. In some states -- some state and federal offices that I visited, there is kind of personal things arranged on the desk or the wall -- like if someone is a Christian person they may have a picture of Jesus splayed out on the wall or there may be a crucifix or Christian poetry in a frame. People include these things on their desk. Law prevents any expression of religion on state or federal property. It's just not allowed, but your personal things -- you know, could be on your body, for example if you were to wear a cross around your neck, that's your private business, they can't tell you what to do with what you wear or that kind of thing. I'm really surprised that a lot of state and federal offices just allow people to do that kind of thing. I have seen it in many places that I have been. I mean, you are taxpayers. So that's fascinating. A Native person had their own art work hung up in their cubicle, and there was no mention of the great spirit or anything like that, just pictures, and the state government gave that person a hard time and said, "you must remove these things from your cubicle." but the people who have all other kinds of crosses and crucifixes and are various things weren't bothered at all, and that really made me wonder. So if people in your office have something you know with Deaf values or for example, "i love ASL" or some kind of poster like that in your office and for example -- if a hearing person comes in and sees that it might give them something positive, and perhaps someone would say why do you have that hanging up, you are a hearing person, and in that way the establishment of a good rapport could start if each person is centered in themselves then they can -- there can be effective communication, working together.

Another situation -- I visited hearing friends who just love music, and they have just racks and racks and racks of cds, and because they value hearing -- and that's fine, I honor their feelings about that, and I would ask the person, you know, what is -- what kind of music is that? Would you mind letting me listen to that and see what it sounds like so I can feel the vibrations and the person said, "no, no, no, you can't hear that." so I just wanted to see if I could feel the vibrations or something. But this person wouldn't let me do it. And then I've often had that person at my home sharing my values and opening my home to them and now this person won't do -- won't reciprocate. And in this situation -- this situation happens often, I have noticed in federal and state offices or treatment centers or service centers, and I met one individual -- and I'm not being disparaging -- I love you hearing people. You are terrific. I want to let you know that (laughter) I'm being honest, really I'm being honest. I noticed something about hearing people that hearing people that work for a Deaf community -- provide Deaf community like at a service center, for example -- through observation I have looked at their book shelves and there is nothing about Deaf history or no sign language books on their desk. So I thought that was interesting. I hope that one day hearing people perhaps will go home and gather up some of the books they must have on their shelf and bring them into work so when a Deaf person is there in the office, they might see that that hearing person has enough sensitivity and knowledge of Deaf issues and Deaf values and the needs of Deaf people. So that's kind of similar to when a Native person will come in, and they need to try to strike a balance. You know, I'm not talking about making your office like super duper Indian country so that a white person would feel funny sitting down and just like it's way overdone. That can turn people off, too. That can really ruin your rapport. So there needs to be a balance. I have met a few people who have Native jewelry. You know what I mean, the kind with silver and turquoise, I would refer to them basically as Indian wannabes. They look like they are trying to be Indian because they sort of over do it. It's over powering, really. I think if you over compensate what will happen is people will realize that you are not as sincere and you get burned out, and it will end up just sitting on a shelf. I'm going to borrow some language from the ADA. The concept of effective communication. I'm going to talk about culture a little bit. Complex interactive communication is at one end of the continuum, and simple communication is at the other. Like, for example, where is the bathroom? And the answer is, "right there." simple kind of question and answer as opposed to more complex -- perhaps a discussion or some kind of in depth technical language or something. I've taught ASL classes -- ASL 2, at that level so people that are ASL 2 are kind of here at the far right-hand of the continuum, and you feel -- and you can gauge where the students can understand you. And I also teach ASL 6 and beyond, and they are more at the other end of the continuum where you are able to have a philosophical abstract discussion effectively. Without effective communication everything stops and then you need to bring in an interpreter, of course. Now, the interpreter has to be one that is by lingual and buy cultural and has a aptitude in all these areas. It's similar to with Native folks. For example Tupper here and Judy -- they are well versed in both cultures and they are aware of the sensitivity that Native people and Deaf people sensitivities and how those work together. Some interpreters have absolutely no idea about Native values. That means that they need to receive the information at the right end of the continuum, very simple, brief communication, they are not ready for this complex communication so you need to start them off simply. In the same with this communication continuum works, with the students only at the ASL 2 level you can talk about what Deaf people may be like and some aspects of Deaf culture. But you surely can't get into anything too complicated. You have to wait until they are ready for the complex interactive communication. You can see here at the left-hand side it's a very serious type of matter as opposed to buying some shoes. I want you to use this when you think about working with Native people. For example here at the doubletree you may meet a Native person and you can have a conversation with them. So the person is there so you might as well. And then if you were to go to a reservation, that would be an entirely different matter. It's important that you need to know what the needs of the reservation are. You need to show respect for a variety of things, and then at that point you would have a -- you would be welcomed in a warm way. as far as communication goes, if this person were kind of a rusty see signer and I was an ASL user, I would be here on this end, so what I would need to do is I would need to adapt my style of communication to the person with see so they can understand me. And it would really be a giant stretch up the continuum. I would have to really work so hard to scoot from the high end of the communication continuum down to the low level. Because if I were inflexible on the continuum, communication wouldn't work. We wouldn't have effective communication. If the person signed, "slow down, and" and I didn't slow down and made my point there I wasn't flexible and there would be no match and we would need an interpreter in the middle to bridge the gap in the communication continuum. In order to maintain a sense of balance, not to feel like you are having to work so hard in order to match the level the other people are at. And if you had to do that, you would be out of balance, and the diamond that is your center and your self would lose its luster now, we are going to talk about culture, and again let me use the continuum here we have the European culture and the Native culture each with its own values and it's very hard for the two to meet. When I go into a Native office, for example, and there seems to be a lot of European-American decorations, and then I go into an -- if I go into a European American office and there is a lot of European American decorations and I go into a Native office and there are a lot of Native decorations I think it's better that each of them have some of the other's. So there is some balance there so it's not all one way or the other. it's the same issue with eye contact. Deaf people show eye contact as a form of politeness and respect. If you were to look away when talking to a Deaf person that's disrespectful. If you were to work with a Native person and look them in the eye that would not be considered appropriate. Like Eugene talked about, like Alan talked about it's more appropriate to look to one side or the other. I met a person who was very involved in the Native culture and Native values and really considered themselves to be a Native and I was looking at him and signing to him the way he responded to me was like this. He averted his eyes and he saw what I was saying out of his peripheral vision. In the same way that when you are driving and you look ahead and you can see off to the sides. So I eventually picked up on his style. At first I tried to get him to look at me, and then I realized he was understanding what I could say even out of the corner of his eye. I was really blown away. So then I just continued to sign in my normal way. He understood me, and he would answer me, and then he left. I wasn't sure. Did he get all the information I was giving him or not? And later he came up to me, and I had gotten the point across. The situation was clear. There was no miscommunication. I was very impressed. So I just cannot emphasize the concept of respect enough. I was not going to be in a position to force him to look at me to -- I showed him enough respect to go with the way he wanted to do things. There you have it. That's all for now. Any questions? I know people are getting kind of worn out at the end of the day. I was going to let Tupper say a few things. About access and interpreting and so forth? Why don't you take it away. Did you have a question back there?

>> (audience member:) I notice you talk about the various colors on this ribbon, the red, the black, the yellow, the green. Is yellow represent -- I forget what each thing represents.

>> there is the four directions, north south east and west. Different tribes have -- white can represent the sky or the clouds. The black would be a representation of the soil. Red is a representation of the setting sun. Yellow is the rising sun. It really varies from tribe to tribe. So -- and different tribes have different colors and in a different order. How much time do we have left here? So let's just have -- we will have two questions and that will do it. Go ahead.

>> (audience member:) so if we were to have a Native student what should we do to work with them? How can we as teachers work with those students?
>> I suggest that you speak with their parents and commune with them find out what works best for their child, what kind of cultural information can you include in your educating of that child. Okay. Final question? Donna?

>> (audience member:) you mentioned Native culture as far as appointments go. For example just have the person come on Tuesday at any time. So I have a question regarding that. Let's say I decide to have an open appointment any time, basically for walk-ins and people would come. Perhaps the Native person would show up when I already had another walk-in and then they could come after that. My second question is let's say I would like to go to Native American reservations or their home, but I am wondering what is the proper way to do that? Should I make an appointment or how should I approach that whole -

>> Donna, you mean, are you talking about the reservation or -- or are you talking about going to -- okay. Well, it really varies. You need to find a way to get on the same level with this person. Perhaps you could go with another Native person who would introduce you so you are not just showing up out of the blue. Let's say I would tell this person -- I say, "well, do you know so-and-so from the Deaf school? Remember you were in the same class? Oh, you know that person?" so you develop connections and you use these connections. If you are introduced by the right person everything will work out just fine. You need to find some way to get in, get your foot in the door basically. And again you have to have balance. You can't just have -- on the medicine wheel you can't have one particular quarter of the wheel. You need to have all four so things will work out. Thank you for that question. All right. Terrific. (applause)

Tupper Dunbar:
>> greetings everyone. Osiyo! Tohiju? Aya kituwahgi tsalagi. Agetsi, anitsisqa. Taline agetsi, absaroke. Galieliga ani.

>> what I was just speaking was not in ASL. It's the first American Sign Language, though. It belongs to the Native Americans, which is the sign -- the interpreter's traditional sign. Recently when I just spoke to you in Native tongue, my greeting -- how are you? I am myself Cherokee, and my clan, my mother was Bird -- part of the Bird Clan, and I also have an adoptive mother who is from the Crow. So as far as speaking for everyone -- that is impossible, because there is such a wide variety, and we are, by no means, all the same. We are different perspectives, different tradition, different cultures, there is not one culture that encompasses all Native American tribes. It's just impossible. I cannot speak for all Cherokees as well. I cannot speak for all Crow. I cannot speak for all the -- all Deaf. Of course I'm hearing. I cannot speak for all CODAS, neither. Indian way is to speak from one's self. One's perspective, one's personal experiences. My experiences have varied through -- throughout the world growing up. Collectively from four different worlds. First, my mother and father were Deaf. Deaf community, Deaf world, Deaf interaction, communication, Deaf picnics, Deaf parties, Deaf clubs, total submersion in the Deaf world. My language was ASL. But I'm a hearing person physically. And I grew up in a Deaf world, and it was very awkward to try to connect with all the parts that I belonged to. To know all the rules. So many misnomers. I'm also Indian. I'm half and half. I'm Cherokee. Part Choctaw, and then there is the white part of me, the caucasian. Scottish. The interpreter finally got that one. Sorry. It was very hard to balance where I belonged and in which world. So following my instinct my mother -- my parents would teach me here is the Deaf world this is what happens in the Deaf world; here is what you do in the hearing world. There was no mention of the Indian world. There was always a distinction between hearing and Deaf and I kind of discovered things as I went along. My mom and dad both Deaf, communication was eye contact 100 percent. There was nothing wrong with that. It was the norm. But that wasn't so with my grandmother. No eye contact was made. There was no demand to look me in the eye. It just did not happen. And in my gut I just knew that was how communication happened with my grandmother. There was never -- one time, growing up that eye contact was made with my grandmother. But it was the norm. My mother is half Indian. She grew up of course in the white world. My father is half Indian, and he grew up in the Indian world. And he transitioned over into Deaf schools, and then he went back, and of course it was very awkward and confusing for him. My mother's family -- excuse me -- my father's mother's family, uncles, grandfathers, so forth. I understood their basic signs. My father understood the action happened. Then when he went to the schools and came back, a lot of those contacts, those communications were gone, and it was very hard for him. And he was disappointed that he missed that communication, but he was also missing out on the communication he established at the Deaf school. So in retrospect he was looking back at the connections he had lost throughout those years. Now, my father is a member of the IDC, the Intertribal Deaf Council. He is an elder. This sign is the council. He is a member of the IDC council. Also this sign represents circle. Mark had just had up on his power point presentation with the medicine wheel, and it was represented by a circle. For people who become interpreters or so forth, it's v -- or VR counselors, working for the Deaf, you have to learn the cultures of the populations that you serve, to be respectful of all those parts of them, just as in -- as was depicted in the wheel. If you don't respect all parts of it communication or any type of service is going to be lost. And that's important -- you know traditionally interpreters have been the machine model. There was this little imaginary box drawn around them and they never strayed from their box. They just interpreted. If you didn't understand that's not my fault I'm just interpreting. Hello. I said it once. That's it. You get no second chance. That's it. (laughter) it was a very oppressive model, and I'm telling you there are some Deaf people that still want that model. That's what they are used to. Okay. Fine. (laughter) . Then the code of ethics was established. There was a strict code of conduct and rules that we had to follow as professionals, but understand the code of ethics -- interpreters arbitrarily added to a real basic structure to make it more complex and controlling and exact from a to z. My god, you look at the code of ethics and it's like, huh, where do you find that? Sometimes they go beyond those boundaries, and I remember, oh, in the '80s -- and you'd go to eat something, and they'd say wait a minute. Interpreters are not allowed to eat. I can't eat? Wait a minute here. I'm a human being. And it's that machine system again. The machine model, and there are some -- a lot of Deaf people started complaining about it. Then we became cultural -- facilitators. Communication facilitators, and I have two different languages. That means I have to learn ASL. Oh, I learned the grammar and the structure, and I had to -- you know, really study in depth the language and how to code switch and translate and make sure I met both needs. And, still, I would ask that person do you use ASL or English? Alrighty then. And then I would interpret and change it and if you don't understand it, too bad. I'm just the interpreter. Of course then Deaf people really got unhappy with that mode, and then you became cultural mediators. Language includes culture, and I think you have to look at the different perspectives. You know, Deaf are quite famous for being very blunt, very direct and to the point. You know, a word is a word, and that's what is meant. But -- blunt -- thank you. Does that mean honest? Does that mean straight forward? The word blunt -- hearing people look at that as, "oh, how rude." they prefer that you be very vague. You go -- you go around the point as opposed to straight to the meat of it (laughter) and, as you are interpreting, you go wait a minute don't be so evasive. Just tell me. Don't be disrespectful just give it to me. And that's the Deaf perspective. (laughter) that's, again, part of the circle. With its different quadrants. The Indian perspective and the different cultures within it. We just looked at the respect part of it, you know, and that you can communicate with one another and make enough provisions for each other that you are not demanding their attention and understand their communications needs vary from yours. You don't have to demand their utmost attention. There is nothing wrong with -- with different communications. You don't have to say, "hey, you broke the rules on communications." but I'm Native and these are my rules. Or I'm Deaf and Native and these are my rules and culture, and there is nothing wrong with me adhering to my ways and you yours. We have balance. Again, with the four quadrants, Deaf, hearing, caucasian, Native, and there is balance within the four, and you can maintain that. I grew up within all those four, and am I perfect? Absolutely not. You know, I go off the point -- I did not maintain eye contact with my grandmother. I knew that part. But, you know, like I would make contact with a Native elder and all of a sudden I would become Deaf and make eye contact and, "oh, my god," and I would look away and realize what I had done, and so I'm constantly trying to realize and fit and make sure communication is smooth. There are times I make Deaf or become Deaf (laughter) and I'll talk to a hearing woman and they will back off because I'm too intense and eye contact is constant. So I need to remember when to adjust to the different cultures. It's not easy. It's not easy to maintain that balance. As VR counselors, interpreters and, you know, the whole gambit of service providers, everyone saying it has to be my culture, my way, that's very oppressive. we talked about history -- I just talked about the history of interpreting and the mix of Deaf and interpreters. Let's talk about the Native interpreters. History. Tupper is now going to switch from speaking to signing -- or from signing to speaking. (laughter)

>> famous Crow chief, plenty-coups who is crow, his biography was related to an anthropologist that he actually trusted. This man had been adopted by the creek, the crow, by many of the people of the northern plains, and he was very fluent in sign language, and his name sign was "great sign talker." that was his name, his Indian name that was given to him ceremoniously. Thank you. These hearing and dumb people they just don't follow the rules and understand. Okay. I'm back. At any rate, he was willing to tell his life story. And there is a book called plenty-coups chief of the crows. An anthropologist was entrusted and brought in, and he said it's great. I don't have to go through an interpreter. I'm always suspicious of them. Too many of them have forked tongues. You hear this all the time in Hollywood -- forked tongues it comes from an Indian sign. This is the sign for truth. This is the sign that gets glossed as "forked tongues." that can mean they are hypocritical, lying, they make a lot of mistakes. It's the same sign used for the trickster okay. It has a lot of meanings, not just Hollywood. You have to be careful with the signs if you go this way that's like to diss somebody. But at any rate he didn't trust interpreters, and that was a big change, and historically in the Indian country before the European invasion, the interpreters, the mediators were very honored people. They were people that could go between two worlds or more, and they were very honored. You think about how Native people view certain animals that can go between two worlds. A turtle goes between land and water, an eagle between the earth and the sky, and they are sacred animals, and the job of an interpreter in Native traditions was a sacred job, a sacred position. It carried a great deal of responsibility. In the hoopa nation mediators was actually a profession and gifts were made. They were highly respected. Now, the training was immersion. Somebody might be sent off and married into another tribe and they might learn their ways, and they might be adopted into another tribe as a child and be able to grow up and learn and speak not only both languages but understand both cultures, both worlds, and that way they would be able to better serve as interpreters. That was the tradition. The position was so honored that there is military writings of the calvary saying we have to get officers or we have to pick our interpreters and give them commissions as officers because the Indian people won't accept them they are saying who is this dumb trader, t-r-a-d-e-r, who has all these political agendas and he is not an honest business man and he is going to interpret for one of our chiefs? He is a beloved man. Indian sign for chief. They didn't want to put up with that. This is a highly respected position. So what happened? Well, Europeans came over and a lot of the interpreters ended up they were interpreters because they were slaves. A lot of them were people who had political agendas, and some of them were people that were from two different worlds. Some of them were half breeds and some of them were very good interpreters and some of them were oppressors. That's kind of how the Deaf community has not always highly regarded interpreters. I did not become a professional interpreter for a number of years because the Deaf people I knew hated interpreters. It took a while. They felt oppressed by them. Some of it was the machine stuff. Some of it was because they were opposite of the machine stuff. They were too controlling. They were interfering. They were editing. The reason we set up the code of ethics. So that's another -- we have been talking about parallels all the day. Deaf culture and the culture. That was one of the problems. It wasn't just Indian people who didn't trust interpreters any more. There is a book on Indian sign language that's written by captain clark, and he makes a note about interpreters. The lack of honest and efficient interpreters has been one of the great causes of all trouble -- all our trouble with the Indians. One of the greatest obstacles of a thorough understanding of the Indian question and the greatest source of false impression of their abilities, laws, customs, habits -- it has cost billions -- this is written in the 1800s -- stayed on the soil and led to the race to the threshold. There was a half breed interpreter who was a political enemy of crazy horse. He was brought in after he surrendered and had promised that he would never fight war again. I said why don't you fight war? Come on help us fight the Nez Perce. He said you wouldn't make me do that. And he is funny he said I tell you what fine. I will do what you want. I will fight until the Nez Perce are no more. The interpreter said I will fight until the white man is no more. That led to his arrest and execution.  So interpreters, that experience -- bad experiences good experiences I'm sure everyone person in the room can say the interpreters they really liked and the interpreters they didn't. The bad experiences and the good experiences. And it's been the same way in Indian country. And the same way for Alaska Native people, the experiences they have had up there.

About a year, year and a half ago there was an article in the register for interpreters for the Deaf views, and it was written by a very qualified legal interpreter who presented an experience -- an article in the case of Wisconsin v. Hensley, a Winnebago who had been accused of murdering his own child. It was printed in the intertribal council. I have a copy of that it's not in this one -- a few copies before. It didn't take sides but shared there are different perspectives of things. What happened was this man was homeless. He was staying in the Salvation Army, and his hard of hearing girlfriend could not take the baby any more crying and threw it at him and said you take care of him. He spent four years with that trial while everybody argued over what kind of interpretation was appropriate and whether the almost two-hour going -- rehashing and trying to explain and trying to understand the Miranda rights were ever really understood or interpreted correctly. Here is some of the issues on the videotape. He goes like this. How do you voice that? The interpreters go hey, or excuse me. This is a question. Who what when where why? So do you understand that you have a right to an attorney? -- sign something about the attorney. Comes out as a statement. I make this statement rather than are you trying to say? That was one of the issues. Another issue -- he signs that he takes the baby and wraps him in a blanket tight so he won't move. The interpreter could have said swaddling blanket. He said I tied the baby up. A lot of different situations, a lot of different miscommunications. He uses American Sign Language. The trouble is it's a reservation dialect. He is not cognizant of when he is code switching when he uses Indian signs. He is not cognizant when he takes Indian signs and Deaf-izes them. For example at one point he said something about heart strong. Okay. And in Indian sign language, it means to not be afraid. To be brave. One of the other problems was the pronouns. I think interpreters' biggest headache is pronouns because even though Deaf people are not scared to point -- they don't always do it -- you know, or maybe it's not always clear, wait is that he, she, me? Who are you talking about? Or they go ahead and say I will do closure. I'll voice this, and they don't always get it right. So what happens if you come from a culture where even more than in white culture you do not point? Do you know how traditionalists point? There you go. That's it, ain't it? The person over there. Over there. Look at that. Okay? That's how they point. Lips, chin. All right? Now, I'm not saying that Deaf Indians never point. I'm not saying that at all. But we all come from all these different ways of trying to balance. They go to the school for the Deaf. You heard the stories from Eugene and Mark. I went there and became a white man. I went back home to relearn my ways, my culture. And so if they don't use the pronouns, and he is talking about god and his baby leaving and he is talking about himself and what he did and wrapping the baby and the baby died, has gone to heaven and he goes like that. Who killed the baby? In his personal viewpoint, who took the baby's life? He didn't say me or him. He didn't point at all. Very subtle. So all those different things. It took a few years. Finally the videotape was thrown out. The D.A. appealed, and it was upheld that it was thrown out. Four years in jail, still no trial. The D.A.'s pressuring him again. Some people question the timing of this, but his grandmother was arrested. So now the person that's been coming and being his main support -- and Native people really value that support -- and it's no longer there and he has all these hearing white people you really need to do this, and the lawyer is saying these are the options I have to present these choices to you. Whether he is guilty or not, he copped a plea. I have been in jail for years, it doesn't look like I am getting out soon. I will take the ten years I have six years left. Is he innocent? Is he guilty? Maybe we will never know. He never got a trial.

You are talking about this morning that 90 percent of Alaska Native men who are Deaf have been in jail. Now, I'm not trying to say if you are Deaf and you are Indian that you are always innocent because that's not true, but there is a lot of Deaf people that have been in jail because of miscommunications. There is a lot of Deaf people that had been convicted because of inappropriate interpreting services. We had a speaker this morning that said he had been in jail in Alaska 24 times, something like that. Never once did he even have an interpreter. And we have Alan talk about how he goes to be a relay interpreter for Deaf people who he meets for the first time and he has to take this time and try to figure out what they are saying so he is accurately interpret it for the record. so we have all these different dialects, all these different languages we are talking about. John mentions that Indian sign language, the history talking about it originating in Latin America. In the Cheyenne oral history, they say that the Kiowa received the gift of sign language down south in what is now Mexico brought it north and gave it as a gift to all the peoples. And John's contention is that the Deaf history that says we got all our sign language from the French forgets that the early French explorers found a good idea and brought it back to Europe, and before that there was a finger spelling of the mucks. So this is actually -- it's considered a sacred gift. It's a sacred language, and at the Intertribal Deaf Council conference said that. In some case it is was intertribal and in others intratribal or in some instances has become that. Intratribal sign language that we are most commonly aware of today is the most commonly used on the plains. Also in the southeast there was the Muskogie or confederate creek that had their own sign language as well. And in New Mexico you can go to Zia Pueblo and the elders have their own sign language and they are fully accessed members of the community there are three elders there that have all been members of the tribal council with members of their clan interpreting for them. Never been to school, never been to VR. Two of them went to school one or two years so they know a little bit of ASL. There is some resentment that they never got better jobs than they could have gotten but overall they are accepted members of the community, and you have got to remember that, you know, we talk with pride about our history like Martha's Vinyard. Everybody can sign. Martha's Vinyard isn't the only place in American history where everybody could sign. Chief sitting bull had a Deaf stepson he had other Deaf descendents, all active members of the community, could be anything they wanted to be because they had sign language and everybody used it. ASL is considered -- one IDC member said ASL belongs to the Deaf community. Is this bothering you? Indian sign language belongs to everybody, hearing and Deaf. And that was the difference. It's not as common as it used to be, as you brought out. But there are still a lot of communities that use it quite a bit, especially amongst the elders, and sometimes there have been anthropologists that have gone in and said do you still use Indian sign language, oh, no, don't use that any more, and then you will see them talking and -- whatever language they speak, and they go -- or they see them say -- you know, they say something, and they see them do this, or see them do this or this or whatever, and they go, hey, I recognize those signs I saw that in the boy scout book. That's Indian sign language." do you know what response they get? What's the matter with you? That's part of our language. You are speaking and you do that. It's part of the language. So even though it's dying out, it is still imbedded with a lot of people in the spoken language. It doesn't mean that it's always there. The first president of Intertribal Deaf Council said that he really wished that the tribal oral historian had known sign language that they hadn't lost that because he felt he grew up not knowing his culture, and yet the Intertribal Deaf Council we have -- I made it clear that I'm not speaking for anybody. I'm also not speaking for IDC or the national multicultural interpreter project that Mark and I were working on but I am happy to share some things we learned from all of our teachers here, but one of their elders who is my adopted mother, Doris Thomas, is crow and her first sign language is Indian sign language, and when she lost her hearing as a child her parents said grandma hand-talks better. You go live with her. Indian people live with their extended family all the time. And that's what she did. She knew chief plenty-coups when she was younger. She knew -- there was also another book written about a woman named pretty shield. In fact she adopted her Chippewa Creek father, and they all spoke in the old Indian sign language. The younger generations aren't generally preserving that. But there is a move to preserve all indigenous language, spoken or signed. When you are interpreting for a person this is the model that we learned English ASL -- we used to call it pigeon sign English. Now they call it contact signing. Linear model. Are you this or are you this? Are you somewhere in between? Okay. And just because some kid used the initialized sign doesn't mean that his first language is English just because he uses some of those artificial sign languages. Grammar and structure can still be ASL so we had all these different mixtures and everything. So when we are interpreting and now you are meeting with indigenous Deaf people. What's their sign language. Everything that Mark showed in his presentation today was about the circle of life, and that can be applied to everything. So what's the sign language? Is it the intertribal sign language, American Indian sign language? Is it intratribal, something internal such as some Navajo might use? Such as some pueblo might use? Such as various tribes might use? Is it signed English? Is it American Sign Language? Is it Mexican sign language? Is it Quebec Sign Language. What combination is there. What if contact signs, the pigeon signs that are used when talking with hearing people and/or talking with white people is not to be more English like, but to be more ASL like? What if they are trying to sign more ASL like and you say, "that's ASL, and their first sign language isn't that. What if they code switch like everybody does. I mean we even take some initialized English signs and say now it's an accepted ASL sign. It wasn't a ASL culture when I was growing up. I would say Deaf world. I could say Deaf pa. I could say Deaf -- I could say all of those different things. Deaf habit. I could say all of those different things. I couldn't say Deaf culture. But it became an important thing to say and now it's ASL and before it was that weird signing exact English stuff that looked like circumstance. (laughter) we have people -- there is apache in Arizona who use what we call Indian sign language it looks very much like American Sign Language where American Sign Language is said to originate. At mano-a-mano where they had the Hispanic Latino interpreters at the Boston RID conference a couple of years ago. The interpreters said you know what we use the Mexico sign language in the community but when you go into the indigenous communities they don't understand what they are signing. It's hard to get people to admit in this country that they don't understand Deaf people. It's true. Interpreters -- we have a big problem with our egos. If I call in a certified Deaf interpreter, a relay interpreter that means that it is look like I'm not qualified. So maybe I better not do that, maybe I better keep faking it and hope the best for this Deaf person. that's kind of the way things work like that. So this is kind of a balance. And, again, what are the other issues? Not just language, it's culture, too. So you have dominant culture, Anglo. You also have dominant culture hearing. . You have Deaf culture. Dominant culture. You have Deaf culture indigenous. Deaf people always look each other right in the eye. No. They don't. Asian American Deaf kids don't look their elders in the eye. Chicano, Latino Deaf kids do not look their elders in the eye. Indian Deaf kids Alaskan Aleut Deaf kids do not look people in the eye especially elders. Does that mean they don't learn it in the Deaf school? No, don't assume people are always looking away. Very oppressive. But the president of Intertribal Deaf Council is Linda Carol. She is eastern band Cherokee and Choctaw and Scottish, and she spoke in Fort Mojave at the first American Indians with disabilities conference. Here are some of the things she said. In the Indian language there is no word for disability, disabled, or handicapped or impaired. I can say -- that person is Deaf. I cannot say -- put a label on people who can't see or walk or function differently. I can't do it. Deaf culture would say we are not disabled. We are not impaired. Other people are disabled. Native culture would say there is no such thing. So maybe Deaf people were leading the way for other people with disabilities I don't know to say the same thing we are not disabled. I love Marks illustration a tree without a branch is not a tree? It's a great illustration. It's a matter of finding balance. If you live in these different worlds you have to find balance. It doesn't mean you have to do everything perfect. Interpreters don't have to do everything perfect. Counselors don't have to be perfect but we have to find a balance in our service. If I only know how to sign English I shouldn't interpret for everybody. If I only know how to sign ASL I shouldn't interpret for everybody. Remember back when they finally found out that we have to start teaching Deaf culture in interpreter training programs and then they finally figured out that we should get Deaf people to teach it. (laughter) okay. It's a lot more imbedded than that. If we are going to provide a holistic interpreting service it's important to learn about the people we interpret for. Carleen talked about mourning. In some Native cultures you take a year of mournings you don't participate in celebrations. Last year I just completed a year for my mother. So I didn't participate in any ceremonies for a year. I always wore black, at least a black arm band, if nothing else. I wore a black top. When I was over I took it off actually I had to go an extra month I lost an adopted brother. Some of you may know a famous Deaf leader, Frank Bagly, who passed away last December. He was also adopted both by the crow and by the Cheyenne nations, two people historically enemies, but he was very deeply respected, and so I just finished an entire time period both in the Cherokee way for my mother and in the crow way for an adopted brother. They were all different things I had to follow. But during that year I couldn't interpret any ceremonies either. I went back and would stand by the door. Judy is nodding last year at the Alaska conference I was the one that every time there was something ceremonial going on I went far away and stood and watched. I couldn't interpret any of them. And I wore a black arm band. Now, learning about cultural rules. If you are dealing with Native people and, like I say, we are not all the same. There are different traditions who don't want you to wear a black shirt. I have to wear a black shirt I'm the interpreter. Well, can you at least wear two tone? Can you at least wear something else? That's kind of -- that's happened before. You know, I was really impressed because one of the interpreters -- I just completed two morning periods if I said if I have somebody interpreting for me that's dressed as if they are mourning in my world view that can bring a death. All she did was she went home and changed clothes all I asked was not to interpret for me but that's what I am talking about is respect. All I'm looking at is the time. You thought I was getting a message didn't you. (laughter) I know it's been a long time. I can talk a lot and actually I had a whole power point presentation. Real pretty. Mark has been my inspiration. It had all these graphics and I left it at home. I brought my computer but not my zip drive. I didn't bring any clean socks. I brought my raisers but I didn't bring the little handle things. So I was kind of scatterbrained. It's hard balancing four different worlds, all right? (laughter) . Did I spell all those words right? Okay. At any rate, it's important to learn about different cultures and respect that. We have learned -- interpreters finally -- we had to learn about Deaf culture. Now we have more lessons to go through. We are going to interpret for people of different cultural backgrounds we need to respect that. And you know what, the code of ethics doesn't say everything that it says we said. If you are standing by the light switch behind your back and the professor with the projector at the other end of the room says would you please turn off the light switch, you don't have to stand there just because you are the interpreter. It doesn't say that. Clothing doesn't have to be appropriate. It can also be culturally appropriate. If you are going on the reservation, you don't want to be dressed like this, they won't be receptive. You won't be facilitating cultures or mediating. There will be walls. If you are Native and you are interpreting a Native event, culturally appropriate attire is fine. Colorful ribbon shirts -- I'm going to share something here. This is a pet peeve and I notice a lot of other people and interpreters this is also a pet peeve. There are reasons to wear contrasting clothes. Of course I was always told white you wear black, and black you wear white. What about people who are in between and what about really tan white people or light-complexioned people of color? They just make linear rules. Nothing three dimensional. It's this or that. That's the way I felt growing up as a child because I went to school and there were two boxes to check. One said white and the other said Negro. I'm Indian. If you are Indian you have to check white. Okay. Finally one day I went to school and it said Caucasian, Negro, other. I said cool. I checked other. They said you check that back to white. I said, "I'm Indian. This is the teacher's response that's for "Messicans." that's the way she said it. "Messicans." finally I got to college and there was a category that said Native American. I was dancing. All right. That was cool. I never called myself a Native American before. I didn't understand why the government made up this new word. I also found Native American means Native Samoans and the Alaskan Native Americans, and Aleuts, Puerto Ricans -- every indigenous person of the United States, land or territory. And American Samoans do not like to be called Native Americans because it makes them sound like Indians, and a lot of people don't like the word -- I won't say everybody is the same. If you are Navajo you probably call yourself Native American and certain tribes -- some national congress of American Indians said the preferred term is Native, and you go to what does Alaska Native mean? It was developed to mean Eskimos and Aleuts. Eskimos like Upiac. (laughter) but they love -- and you notice how many people used this sign this morning? It's a initial last sign very popular in Alaska for Deaf and hard of hearing because the abbreviated term for everybody is Native, because it's hard to says American, and Aleut and Native -- call everybody Native. That's one of the things like cultural diversity. That's the accepted ASL sign in Alaska. Even though it's initialized. The schools for the Deaf down in the lower 48 -- they invented this to mean Navajo, but it doesn't really work that well because you have all this intertribal stuff going on and there is already a sign for Navajo, so I will leave it alone. I got off on a tangent. I do that a lot. This is one of the things with all the multicultural stuff so the Deaf culture I was raised to tell my stories a to z, and in the Indian culture your stories are very circular. You start, la la la la , say get to the point. The story is the point. Hello. All right. But sometimes I still forget my point. (laughter) see, I told you this is not an easy thing. Balance -- I'm in balance quite often. At any rate -- I'm backing up. Why did I get onto the story about checking off ethnicity on school forms? I was told I had to be this or the other. Back to the circle again. Okay so it's a matter of balance, which one am I? If you are interpreting, don't assume that it's this or it's that. I mean, even ASL English. It can be a whole lot. I mean, I don't know anybody any more who signs old school. I like old school. I like ASL with no additional. I like ASL where there are certain things that have to be finger spelled if you are code switching to English. That's old school. I don't know anybody who does that any more. My dad is 80 years old and he doesn't do it any more. He assumes up with these weird see signs and I say where did that come from when did you start using those signs? Those are kid signs, hearing signs. (laughter) okay. We have a good team going here, huh? I want to thank you. I'm very appreciative to be here, and I'm very appreciative of all the teachers I have had in my life. All three -- my parents that I have talked about -- my own children who have been my teachers, too. My colleagues who have all taught me something. My students who have taught me. My elders. Spiritual leaders, medicine people that have also been my teachers, interpreter trainers, people who probably I've never met before but I know you through your writings through your videos and you have been my teachers, too, and so, as again, I said I don't speak for any group. I don't speak for IDC. I don't speak for codas, I don't speak for Indian people I'm just talking about my experiences in dealing with all these different worlds, and I hope that all of you are able to also develop good experiences and stories and your interactions with Native people and Deaf people -- or not just Native people -- with people of all cultures. Of all cultures, and you can always show respect for other peoples' cultures. Just one last story. I went to a courtroom one time and I was interpreting for an Italian family, and the family gave me a bay leaf and asked me it put it in my pocket. Did it mean I was taking sides? It was their cultural way of ensuring that communication was clear. I think it would have been really inappropriate to say I'm a machine. I'm the interpreter. Leave me alone. It was impressive. You start talking about go betweens -- mediators, interpreters were sacred positions initially, and how that changed as the work changed. If we are going to be interpreters, we cannot oppress another person's culture, no matter what it is. That would be unprofessional. That would be unethical. So when we say these are our rules we have to think -- you know, because we made a whole complex -- we added rules that weren't there in the code of ethics and it was never meant to oppress another culture. So if it's appropriate to accept a gift at a pow wow you don't turn it away. Even the profession of counselors are changing their guidelines if it's culturally appropriate I will accept a gift. It's not unethical. It's unethical to oppress another person's culture. We need to think about those things. Again, thank you. (applause)

>> turn in your evaluations to me.

>> if somebody has needs a copy of the pamphlets for the conference, let me know I have some. We can make arrangements. (applause)
 (end of session)

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Last modified on 15JUN01