#decolonizing language

In exciting indigenous news this week, a boatload of things have been renamed with non-racist names. Turns out that when you put an indigenous person in charge of land management, they get some shit done.

My partner is Anishinaabe. Like so many Indigenous people, his Anishinaabe name is not the name on his birth certificate. He is currently trying to get his name changed to his great-grandfather’s name, which was Waabshkii’ogin (pronounced Waab-shkee-o-gun meaning “white feather”). One name. Not a first and last name. All one name. Perhaps his great-grandfather did have other names, but the name that stuck as the family name became “White” because, as the story goes, Waabshkii’ogin was the name he had at the time people were registered in Treaty 3 territory. All names were listed in English, and the translator, not fluent in Anishinaabemowin, shortened it to “White” on the official record. [...] We’ve learned that a legal name in Canada must contain a “first and last name.” Consequently, my partner’s attempt to reclaim a family name like Waabshkii’ogin and return to his community’s traditional forms of naming, with no separate last names, is outlawed in Canada. [...] How can we as Indigenous Peoples begin to reclaim our own names and discard our colonial past if our names are not even legally possible, if they must conform to Eurocentric norms of naming and identity? My own attempts at reclaiming are done one name and one word at a time. One by one, I am trying to learn the original names of places around me and speak their names out into words. I am awakening into sounds and songs my respect for the places of my ancestors and the sacred ground I walk on.

The History Behind the Slurs: How Colonial Powers Weaponized Speech

Spain-Spanish is not Latin American Spanish, and calling it “slang” is regurgetating harmful colonial thinking. I break down why Spanish has multiple standards and why this matters for writers, readers, and culture. #LanguagePolitics #LatineWriters #DecolonizeLanguage #Spanglish #HaveACupOfJohanny