0:03

Hey, hey, hey, it's Al Letzen, host

0:05

of Reveal. We're dipping into

0:07

the podcast midweek to bring you

0:10

something special, an episode from one of

0:12

my other favorite podcasts, NPR's Code Switch.

0:15

Code Switch explores how race affects

0:17

every part of our society, from politics

0:20

and pop culture to history and

0:22

food. If you don't already

0:24

subscribe, I highly recommend it. Recently,

0:27

the team at Code Switch did a

0:29

deep dive into language. It's

0:31

an essential building block for any culture, but

0:34

what happens when a language begins to

0:36

fade? This question has

0:39

a special urgency for the Lakota

0:41

people, whose lands stretch across North

0:43

and South Dakota. It's

0:45

reported that there are fewer than 1,500 fluent

0:49

Lakota speakers today. And

0:51

while many Lakota people agree it's vital

0:54

to save the language, there's

0:56

a debate over how best to do it. And

0:59

it's not just debate, but a legal

1:01

battle. Code Switch

1:03

made an episode about it, and today we

1:05

want to share their story with you. It

1:08

explores a complex fight that's been

1:10

unfolding in the Lakota nation, from

1:12

Standing Rock to Pine Ridge. Here's

1:16

the episode. Hey everyone,

1:18

you're listening to Code Switch. I'm B.A.

1:20

Parker, and today I have our

1:23

senior producer, Christina Colla. Hey Christina.

1:25

Hey Parker. Alright, so

1:27

what do you have for us today? Two

1:29

years ago, I started reading

1:32

about a complex, multi-generational fight over

1:34

language that's going on in the

1:36

Lakota nation. The average speaker

1:38

age of Lakota is over 75. There's

1:40

just not a lot of time to, you

1:43

know, fight internally when there's so

1:45

much work to do, and this

1:47

language is highly endangered. A

1:50

puzzle over ownership that can't fully

1:52

be solved by the U.S. legal

1:54

system. We're making things into property

1:57

that perhaps should never... be

2:00

considered property in the first place. And

2:03

two educators who are desperately working

2:05

with their language, but

2:07

who have found themselves completely at

2:09

odds. For me, the

2:12

overlying mission is

2:14

to do what's best for the language. And

2:17

dividing our people is not what's

2:19

best for the language. They're still

2:21

selling my grandmother's sentences, our

2:23

family's oral history and our oral

2:26

knowledge. And

2:29

Parker, to tell that story, I

2:32

want to start with that grandmother,

2:34

whose legacy has been at the center of

2:36

this fight. Her name

2:38

is Dolores Taken Alive. When

2:41

I graduated from high

2:43

school, my grandfather, he said,

2:47

don't ever lose your Lakota language.

2:50

Dolores was born on Standing Rock in South

2:52

Dakota in 1933, and

2:55

she was a fluent Lakota speaker. She

2:58

cared about her language a lot, just

3:00

like her grandfather taught her. Always

3:03

remember and speak your Lakota

3:05

language, because that is

3:07

your language. So, and

3:09

then the white man's language will be

3:12

your second language. And

3:14

then he said to me, no

3:16

matter how educated you are, in

3:19

order for you to translate our

3:21

Lakota language, which is ours,

3:25

but if I speak my truest

3:28

Lakota language, you will be

3:30

able to translate that, he

3:32

said to me. Maintaining

3:34

a language seems like a lot of

3:37

responsibility. It does. Dolores

3:40

learned and spoke Lakota in everyday life.

3:43

While she was searching for choke cherries

3:45

with her brother, plowing the land for

3:47

her dad, horseback riding, she

3:49

was also practicing her language. I used to

3:52

say to my mother,

3:54

mom, can I go sleep at

3:56

Grandpa's tonight? Okay,

3:58

and we used to sleep on the phone. and

4:01

grandpa would be telling

4:03

us stories. So you know this oral

4:06

tradition is very important. Delores

4:10

taught at different schools in Standing Rock for

4:12

over 40 years. And

4:14

at the age of 84, she started

4:16

hosting a weekly radio show in Lakota.

4:19

Her show was called, It's Good to

4:21

Speak Lakota. I mean, that's a pretty

4:23

apt title. Yeah, she

4:26

also recorded stories with a bunch of

4:28

different organizations. She taped all 48 episodes

4:31

of her radio show. She recorded with

4:33

Standing Rock. She recorded with an education

4:35

nonprofit called Well Lakota Project. That's where

4:37

this audio is from. She

4:40

shared this one story about a time she

4:42

talked to her sister in Lakota in front

4:44

of a classroom full of students. They

4:46

were so amazed at

4:49

how Lakota language could be so,

4:52

you know, cherishing and yet

4:54

so loving because you can speak it.

4:58

Not everyone had the

5:00

same experience. Right, I mean,

5:02

boarding schools existed in her lifetime, which we've

5:05

talked about before on Code Switch. They

5:07

were basically designed to strip

5:09

indigenous kids of their culture and

5:12

their English only policy is responsible for

5:15

the extinction or endangerment of

5:17

hundreds of native languages. And

5:20

the US policy protecting indigenous languages in

5:22

school wasn't passed until what? 1990,

5:25

that's the Native American Language Act. Standing

5:28

Rock wants Lakota to be the first language

5:30

citizens speak at home by 2045. But

5:34

according to one article, in 2020, they

5:36

only counted 230 native Dakota and

5:39

Lakota speakers in Standing Rock. That's

5:41

down from 350 in 2006. So

5:44

they have their work cut out for them. Right,

5:47

which is partially why, even

5:50

though Lakota is more of a

5:52

culture of oral tradition, Dolores

5:54

worked hard to make the language more accessible

5:56

in a bunch of different ways. And

5:59

she was the perfect... person to do that.

6:01

According to the Society for the Study of

6:04

the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, she

6:06

was considered, quote, one of the most

6:08

eloquent Lakota speakers of her time. Even

6:11

other fluent speakers, when they had questions

6:13

about the intricacies of their language, would

6:16

say, Dolores will know. Words

6:18

can hardly describe the incredible contribution

6:21

made to the dictionary by Dolores

6:23

Taken Live. So that's

6:25

Jan Ulrich. He's a linguist from the

6:28

Czech Republic who's been speaking Lakota for

6:30

about 40 years. He

6:32

stumbled on an old Lakota dictionary while

6:34

the Czech Republic was still under Soviet

6:36

rule, and he decided to start learning

6:38

Lakota. Jan

6:45

worked with Dolores and others to create

6:47

a Lakota dictionary as a founder and

6:49

head linguist for this influential

6:51

nonprofit called the Lakota

6:53

Language Consortium, or the

6:56

LLC. That tape we

6:58

heard is from a Lakota Language Consortium

7:00

video. Okay, so

7:02

what is the Lakota

7:04

Language Consortium? So

7:07

the LLC is made up of

7:10

a team of mostly native staff.

7:12

We should clarify, it's not actually

7:14

an LLC in the corporate sense.

7:16

That helps. It's a nonprofit

7:18

that's been around for 20 years. And aside

7:21

from their Lakota dictionary, they publish books

7:24

and host learning weeks with Lakota elders.

7:26

Their mission is to revitalize

7:29

Lakota by creating a new

7:31

generation of Lakota speakers. That

7:46

was Wilhelm Meijer. He founded the LLC with Jan

7:48

in 2004, and they ran it together for 20

7:51

years. Wilhelm

7:53

was born in Austria but grew up in the

7:55

States. He studied at a Gla-la-la-Kota

7:58

college on the Pine Ridge Reservation. That's

8:00

where he first started to learn Lakota

8:02

and became deeply interested in Lakota culture.

8:05

Yann and Wilhelm also founded

8:07

a larger nonprofit. It's called

8:09

the Language Conservancy, and

8:11

it works with over 50 other

8:13

native languages. On

8:16

the bottom of that website,

8:18

there is a logo saying

8:20

they have special consultative status

8:22

with the United Nations Economic

8:24

and Social Council. That sounds

8:26

legit. It does. It's

8:28

definitely power players in the language

8:31

preservation, revitalization space in a way

8:33

that kind of makes me think

8:35

of Raya, Raya la Cademia Espanola.

8:37

Like the OED or Webster's. Yeah.

8:41

And with Lakota, the LLC has said they're

8:43

not trying to be the one authority on

8:45

the language, but they are

8:47

trying to quote, create and

8:49

maintain Lakota resources that are

8:51

reliable, evidence-based, text corpus-based, and

8:53

that can be confidently referenced

8:55

by Lakota language teachers and learners,

8:58

end quote. And the new

9:00

Lakota dictionary is one of those resources.

9:03

So are people actually using the dictionary to

9:05

try to learn Lakota? Some

9:07

are. So I talked to

9:09

Alex Firethunder a few times about

9:11

his relationship with his language. Alex

9:15

is an enrolled member of the Aglala

9:17

Sioux tribe. And when Alex

9:19

started seriously studying Lakota in 2013,

9:21

he used the LLC dictionary. He

9:24

remembers seeing it for the very first

9:26

time and feeling

9:28

overwhelmed. As

9:30

a beginner learner, that's a lot of words I have to

9:33

learn, you know. But

9:35

in retrospect, it makes you realize

9:37

how complex and how rich

9:39

our language is. Alex

9:43

lives in Pine Ridge now, but he grew

9:45

up in New York. And while he knew

9:47

some Lakota words, he didn't speak it at

9:49

home, really. My mom is a

9:52

speaker, but she didn't teach me or

9:54

my siblings to speak Lakota. Everybody else

9:56

spoke English. No, I

9:58

just think that it was just, it wasn't practical. And

10:00

it's a similar story to my generation here

10:03

on the res as well. English

10:05

just kind of took over. I

10:08

remember like talking to my older brother when we were

10:10

teenagers like, we should learn to speak

10:12

Lakota so that we can talk to mom in Lakota.

10:14

How cool would that be? At

10:17

age 22, he signed up for

10:19

Lakota classes. And right

10:21

away, I, everything I was learning class, I

10:24

would call my mom after and, you know,

10:26

try to practice. She would laugh at me

10:28

when I would say things funny or say things wrong. I'd

10:31

be like, and

10:34

all like robotic and like, like syllable

10:36

by syllable. And

10:39

so she'd laugh and say, what's wrong with that? Is

10:42

this evening, or this evening, and

10:48

then she'd say, it's So

10:51

is the fast way of

10:53

pronouncing that. And then she would say, after

10:59

a few years of studying, Alex became a Lakota

11:01

language teacher himself. And

11:04

then he took a job with the Lakota

11:06

Language Consortium. He runs classes at

11:08

the LLC Summer Institute, teaches,

11:11

works as a linguist, hosts a podcast.

11:15

Of course. Yep. He

11:17

records elders in their communities and

11:19

documents previously undocumented but words

11:21

that are used by our speakers that have

11:23

never been written before. Well, then he's

11:26

working as hard as Delores. He is. And

11:28

he said in the latest edition,

11:30

the third edition of the new

11:33

Lakota dictionary, they added roughly 10,000

11:36

more words than the first one. And so

11:38

like one example is pajamas.

11:41

Pajamas is, in

11:45

the dictionary, it's always been ish, I

11:48

think it's ish-ti-ma-pi, or ish-ti-ma-hay-api, which

11:51

just means like, when sleeping clothes. But

11:54

my mom was like, I never heard that. And

11:56

she gave it to me. Ugh-pah-api. Ugh-pah-pi.

12:00

I was like, that's not in the dictionary. And

12:02

I asked around some other elders and

12:05

now it's in the dictionary. It looks like me.

12:10

That makes me feel proud. You

12:13

know, being the first generation to not

12:15

be the speaker, it makes me

12:17

feel like I'm mending like some

12:19

kind of poop that's been broken. Not to be

12:21

cheesy, I know that's usually, you know, a

12:24

lot of our people like to tuck the medicine wheel

12:26

and hoops and stuff like that. But

12:28

it is, you know, a circle is a

12:30

sacred symbol to our people

12:33

and it really is

12:35

meaningful to continue that

12:37

cycle. Continuing

12:39

that cycle is especially important as

12:41

the number of native Lakota speakers

12:44

continues to shrink. I

12:47

always pray to creator, that's to

12:49

give me more life, give

12:52

me health, give me good health.

12:54

I'm still needed, I can still

12:56

help. I wanna live

12:58

more, you know, like that because I can

13:00

help my people, my students, my

13:03

talk, always. Dolores

13:07

Taken Alive died in 2020, but

13:11

so much of her work lives on.

13:14

In recordings, in books, in

13:17

stories that she shared so the next

13:19

seven generations can keep learning. It

13:22

lives on in people who decided to

13:24

take up Dolores' mantle as well. Like

13:27

Alex? Well,

13:30

yes and no. It

13:35

depends on who you ask because

13:37

Parker, as you

13:39

know, nothing in life

13:41

is ever that clean or easy.

13:45

They're still selling my grandmother's

13:47

sentences, our family's

13:49

oral history and our oral knowledge.

13:51

So have we been given my

13:54

grandmother's stuff back yet? That's

13:56

coming up. Hey, it's

13:59

Al again. And we're sharing this

14:01

episode from the Code Switch podcast from

14:03

NPR because we think it'll resonate with

14:05

Reveal listeners. Reveal deals

14:07

with big, complicated issues like race and

14:10

identity, and that's what Code Switch is

14:12

all about. I hope you're

14:14

enjoying it, and here again is Christina

14:16

Kala and B.A. Parker.

14:19

Parker. Christina. Code

14:21

Switch. So, Parker. Hmm.

14:24

So, Parker. Hmm. Before

14:26

the break, we heard about Dolores taking

14:28

alive's work to keep the Lakota language

14:30

alive. And she

14:32

worked tirelessly to do that, including

14:35

with the Lakota Language Consortium, who

14:37

she believed had the same mission as her. But

14:41

not everyone shares that belief. In

14:44

fact, some people thought that

14:47

they saw something much more sinister

14:49

going on. A lot

14:51

of people in Indian Country, including me,

14:53

itself thought that Wilhelmiya and Jan Ulrich

14:55

were sent from heaven for

14:58

us. This is Nicole

15:00

E. Duchino. She's

15:02

Cheyenne River Lakota. And

15:05

in June 2023, in a hearing room

15:07

in Pierre, South Dakota, she

15:09

was talking about her language. Two

15:12

preeminent linguists who were willing to

15:14

travel thousands of miles away to

15:16

our reservations here in South Dakota

15:18

and donate their time, donate their

15:21

time and expertise to helping us

15:23

save our endangered Lakota language. And

15:26

we as Indian people thought that they viewed

15:28

our language and our culture as a shared

15:31

resource that could be neither bought

15:33

nor sold. Nicole

15:35

was representing Ray Taken Alive,

15:38

Dolores Taken Alive's grandson. And

15:40

Nicole was raised defense through a

15:43

six-hour hearing with the South Dakota

15:45

Education Department. Ray learned in

15:47

2021 that in fact our ancient

15:49

and sacred Lakota language that had

15:52

barely survived small talks, barely

15:55

survived war and forced assimilation, and

15:57

which Ray's grandmother Dolores Taken alive

15:59

had innocently and proudly shared with

16:01

Yawn and Will for the good

16:04

of her people had been

16:06

copyrighted by the LLC.

16:09

Ray's grandma's image had been copyrighted by the

16:11

LLC. The

16:13

way that Ray saw it, our mother

16:15

tongue and wisdom that were passed down

16:17

by his ancestors now belong to Yawn

16:20

and Will. And

16:24

Ray doesn't think that's right. He

16:27

thinks that's illegal. He

16:29

thinks the LLC is stealing our language and

16:31

our culture. It's

16:34

too long in language revitalization our people

16:36

have been removed from from

16:39

our language. It's constantly tried to be separated.

16:42

That last voice is Ray taken alive. Right,

16:45

we heard him right before the break and

16:47

it sounded like he was not that thrilled

16:49

about what the Lakota language consortium is doing.

16:52

He is not a fan. And

16:55

you heard a little about Y from

16:57

his lawyer. Here's how Ray

16:59

explains it. Hello.

17:24

Hey, Ray. Ray and I

17:27

talked multiple times, so some of his tape

17:29

might sound a little different. How's

17:31

it going? Good, how are you? What

17:33

are you up to today? I'm

17:35

doing good. We're going to head out in the

17:37

river today. Later

17:40

on when it warms up. Ray

17:42

is a Standing Rock citizen. He

17:44

teaches Lakota language at the McLaughlin Public

17:46

School in McLaughlin, South Dakota. He's

17:49

also the Lakota language and culture coordinator for

17:51

his school, which means

17:53

he helps make curriculum. That

17:55

was my dream to work in the school. And

17:58

Ray comes from a long a long

18:00

line of teachers. Like Dolores.

18:02

Yeah. Which is one

18:04

reason why he's passionate about helping young

18:06

Lakota people learn to speak Lakota as

18:09

part of their everyday lives. I

18:11

believe that our culture and

18:13

our language is life-giving.

18:17

I want to give them the tools to dream and do

18:20

whatever they want to do. And

18:22

Ray has spent the past three years

18:25

fighting the Lakota Language Consortium. Wait,

18:28

Christina, it sounds like

18:30

Ray has the same goal as

18:32

the LLC to keep teaching the

18:34

language. I mean, he does

18:37

to a certain degree, but

18:39

there are some key differences in

18:41

how Ray and the LLC conceptualize

18:43

their work. So Ray has three

18:45

main issues with the LLC that

18:48

have to do with messaging, authority,

18:50

and ownership. Oh, okay. Yes. Let's

18:53

get into it. So when it

18:55

comes to messaging, Ray is asking, is

18:57

the threat of the Lakota language dying

19:00

off, being used to

19:02

convince people to get on board with

19:04

the LLC's learning system? Like, is

19:07

the LLC catastrophizing? That's

19:09

what he was referring to when it comes to selling

19:11

the disease and the cure. Yep.

19:14

And one other key piece of that is

19:16

selling. In order to

19:18

sell something, you need people to

19:20

want to buy it, which is

19:22

why he cares about authority. Okay.

19:26

So as I said before,

19:28

the Lakota Language Consortium materials

19:30

standardize one clear way

19:33

to speak and write Lakota. Like,

19:35

this is the vocabulary. These are

19:38

the diacritical marks. This

19:40

is how the grammar is structured. I

19:43

could see how that could feel

19:45

like the best chance to revitalize

19:47

the language, to standardize it?

19:50

That's what supporters of the LLC would say for

19:52

sure. This work is

19:54

needed now, and the LLC has the

19:56

resources and the know-how to do it.

20:00

But when it comes to who

20:02

has authority, Ray and others are

20:04

asking like, with the living

20:06

language that doesn't have one clear

20:08

standardized writing system already, who

20:11

gets to decide the correct way to

20:13

write and speak the language? Especially

20:16

when there are so many regional

20:18

and generational differences. But even

20:21

more fundamentally, some

20:23

Lakota people feel like maybe

20:26

they don't need one standardized

20:28

writing system. A

20:30

bunch already exist. And

20:33

having a variety of systems and

20:35

materials has worked for some people,

20:38

like Ray. What I use personally is

20:40

I typed up, me and a friend of mine,

20:43

we typed up all the

20:45

texts that we could basically find. And I

20:47

keep it in this huge PDF document. He

20:50

says a lot of people

20:53

don't know how many resources

20:55

exist from tribal colleges, elders,

20:57

tribes, curricula, dictionaries,

21:00

books. They're all out

21:02

there. One thing I like to do is

21:05

I get on the online databases or

21:07

Google Scholar or whatever, and I look for

21:09

whatever I can find on

21:11

there. And then also

21:14

I get on eBay. He found some

21:16

cassette tapes that way. I

21:19

bought them and then I put them in. This

21:22

old radio that my

21:24

dad gave me and I played

21:26

it. And it was the tapes

21:29

to these Black Hills

21:31

State University language

21:33

curriculum. Okay,

21:37

Christina, I totally understand

21:40

what Ray is doing and

21:42

why it feels more organic to

21:44

the way the Lakota language has

21:47

actually worked throughout time. But

21:49

having one place you go

21:51

to and

21:54

know that you're learning the right things might

21:57

just be more convenient. Like...

22:00

Not everyone is going to have the time

22:03

and motivation to find cassette tapes on eBay

22:05

or know how to use cassette tapes. I

22:08

mean, that's a good point. And

22:10

actually, one elder who worked with

22:12

the LLC remarked that

22:14

two generations of Lakota language students

22:16

on Standing Rock have

22:18

learned using LLC materials. At

22:22

this point, maybe removing them would

22:24

be detrimental to those students' learning.

22:27

For people like Alex Firethunder, who

22:29

lives on Pine Ridge, having one

22:32

standardized system has been incredibly helpful

22:34

in learning Lakota. In the LLC

22:36

materials, every word has the stress

22:38

marked where it goes. So

22:41

you know there's no guesswork, and

22:43

that really developed a confidence in

22:45

my speaking. So this

22:48

stuff works for some people, but

22:51

Parker, people like Ray are

22:53

really worried about trading convenience

22:56

for ownership. And the

22:58

bigger question here is

23:01

if Lakota people are involved in

23:03

making LLC materials, why should this

23:05

separate company have control over those

23:08

materials, not the elder speakers or

23:10

tribes? And if

23:12

the LLC controls those

23:14

recordings, etc., does the

23:16

language still belong to the Lakota

23:18

people? And this has

23:21

become another giant part of

23:23

this discussion. A language cannot

23:25

be copyrighted in general. It's

23:27

not a thing that is

23:29

like that. That's Wilhelm

23:31

Meijer again. Remember, he's one

23:33

of the original founders of the LLC,

23:36

and technically you cannot

23:38

copyright a language. But

23:42

there are ways even that

23:44

basic fact gets

23:46

complicated. Because

23:50

you can copyright materials

23:54

in that language. And

23:56

maybe if you copyright enough materials

23:58

of something like Lakota, that

24:00

doesn't have a standardized version. You

24:03

can end up owning a

24:06

language. Essentially, in that

24:08

you can control how it's taught

24:10

or learned, who has access to

24:12

materials. There's a broader

24:14

discussion about this all over the world,

24:16

but I want to share one example.

24:19

So something like this happened

24:21

with the Penobscot Nation in Maine, where

24:24

one linguist basically ended up copywriting so

24:26

much of their language materials that

24:28

it was pretty much like he owned it. And

24:31

that ownership didn't go back to the tribe

24:33

once that linguist died. The way copyright law

24:35

works, it will eventually go into the public

24:37

domain, and that's not what

24:40

a lot of tribes want, either. So

24:42

going back to the LLC, they

24:44

control more than just the written

24:46

works that they've copyrighted. When they

24:49

record Lakota speakers, they have

24:51

speakers sign release forms. That's how

24:53

it usually goes, right? It is. But

24:56

for a while, the LLC was

24:58

on the far end of the

25:00

spectrum, because until Alex Firethunder joined

25:02

the organization, the LLC was

25:05

the sole owner of the materials they

25:07

gathered. Now, speakers have

25:09

more choice when it comes to

25:11

who ultimately owns the recording, but

25:13

before, through those previous forms, the

25:15

LLC was asserting ownership over an

25:18

initial recording, as well as whatever

25:20

was shared and whatever was developed

25:22

from that original source material, including

25:25

things like stories that Ray's grandmother

25:27

told, or pictures the LLC shot

25:29

of Dolores. I

25:32

was completely shocked. I

25:35

was really hurt by that. How

25:39

can an outside

25:41

entity keep my grandmother

25:43

from me? Ray,

25:45

as the appointed spokesman for his family

25:48

on the issue, has been trying to

25:50

get his grandmother's materials from the LLC.

25:54

What I want is all of the

25:56

intellectual property rights given back to our

25:59

family. All

26:01

the audio, the recordings,

26:04

the pictures, the licensing,

26:06

everything. The full assignment of

26:08

rights being given back to our family. The

26:13

LLC says they did share Dolores'

26:15

recordings with Ray's family. According

26:18

to a post on their website, they returned recordings to

26:20

Ray's family in September of 2020 and again in September

26:22

of 2021. The

26:27

more fundamental point of tension seems

26:29

to be that Ray's

26:31

version of getting those materials

26:33

back and the LLC's version

26:36

differ. Ray says

26:38

the LLC gave him copies. He

26:41

wants the originals. Ray

26:43

says he wants Dolores' voice and her

26:45

image to be protected under federal and

26:47

tribal law so no one can exploit

26:50

or make money off of them. Because

26:53

without the originals, it's still someone

26:55

else's call about what can be

26:57

done with the materials. Who

26:59

can use them? How they can be referenced.

27:05

We cannot withdraw the copyright unless

27:07

we're given a perpetual license to

27:10

continue to use the material because

27:12

the dictionary… During the hearing,

27:14

Jan said the LLC is a publishing

27:16

house and they've published their dictionary, their

27:19

grammar book, their textbooks. They

27:21

do offer some materials for free,

27:23

like their dictionary app, but withdrawing

27:26

copyrights would mean

27:29

stopping the presses. Who's

27:31

going to benefit from that? Are the schools going

27:33

to benefit from the fact that we have to

27:35

stop printing the dictionary that Dolores Dechmoye wanted to

27:37

be printed for? We

27:40

sell it because it costs money to print and

27:42

people buy them for our

27:45

schools. They have to buy textbooks and things.

27:48

But really I couldn't put a price tag on it for

27:50

you. It's invaluable to me. These

27:53

language materials are invaluable to

27:55

Alex, but Dolores's

27:57

recordings are invaluable to me. Ray

28:00

too. You know, my grandma

28:02

would say things and she would give me a

28:04

word and she'd say, takouja, that one's not in

28:06

the dictionary. And

28:08

I wish I could hold on to those. I wish I would have

28:10

really sunk my teeth into those and

28:12

held on to those. So

28:16

what's he doing to get his grandma back?

28:19

So for the past three years,

28:22

Ray has been pushing some

28:24

boundaries. He asked

28:26

the LLC in private messages and

28:28

emails, as well as through social

28:30

media to stop using Dolores' materials.

28:33

He shared videos calling out the

28:35

LLC and publicizing what's happening. And

28:38

in October 2021, Ray confronted

28:41

the LLC at an indigenous

28:43

education conference. That's my grandma.

28:46

You don't have permission to do this. Ray

28:48

grabbed stacks of pamphlets with Dolores' image

28:50

on them from an LLC table. This

28:53

was all recorded. He

28:55

posted that video online, which wound

28:58

up ruffling some feathers. All

29:00

of this escalated to a cease and desist

29:02

letter from the LLC and later a 23-page

29:04

complaint against

29:08

Ray with the South Dakota Education

29:10

Department's ethics board. Mr. Tingled will

29:12

testify that my clients were improperly

29:14

displaying an image of his grandmother

29:17

Dolores taking a life on two

29:19

of their sets of materials. Which

29:22

is how we ended up at that

29:24

ethics hearing in Pierre, South Dakota. Yeah,

29:27

that was the LLC's lawyer you just

29:30

heard, Matthew Minsky, laying out their case

29:32

against Ray. In the

29:34

most extreme scenario for Ray, because

29:36

of the LLC's complaint, Ray

29:39

could have lost his teaching license. He

29:42

decided to create his own set of Lakota learning

29:44

materials and introduce

29:46

them at McLaughlin's School District. Mainly,

29:49

Mr. Tingled's conduct constitutes theft. Since this occurred

29:51

in Nebraska, we have to look at the

29:54

LLC's Hold up. The

29:56

LLC was accusing Ray of

29:58

theft for making

30:00

language materials with copyrighted

30:03

LLC stuff? It sure

30:05

sounds like it, which was one of Ray's

30:07

big issues from the beginning. The

30:09

idea that he could be given his

30:12

grandmother's stuff back, but still not be

30:14

entitled to use it. That's like

30:16

saying we gave you your land

30:18

back, and then accusing you of

30:20

trespassing. Did you really get your land back? This

30:23

is like Shakespearean intrigue.

30:26

The theft, the betrayal, the

30:28

fight over a family legacy. But,

30:32

Christina, after

30:35

hearing these different people express

30:37

their perspectives, I guess I'm wondering

30:39

like, who's

30:42

right? Yeah. Is

30:45

Ray justified in wanting his grandmother's

30:47

materials back and wanting the

30:49

tribe to have control over the Lakota

30:51

language? Or is the

30:54

LLC justified in wanting to hold

30:56

tight to these copyrights so

30:58

that they can continue producing

31:00

language materials that do benefit

31:02

communities? Oof.

31:07

So it depends on how

31:09

you look at that. You

31:12

can analyze it in legal terms,

31:15

in practical terms, in

31:17

ethical terms. One of

31:19

the challenges of copyright law is that

31:21

we're working within a realm

31:23

of property and making things

31:26

into property that perhaps

31:29

should never be

31:31

considered property in the first place. That's

31:34

Jane Anderson. She's a lawyer

31:36

who specializes in copyright law and

31:38

issues of indigenous sovereignty. And

31:41

so copyright law upholds a certain kind

31:43

of property logic and

31:47

that runs counter to

31:50

how indigenous peoples and

31:52

communities understand their language

31:54

materials, for instance, not

31:56

as property, but as a

31:59

culture. cultural gifts

32:02

that continue from the ancestors

32:04

into the future. That's not

32:06

property. So

32:10

Parker, there are laws

32:12

and regulations that were specifically

32:15

designed to protect Indigenous cultures.

32:18

The United Nations Declaration on the

32:20

Rights of Indigenous Peoples says, Indigenous

32:23

peoples have the right to revitalize,

32:25

use, develop and transmit their histories,

32:28

languages, oral traditions, philosophies,

32:31

writing systems, literatures. Then

32:33

there's the Native American Language Act of 1990, and

32:37

it states that it's U.S. policy to

32:39

promote the rights of Native Americans to

32:41

use, practice and develop Native American languages.

32:45

And tribal nations also have their own

32:47

protections and their own laws. In

32:49

the case of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, where

32:51

Ray is a citizen, where Dolores was a citizen,

32:54

there's a language resolution that was passed by

32:56

tribal council, resolution 15022, in

33:00

which Standing Rock asserts,

33:02

quote, inherent retained intellectual

33:04

property rights, end

33:07

quote, in perpetuity. So forever

33:11

for anything related to the

33:13

language and anything recorded or

33:15

photos taken of any tribal member

33:18

and their descendants. That

33:21

seems pointed. It

33:23

is. Copyright law really

33:26

was not developed as a tool

33:28

to support oral cultures or

33:30

Indigenous people generally. It

33:33

was a tool to support written

33:37

cultures and to

33:39

exploit knowledge. There's already

33:41

an inherent imbalance that

33:43

sits within the law. So

33:47

all of these questions about, you

33:49

know, who controls the

33:51

Lakota language, who does it belong

33:53

to, maybe it's not

33:55

just a legal problem. It's

33:58

an ethical, it's an equity. It's

34:00

a historical justice problem.

34:05

This conversation around ownership is happening

34:08

in a lot of different

34:10

spaces. And it's changing

34:12

quickly. Jay noted that

34:14

in asking who owns the language,

34:17

we're maybe using the wrong kinds

34:19

of words and concepts. Okay,

34:22

so what would she suggest instead?

34:25

Stewardship. Hmm. And

34:28

with stewardship, a

34:31

different combination of people can be part

34:34

of decision making. Tribal

34:36

council, elders, they

34:38

can all weigh in with different levels of

34:40

authority, which leads to a

34:43

different kind of relationship, but also

34:45

different kinds of questions. How

34:47

do you look after the

34:50

ecosystem around language-speaking,

34:55

cultural knowledge that comes from language

34:58

that is a lot bigger than

35:00

just, you know, who

35:03

owns this tape? So

35:07

where does this leave Ray and Alex

35:09

right now? So Ray

35:12

got to keep his teaching license, going back

35:14

to that hearing. Alright. Yeah,

35:17

he's still doing curriculum work.

35:19

He's actually working with Marvel

35:22

to create a Lakota language dub of

35:24

the Avengers through Standing Rock. But

35:28

Ray still doesn't have the rights

35:31

to his grandmother's materials. So

35:34

he's still working with Standing Rock to figure out

35:36

a way to get them. Like

35:39

that very small and

35:41

also very big fight is

35:44

very much still happening. Alright,

35:48

what about Alex? The

36:00

Oglala Sioux Tribe passed

36:02

a resolution in January

36:04

seeking funding for LLC

36:06

programming. But Alex

36:09

is now dealing with the same big

36:11

questions that Yann was about

36:14

how to both share ownership and

36:16

maintain copyright so you can print

36:19

materials. So Ray and

36:21

Alex are kind of at

36:24

an impasse. They kind of are at an

36:26

impasse and in a way so

36:29

is the language. For

36:31

all of the work that Alex

36:34

and Ray are both doing individually,

36:36

the number of

36:38

fluent Lakota speakers has

36:40

gone down and that's

36:42

frustrating. We wouldn't be

36:44

in this situation with our language if

36:47

it weren't for the colonial systems that have been imposed on

36:49

us. For me,

36:51

the overlying mission is

36:54

to do what's best for the language and

36:57

dividing our people is not what's best for the

36:59

language. You

37:03

know, we've been talking to the

37:06

younger generation who is part of this

37:08

story now but all

37:10

of this makes me think of Dolores

37:12

again and some of what her grandfather

37:14

told her. Don't ever lose your Lakota

37:16

language. Always

37:18

remember and speak your Lakota language.

37:21

I feel like Ray and Alex

37:23

are both kind of holding fast

37:26

to that. In their own ways,

37:28

they are. But

37:30

they're focusing on different parts of the message.

37:34

Alex is focused on the don't lose it

37:36

part. He's doing everything

37:38

he can to make sure that the

37:41

Lakota language is codified and written

37:43

down and preserved so it can never

37:45

be lost. But

37:48

for Ray, it seems like the

37:50

focus is on the idea that

37:52

Lakota, this is his language. And

37:55

this language, the Lakota language, it

37:58

belongs to the Lakota people. Here's

38:01

the Lorus again. No matter

38:03

how educated you are, in

38:06

order for you to translate our

38:08

Lakota language, which is

38:11

ours, but if I speak

38:13

my truest Lakota language,

38:16

you will be able to translate

38:18

that. And

38:21

that's worth remembering too, that different

38:24

people, Jan, Wilhelm, Jane,

38:26

you, me, we can all

38:30

think about the situation and try to make

38:32

sense of it and debate who's right and

38:34

who's wrong, but maybe

38:37

there's a truer, deeper,

38:39

more fundamental part of the

38:41

story that we'll never be able

38:43

to quite capture because

38:46

it's not ours and

38:48

we don't have the words to hear it. Thanks

38:57

to our friends at NPR's Code Switch

38:59

Podcast for bringing us this important story

39:02

and check out their upcoming series

39:04

digging into the nationwide battles over

39:06

book bands. They'll be asking,

39:08

what are we fighting over and who's

39:10

engaged in the fights? And be sure

39:12

to subscribe to Code Switch wherever you

39:14

get your podcasts. This

39:17

episode was produced by Xavier Lopez,

39:19

Courtney Stein, and Christina Kala. It

39:21

was edited by Leah Danella and

39:23

Courtney Stein. Robert Rodriguez was the

39:25

engineer. A big shout out

39:27

to the rest of the Code Switch

39:30

team, Jess Kung, Dahlia Mortanda, Varylyn Williams,

39:32

Jean Denby, and Lori Lizzarraga. And

39:35

before we go, just a reminder that in a

39:37

few days, we'll be launching our new series, 40

39:40

Acres and a Lie. It's about

39:42

a pivotal period in history after the

39:44

Civil War and promises that were made

39:46

to newly freed black people and then

39:49

broken. It's a moment in

39:51

time that I thought I understood, but really

39:53

didn't. I think you'll be surprised too. Be

39:56

sure to listen starting June 15th. I'm

39:59

Al Ledson. And remember, there

40:01

is always more to the story.