X’unei Lance Twitchell teaches an advanced Tlingít course at University of Alaska Southeast on April 29, 2024.
The classroom is a microcosm of the change Twitchell and other members of the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council called for statewide: An Alaska committed to increasing the number of Alaska Native language speakers and promoting common use of the languages. “We wanted to make sure that at least we would challenge people to not just receive it and move on. However, there hasn’t been any real action on it,” Twitchell said.
A decade has passed since the last legislation to support Alaska Native languages became law. In 2014, the state updated a 1998 law that recognized Alaska Native languages as would expand and rename the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council, as well as add three previously unrecognized Alaska Native languages to the list of official state languages.
“I think to ask Alaska as an entity to see itself as something more than just whiteness is a big ask,” he said. “But I think it has to happen, if you’re going to have the diversity that should be here, and the plurality that should be here.”
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