Note: The following opinion by Delphine Red Shirt appears in the current issue of the Native Sun News.

When I come back for the annual Lakota, Dakota, Nakota Language Summit, I feel the same as when I come home for any event. That is, as soon as I arrive, I start feeling sad, anticipating the time I will have to leave. I spent all my time there, at the language summit, soaking up the knowledge, we last speakers of our language, want to pass on to keep the language alive.

This year at the summit, I lost my voice. Common sense tells me it was from a cold but my heart, my cante, tells me that it was from the realization that we are the last of the generation raised in the language; including Arvol Looking Horse, the Canupa Wakan Keeper, and all the others, who taught aspects of the language there at the summit. We are the ones whose parents spoke it and lived it.

Years ago when Stanley Looking Horse invited my mother to his home at Green Grass during a sun dance I went along with her. We sat under a shade, in the summer heat, with Arvol’s mother. They did not speak English, nor was there any need for it. After many cups of hot sugared tea, smiles, and laughter we left. My two young daughters don’t remember that time, but the next day when we left Green Grass and headed south toward Rosebud, an eagle came down and its wing touched the side of the car I was in. I was driving and I saw the great bird’s wing swoop down and touch the car. I heard my mother in the tape recording we made that day; it was the beginning of my second book about my mother’s life. She saw it as a good sign.

Little did I know then that we would work so hard to keep the language alive. The time at the Looking Horse’s sitting under the shade, I did not know how quickly we would lose it, this language that is our culture. I grew up taking them, and it, for granted. What I have in common with everyone I see at the language summit is not just concern for the loss of our language, but concern for our families. Those at home, or with us, and how, within those families we all strive for happiness. That is what drives us. It is what we have in common with our ancestors who spoke the language to each other in close-knit circles.

The only time, I emerge from the language summit is to see family. Mostly we eat together- just like the old days. What my own mother would say to me, lo-ya-cin-he? Are you hungry? Han, lo-wa-chin; Yes, I am hungry.

What I sense as I move around Rapid City is a parallel world of thriving happy families, but none from any of the communities I grew up in. Our own families are always on the verge of dysfunction. How can this be if both sides, indeed, all cultures value family? I see it as a lack of opportunity for the young Lakota/Dakota/Nakota in non-Native communities like Rapid City. A lack of concern on the part of Rapid City to reach across racial divides and help its less fortunate citizens through the simplest of jobs; providing opportunity for Native youth and young people.

I remember working as a motel maid in Rapid City and walking to Central High to attend classes as a sophomore in high school. I remember being hungry after work and buying candy on the way to school to keep the taste of sugar on my tongue during history at Central High. I cleaned rooms with older women, something I won’t ever forget. It taught me the value of staying in school and finishing. More important, someone at that motel hired me, gave me a job, an opportunity to earn a paycheck that meant a whole lot to a young girl.

When Rapid City provides jobs for young people, at all levels, even internships in business, the community as a whole will prosper. They will see whole happy Lakota/Dakota/Nakota families productive in their community. Young families and their young children are our hope for the future. They are our hope for the survival of our language, our culture. We need to support them, give them the dignity to earn their way to a better future. I know, because someone gave me a job when I needed to learn the value of what it meant to stay in school, no matter what.

Delphine Red Shirt is the author of Bead on an Ant Hill and Turtle Lung Woman’s Granddaughter. She can be reached at: dredshirt@aol.com