"We Are Still Here" Reflection

The Native American culture in the US has had some problems over the recent years. Native Americans say that no one is passing down their culture from generation to generation, and schools forbidding children to speak their native language. All they know about their culture is what schools teach them, and that isn’t a lot of information.

The younger generations as well can’t really speak the language. They might understand a few words, but they cannot carry out a conversation like the older generations can. Today, they are trying to let the young children learn how to speak the native language and letting them go to a Native American school. They’re speaking the native language more at home and not only in school as well. This can help preserve the local culture and this is what both videos have said about Native American culture.

A connection I can make is text-to-self. In my family, we are Chinese but my parents never really spoke to me in Chinese that much. We speak English everyday and Chinese once in a while, but that is about it. My school also only wants us to speak in English, because it’s an American school so I only know a little Chinese. This can connect to some Native American families, because the younger generation doesn’t know much about their culture, just like me and they can’t spread it to their kids.

I believe that the Native American culture should be preserved. This is because they were the first native people in America and they helped create the United States. If their culture disappears forever, no one would know how the first people in the U.S. lived before, or what language they spoke before English. History would be changed and it would be harder to get information about the past. All in all, the Native American culture should be preserved so that it won’t disappear forever.