My good friend Kaila shared a few of her experiences & thoughts when I told her I was making a

website for women of color (thank you Kaila!). She is also the beautiful woman who is featured on the
home page photo in the corn fields!
Kaila means the world to me and I wanted to learn more about her Native American background.
I focused on language.
During my fall semester, I read an article called Gee you don't seem like an Indian from the
reservation, by Barbara Cameron. The article starts off mentioning the Lakota (a Native American
language) word for white. Wasico is the word. It designates white people. Just like white people
designate everyone else who isn't white. The author discusses ways in which Native Americans have
had to assimilate into white culture.
Tradition, culture, language, it's stripped from them. Their land, it has been and continues to be stripped
from them. White people like to interject when they feel something isn't right or it could be better.
BUT THAT'S NOT HOW IT SHOULD BE.
Alienation and assimilation are two common words used to describe contemporary Indian people.
I've come to despise those two words because what leads to alienation and assimilation should not
be so concisely defined. The alienation or assimilation that I manifest is often in how I speak
-Barbara Cameron
Language is so important for cultural purposes and cultural appropriation has deprived Native Tribes of
this. They, the powerful white folk, expect the indigenous people to accommodate them and know their
language. We should use language to show our understating of other cultures and lives. Instead of
thinking Native Americans aren't articulate, let's use embrace different languages and different dialects
to enable connections with other people and make sense of our experience.