Aloha to the page of a wanderlusting writer juggling college life and several other hobbies into an eternally-short 24-hour day. I hope to shed light on the Dartmouth experience as I explore the brave new world of Hanover, NH and everything going to college here has to offer. In my free time, you can find me trying to learn a new language or building the perfect Spotify playlist (alternative/indie, anyone?). I hope you enjoy!
Taught by Gordon Henry, an Anishinaabe poet and author, this class taught me to explore Indigenous storytelling within digital contexts. I took this class with only seven other classmates, allowing us to really engage with films, comic books, and television shows in Indigenous languages or produced by Indigenous artists.
Taught by Timothy Pulju, this class taught me how to identify and understand how languages evolve over time and why. I analyzed and reconstructed fictional languages of imaginary nations in order to understand the link between language and culture, and ended up having such an appreciation for the complexity and beauty of language's place in history!
Taught by Lindsay Whaley, this class let me discover a newfound love for ancient apocalyptic literature. We analyzed ancient texts and compared them to modern apocalypses, looking at the zombie apocalypse phenomenon and other apocalypses in pop culture and comparing them to the ancient tradition of writing apocalypses. Additionally, I learned the Greek alphabet and now I can even stumble through ancient Greek passages.
FallNew Orleans, LA
Favorite Class: Native American Literature and the Law
Taught and organized by David Peterson, this class let me get into the shoes of a real linguist as we did fieldwork (virtually!!) with the Zophei language. I learned how to describe a never-before-learned language's phonology (sound system), how to characterize its grammar and words, and ultimately got to present my research to experts in the language family around the world in a workshop at the end of the term!
WinterHanover, NH
Favorite Class: Native American Literature and the Law
Taught by N. Bruce Duthu, this class taught me how Native literature can provide lens by which to evaluate, critique, and ultimately revise Federal Indian Law. During this class, I read works by Native authors like Tommy Orange and Louise Erdrich '76 alongside the opinions of definitive case opinions in American law and explained how literature can be a catalyst for Indigenous sovereignty.
Supervised by N. Bruce Duthu, I spent this off-term performing research after being awarded a Sophomore Research Scholarship to study contemporary Hawaiian cultural and linguistic revitalization. I studied 19th-century newspapers and contemporary Hawaiian texts in order to understand how Hawaiian language revitalization both past and present has advanced and continues to enable a contemporary bodied Hawaiian politic of sovereignty.
Taught by Laura McPherson, this class taught me about how languages create meaning through words. During this class, I learned how to analyze different languages' morphological processes and compare different approaches within the field as to morphological structures.
Taught by N. Bruce Duthu, this class offered me a glimpse into the lived realities of Native people in Indian Country Today. I learned about the economic, social, cultural, and historical roots for the struggles of Indigenous people today within the United States, and was able to write about the contemporary battle for Native Hawaiian visibility and Hawaiian sovereignty.
Taught by Laura McPherson, this class taught me how to engage in language documentation and how, as a linguist, we can put our skills to use to help communities seeking to document and revitalize their languages. I worked on the Satawalese language, spoken on the island of Satawal in the Federated States of Micronesia. Ultimately, my team created two dictionaries - one in English, one in Hawaiian, a website, and several materials that focused on the Satawalese tradition of wayfinding and non-instrumental ocean navigation.
Taught by Charles Eastman fellow Sunaina Kale, this class taught me about the role of sound in delineating, conceiving, and comprehending relations between people and the land in Indigenous musical traditions. Over the course of the class, we discussed Indigenous musicians, listened to music from Native peoples around the world, heard from masterful Indigenous musicians, and ultimately presented a project that creatively analyzed a song of our choice. My project focused on the song "Ask Yourself" by Foster the People, and I wrote a poem that integrated aspects of Indigenous languages and worldviews to answer questions posed by the song.
This term, I formally began the research process for my upcoming honors thesis in the Linguistics department on Hawaiian semantics! While living in Hanover, I also began working as a Senior Fellow with the Admissions department—a position I will be holding for the entirety of my last year at Dartmouth.
Language Revitalization: Heritage Languages at Dartmouth
I've always had a vested interest in languages. From birth, I grew up hearing my quadrilingual mom speak to her friends and family in rapid Filipino languages and remember using my dad's computer to learn basic French and Spanish as a four-year-old. This love for language never died, and I was inspired to come to a place like Dartmouth which not only featured so many languages in its curriculum, but also where enrolled students speak languages that span the world.
Only a few centuries ago, preceding the Age of Colonization, the world was much more linguistically diverse. Many languages spoken across the Americas and the Pacific have since suffered greatly if have not gone extinct altogether (meaning all of its speakers die out). Since coming to Dartmouth and taking a class within both the Linguistics and Native American Studies departments, I've started to explore and research the topic of language revitalization -- the process by which linguists, the government, and educators work together to revive languages by increasing their use. In a world where English has become overwhelmingly spoken worldwide, many smaller languages are being lost to history or, in extreme cases, disappearing with little trace.
There are numerous indigenous languages spoken by the Native communities nationwide in the continental United States, Alaska, and in Hawaiʻi. Among myself and my Native friends, the experiences learning our heritage languages (languages spoken by our ancestors) range from having taken ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian) and Choctaw in high school as an elective or class to hearing the language spoken by family members and elders within the community.
In the summer prior to my arrival at Dartmouth, I started to learn Hawaiian. My experience was largely constrained to Duolingo and random websites, but I was inspired to study much more vigorously after learning that Dartmouth offers a special path for students who are interested in using their heritage languages to satisfy the Dartmouth Language Requirement.
Because Dartmouth doesn't offer classes in languages like Hawaiian, Mohawk, or Tlingit, or any Indigenous language of the United States, I was able to reach out to Professor Nicholas Reo, a Professor within the Native American Studies Department (NAS) and himself a student of the Ojibwe Language, his heritage language. I attended an open house with Professor Reo in the Homelands Studio, a space for students interested in the intersection between indigenous stewardship and environmental studies. He laid out several options for me that enabled me to choose Hawaiian as the language to satisfy Dartmouth's Language Requirement. I plan on continuing to self-study the language in my free time before taking an Independent Study within NAS during the Spring Term to structure an individualized class for myself to attain the conversational fluency necessary to meet Dartmouth's requirement.
As part of my planned Linguistics major, additional language classes are required beyond satisfying the language requirement. Curious, I emailed the Department Chair of the Linguistics department, Professor James Stanford, and not only was he incredibly receptive to the idea of my using Hawaiian, but said if I was interested in taking more advanced classes in the future to satisfy additional major requirements that this was a definite possibility and he'd love to speak about it later if I ever decide on that course of action.
The United Nations declared 2019 the Year of Indigenous Languages, and I think it's super fitting that it should also mark my arrival at a place like Dartmouth with so many options to Indigenize my academic career. Choosing Hawaiian over Spanish or French is an actively more difficult path necessitating more individual exertion, but I wouldn't have it any other way. It's an incomparably redeeming when you're actively learning a language of your ancestors with (moderate) success on occasion, and every new word inspires me to keep going.
Dartmouth allowing Indigenous students to use their heritage languages as a way to satisfy an academic requirement has been a longstanding tradition, but to have new rules and guidelines in place that offer structure to those of us who don't already speak our heritage languages to eventually arrive at that place is a very humbling gift that I couldn't be happier to embrace. Aloha nō until next time!
At Dartmouth, there is an undergraduate requirement for language; after all, it is the liberal arts! Fulfilling this requirement looks different for various people and I will focus on my experience.
On Monday, April 8, 2024, a phenomenal total solar eclipse occurred — and we happened to be within the path of totality. As a result, Dartmouth hosted a variety of eclipse-related events on- and off-campus. Find out how I spent the eclipse!
Traditionally, Dartmouth students take three courses during a term, but I decided to take four courses this term! Learn about course load and the academic system at Dartmouth.
