In 2016, I started as a transfer student at Western Carolina University. I found out we offered Cherokee as a “foreign” language and thought “ooh! I want to learn that!” The second semester of that class we visited the children of the Cherokee Immersion School on the reservation to understand the work they were doing to revitalize the language. When you first entered the school, there was a board in the hallway filled with names. Some of those names had red lines through them and a date. Curiosity got the best of me and I asked what the board was for. The answer they gave became the reason I am so passionate about my work.
You see, the board was a list of all the fluent speakers left in Cherokee. Those red lines and dates? Those were the dates of that person's passing. What struck me was that all the speakers left fit on that board and year by year they became fewer and fewer with no one to replace them. When I was approached with an opportunity to begin work on the Cherokee Language Teaching Archive, I jumped on it.
To me, understanding what is important to a group of people is paramount in your ability to represent them. In archiving, it is the love of the language and need to prevent the death of a language that spurs me on. In any other situation, it would be different based on the needs of those I am working for. Below are the results of exercises that pushed me to explore the meaning of what I do and why.
These works illustrate what I would like to work towards as a professional. Using the information I have learned, the want to tell all the stories for those who can’t, and the privileges I have been given to form my direction I created what I feel is the definition of what I will strive towards as an archivist.
Articulation of My Professional Path (LS 513 – Professional Paths)
Personal Values and Ethics Statement (LS 555 – Archival Appraisal)
You see, the board was a list of all the fluent speakers left in Cherokee. Those red lines and dates? Those were the dates of that person's passing. What struck me was that all the speakers left fit on that board and year by year they became fewer and fewer with no one to replace them. When I was approached with an opportunity to begin work on the Cherokee Language Teaching Archive, I jumped on it.
To me, understanding what is important to a group of people is paramount in your ability to represent them. In archiving, it is the love of the language and need to prevent the death of a language that spurs me on. In any other situation, it would be different based on the needs of those I am working for. Below are the results of exercises that pushed me to explore the meaning of what I do and why.
These works illustrate what I would like to work towards as a professional. Using the information I have learned, the want to tell all the stories for those who can’t, and the privileges I have been given to form my direction I created what I feel is the definition of what I will strive towards as an archivist.
Articulation of My Professional Path (LS 513 – Professional Paths)
Personal Values and Ethics Statement (LS 555 – Archival Appraisal)