William Heafey | Summer Internship - Northwest Indian Language Institute (University of Oregon)

In Summer 2024, I interned at the Northwest Indian Language Institute (NILI) at the University of Oregon. NILI conducts research and outreach activities about indigenous languages and communities, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.

During my internship, I worked on language revitalization, community-based educational programs and creating materials for language instruction. Supporting NILI’s Summer Institute, I worked with language teachers and representatives from tribal communities from across the United States and Canada. Attendees shared strategies, approaches and cultural practices to support indigenous language learning and usage in their communities.

I was drawn to the work of NILI as part of my concentration in the U.S. and Latin American social history, in which I focus particularly on the Western United States. The post-colonial history of the indigenous West is marked by waves of genocide, violent dispossession and forceable cultural erasure. That history has left many communities without speakers or even detailed records of their native languages. For those languages that have survived, generations of suppression and devaluation have left their mark. Even today as more attention and effort is afforded to revitalization, the increased dominance of English has actually accelerated native language decline, leaving many languages spoken only by community elders. Institutions like NILI and the teachers it works with are taking significant steps in the right direction, though, and show that decline is not inevitable for indigenous languages.

Working with NILI emphasized the importance of language in understanding community histories and has pushed me to continue to learn about language and incorporate it into its broader historical and social context. As I study social histories, being part of NILI this summer has given me the opportunity to connect that study with their contemporary impacts and the task of using historical knowledge to work towards justice and healing. Coming out from this summer, I intend to continue working to further my understanding of the communities that make up American history and work for policies and strategies for the future.