A celebration is set for Saturday in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Sitka Native Education Program teaching Indigenous culture, language, song and dance to the Native children in Sitka.
The event will be 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Harrigan Centennial Hall, with the work that's been done on display and students demonstrating what they've learned through the program. Everyone is invited to attend.
Since its founding in 1974, the cultural revitalization program has offered classes in traditional Lingít song, dance and language to Alaska Native kids from kindergarten through high school.
“We are celebrating 50 years of the SNEP program, and we're taking it as our opportunity to give back to the community, because there's no way that SNEP could have lasted this long without all the tireless volunteers, teachers, elders, all the people who have been perpetuating the program. There's no way we can be here as long as we have been without them,” program manager Koodéik’ Joseph Marks told the Sentinel.
The gathering will include students in various dance groups performing in what Marks called “a demonstration of koo.éex' knowledge.”
“We're taking this as a celebration of the community, and we're also using the event itself as a way to showcase and demonstrate specific knowledge that students in our programs need and families expect of our students,” he said. “So learning the specific songs, knowing when to sing them, why we sing them, all these different things are part of what in Lingít we call koo.éex'.”
The program operates in cooperation between Sitka Tribe of Alaska and the Sitka School District, and receives federal funding through Title VI Indian Education grants.
Marks, who is Kaagwaantaan, said the integration of language, song and dance, core aspects of the program, will be shown Saturday.
“The primary goal is for the instructors to have a heavier focus on the language, but specifically language that involves singing and dancing. We can do singing and dancing instruction all in Lingít, and also tell the history of the songs in Lingít. What does it mean to perform these songs, and how do you present this information in Lingít? That's what we are trying to do at the program and will be shown at the 50th,” Marks said.
The theme of the event is “because we cherish you.”
SSD cultural director Aanch Ganootk Jule LeBlanc, who is L’uknax.adi, said the longevity of the program is a sign of the durability of Lingít culture.
“This isn't just remembering the past, but also a call to action of how much we need to continue this for the next 50 years, and that while the political climate is creating some stress and tension around a lot of different topics, that we are still here, and we've been here through many different political climates, and we're not going anywhere,” LeBlanc said. “I think that is something that makes me feel less worried about having to navigate these times because we've been here for thousands of years. This is not new to our people; they have encountered stress, worldly stress, global stress time and time again, and we're still here. So I feel empowered and inspired by everyone who's in Sitka continuing that same message.”
Saturday’s celebration will commence with songs and dances before a welcome and meal, which will begin at 4 p.m. and is to be followed half an hour later by SNEP performances. There will be namings and adoptions, as well as a blanket ceremony to close out the gathering.
Participation in SNEP rose by about 125 percent over the past school year, with about 80 kids presently enrolled, LeBlanc said. Students are either citizens of Sitka Tribe of Alaska or have a Title VI Indian Education form on file with the school district.
Keet Tlaa Anne Johnson was one of the founding instructors of SNEP in 1974. She taught Lingít language as the program kicked off, and continues as an active teacher five decades later.
“I was the one that was the main language teacher as they taught song and dance and beading and drumming, but mine was mainly language," she said.
"It was kind of hard to do it, because when we were younger, we were forbidden to speak it,” Johnson recalled. “My mom would let us go by our grandma, because she just spoke Lingít, she didn't speak English. It was hard for me to do it.”
She said the best part of her role at SNEP has always been “the youngsters… That’s what all the instructors said, they were there for the kids. If it wasn't for the kids, they wouldn't be there.”
Other founders included Ḵaal.átk' Charlie Joseph, Sr. and Yeidikook’áa Isabella Brady, who was the grandmother of the current Sitka Tribal chair Yeidikook’áa Dionne Brady-Howard. Brady-Howard was enrolled in SNEP from its founding year, when she was a small child, and all the way through high school.
She credited Charlie Joseph Sr.,and others, for their work preserving traditional songs.
“He was the principle one who had most of the songs that we still have, in his memory, and preserved them… Without Charlie, we wouldn’t have all the songs that we have today.”
She continues to be active in the program today, teaching dance to kids.
“I think what was the most meaningful was just that it gave me a reason to really be proud of who I am,” Brady-Howard said. “And if you look now at a lot of the research that's been done regarding Indigenous people and education is that if Indigenous children are encouraged to be part of who they are and learn more about who they are, they're more likely to be successful in western education. And I think that it gave me that sense of self where I was able to continue on with my education successfully.”
The gathering on Saturday will be more than a celebration; it will send a grateful message to the community for the long-running support of SNEP.
“We wanted to celebrate the anniversary, but also we wanted to thank the community and the folks in the community who have supported the many facets of SNEP over the last five decades.”
In the 1970s and '80s, she noted, it was challenging to learn Lingít language anywhere, even at SNEP, and university courses such as those now offered at the University of Alaska and Outer Coast College were not yet an option.
“There are tons of opportunities out there for Lingít language learning now, but at the time that I graduated from high school in 1991 those just didn't exist,” Brady-Howard said.
She noted the uncertain state of federal funds at this time and historically, but was grateful for volunteer assistance with the program.
“I definitely am feeling apprehensive about it. But that being said, there's a handful of people who have been volunteering this year so that there would be more instructors for the second through fourth graders and the fifth graders,” Brady-Howard said.
She credited Johnson, as well as Daasdiyáa Ethel Makinen, Ḵaal.átk' Charlie Joseph Sr., Aanyáanáx̱ Tláa Annie Joseph, Sdi Sháa Mary Marks, Vida Davis, Mary Perkins, Ḵaat Shi Tláa Elizabeth Basco, Kaasanáḵ Annie Dick and Aanwug̱eex' Esther Littlefield with much of the work of carrying the program in its formative years.
LeBlanc also gave credit to Charlie Joseph Sr. for his role in forming the program with the goal of uplifting Indigenous children.
“It started with him seeing -- him and other elders – that students were hanging their heads low, and they wanted to uplift them and teach them who they are,” LeBlanc said. “And it was about bringing their identity back into their hands. And that's still exactly the thing that we're doing today, is giving students their identity, or giving them a sense of belonging, showing them who they are, where they came from.”
