Root Tongue at Cal State East Bay!

Thanks to the dedicated work of my students Ailing Cheng and Sean Jacob Torralba, we held a virtual event bringing together Cal State East Bay students, alums, scholars, artists and audiences for a night of rich conversations on heritage and minority language survival.

This event was organized as a contribution to Native American Heritage Month to further recognize, understand and celebrate the history, culture and contributions of indigenous peoples throughout the U.S. Among the 6,000 or so languages in the world, an average of two languages disappear each month. Since the systematic suppression of indigenous languages by U.S. settler colonists, linguicide today is generally a slow death, and sometimes not apparent until the last speaker is remaining.

A BIG thank you to those who made this event a success!
CSUEB:: Glenn Brewster, Dr. Mary Cardaras, Katherine Daval-Santos, Danuta Sawka, Dr. Maria Ortuoste, Jeff Seitz, Anne Wing
Event Organization:: Ailing Cheng, Tosh Tanaka, Sean Jacob Torralba
Publicity:: Ailing Cheng, Julie Ann Yuen
Root Tongue Support:: Biagio Azzarelli, Ivan Poza, Michella Rivera-Gravage
Panelists:: Lonny J. Avi Brooks, Kea‘iai‘maikalani Kaholoa‘a, Sean Jacob Torralba, Andrew Wong