Why reclaim your name?

This blog is an attempt to make connections between people of indigenous cultures and languages who are  under negative pressure from the larger cultures and languages.  
While this blog is using one of the worlds most widely spoken and youngest languages, English.  The paradox  of this is that this very language and culture which has had the single biggest negative impact on indigenous people, languages and cultures, can now act as a pathway between us.  We can use English language to share our diversity, gain strength from each other and reclaim our own ways as local and global people.

Story
Story connects all of us, our families, our peoples, our tribes and our cultures.  We have always used story to help us learn and share value.  Today the voice and story of indigenous cultures is rarely heard, less and less people from the dominated cultures use their native names or value their traditional ways.
'Reclaim Your Name' is a signal and a metaphor for regaining your positive and personal power.  Native peoples have in many cases be forced to give up their names and to take up foreign names of the dominating culture.  In other cases names have been corrupted or translated from their own original form to make them more 'civilized' and easily pronounced by a colonial culture that values little beyond itself.  Other indigenous people live in a kind of twilight or duality, using one name within their own culture and then a more acceptable name outside it which is more palatable and perhaps 'less offensive' to the dominant culture.

Destruction of names is a very power signal from colonizers that says "Your way is not important, it is weak, it is old and outdated, it has no part in the modern world".

By reclaiming our names we say " We are important, all diversity and all peoples are important, we cherish our ancestors and love our children. Diversity is what connects us to all things and it is this that allows us to value all people".

We invite you as individuals from minority indigenous cultures and peoples  to share your own personal stories of positivity so we can learn and gain strength from each other.