"Language Is the Key": A Conversation with Cheyenne Language Protectors Michael Elizondo, Jr. and Chaz Meadows

On this episode of the special series featuring Native Language Protectors and Carriers, we reflect on the legacy of the Native American Languages Act of 1990 through the stories of Michael Elizondo, Jr. and Chaz Meadows. They are two citizens of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes who are reclaiming their languages, one word and one conversation at a time. From learning with elders and attending ceremonies to immersive master-apprentice programs and digital classes, they share how language connects to culture, humor, and identity—and why its survival is essential for future generations. 

Dr. Farina King narrates this episode, and special thanks to Brian D. King for editing the Language Protectors and Carriers series.

A Native of Oklahoma, Michael Elizondo, Jr. received his BFA from Oklahoma Baptist University (2008) and his MFA at the University of Oklahoma (2011). Elizondo has participated in numerous solo and group exhibits regionally and nationally. He has been a professor of fine art and art history at colleges and universities statewide, recently serving as the Director of the School of Art at Bacone College and Executive Director of Language and Culture with the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. Elizondo is currently focusing on his studio practices full-time.

Jonathan (Chaz) Meadows is a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes and a dedicated advocate for Indigenous cultural and linguistic revitalization. He earned dual bachelor's degrees in Native American & Indigenous Studies and Sociology from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, graduating with Cum Laude and Dean’s List honors. Jonathan is currently a graduate student at the University of Oklahoma, pursuing a master’s degree in Native American Studies. A former president of the Pujuta Tipi Society RSO, his academic and community work is deeply rooted in cultural preservation, language revitalization, and intergenerational knowledge transfer. He is an alumnus of the Wells Fargo, Indigenous Land & Language, American Indian Service, and Cheyenne & Arapaho Higher Education scholarship programs, and a former apprentice in the Cheyenne Language Master Apprenticeship Program. His work is grounded in a lifelong commitment to sustaining Indigenous lifeways for future generations.

Learn more about the efforts to protect and support the study of Native American languages (and all languages) at the University of Oklahoma through the following petitions:

Oppose the Removal of Foreign Language Gen Ed requirements at the University of Oklahoma

Keep Indigenous Languages Alive at OU

For more information about the Oklahoma Native American Youth Language Fair, see the hyperlink.

Learn more about Native American Languages at the University of Oklahoma.

We honor Cheyenne and Arapaho speakers of all generations of the past, present, and future such as Joyce Twins (1943-2020) who taught Cheyenne language for over 20 years, including for some time at the University of Oklahoma.

Transcript

On Oct. 30, 1990, the U.S. Congress passed the Native American Languages Act, a law that establishes policy to preserve, protect, and promote the rights of Native Americans to use, practice, and develop their languages. 

Throughout the course of U.S. history, federal policies toward Native Americans resulted in a decrease in the number of Native American languages, according to the ANA’s website, which is why the office offers grants to support Native Language Preservation and Maintenance. 

Michael Elizondo, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes and Cheyenne speaker has used an ANA grant to help him to continue to learn his family’s language. 

He started to learn the language from his grandmother Patricia Mouse Trail, who was from Seiling, Oklahoma, who he said was an influence on him in his language learning journey. 

“Whenever I was a teenager, I remember going to visit her, and I’d see her speaking Cheyenne to herself, and then she said that she wished that she had someone to talk, Cheyenne to,” Elizondo said. “She mentioned that it was getting harder for her to remember words and pronunciation, because it became a time in her life that she realized she wasn't using this all the time.”

“I told her, I said, I want to learn. I said, 'I like to talk with you,' and said 'talk to me,' and so she was kind of my first teacher, and ran into the language.”

“As I got older, opportunities were pretty scarce in learning. Outside of learning from her, my primary extended learning came from being around our ceremonies and the Native American church.”

He said he had also enrolled in community classes where he received an opportunity to work with the ANA’s Master Apprentice Grant, which helps Indigenous communities to maintain their languages. 

“I was part of the first group that participated in the Master Apprentice efforts and efforts towards immersion. Before that, it was all primarily a textbook and writing style of teaching, but as the master apprentice approach came towards the tribes, it was focused on conversations,” Elizondo said. “So throughout that time, they mentioned to me that as I worked as an apprentice, that my job was to not only learn, but share what I was learning with the communities.”

Chaz Meadows, a student at the University of Oklahoma and Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal member, also participates in the master program and said he felt a need to learn his family’s languages: Cheyenne and Arapaho. Like Elizondo, he started learning his languages from family members, as well as ceremonies and from the Native American Church. 

“I kind of was able to grow up with culture, you know, having a really strong culture around me,” Meadows said. 

Like Elizondo, his upbringing didn’t bring fluency in either language, so he started taking classes to immerse himself. 

“I made an obligation, you know, in high school that maybe one day that I'll be able to pick up the language acquisition of Cheyenne or Arapaho, and I made it kind of like a priority,” he said. 

Meadows attended Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado where he met fellow Cheyenne speakers who were committed to learning the language to fluency. He said one mentor, who he referred to as Brother Michael, would often joke in the Cheyenne language. 

“Just having good mentors, mentors around me that never, I guess, you could say, like, shut me down. Or, you know, always try to encourage, encourage learning just one word, one, one Cheyenne word, one Arapaho word today, you know, is good enough, is what they would encourage us to do,” Meadows said. 

“Just getting my hand in the works of the MA program over at the tribe is really eye-opening for me, because it emerged me into a different world that I'm familiar with, but was never familiar, you know, in that kind of sense, and it opened up a whole different perspective of my own culture.”

He said it is important for Native American people to learn their languages where possible. 

“They're embedded with their rich cultures and rich histories and perseverance that all indigenous people have been through, you know, and we speak of them by using the language,” he said. 

To improve his language, Meadows also meets with fellow Cheyenne speakers digitally. 

“I'm still a part of a language class, every Tuesday and Thursdays with one of our northern speakers up in Montana. He runs a little zoom class,” Meadows said. “We go over our daily language. I guess you could say like, practices, but really, we're just conversing -- having normal conversations.”

In college, Meadows learned the importance of picking up one or two words every day. He continues to learn this way. 

“They would try to encourage learning just one word, one Cheyenne word, one Arapaho word today. It’s good enough, is what they would encourage us to do,” he said. 

Elizondo said in Cheyenne it is important to first learn how to greet one another. 

“If you're going to go visit an elder in their home, first thing you know, they'll say, wáa dá, It’s not like, “hi.” It's like, “come on in, sit down, make yourself at home,” Elizondo said. “My grandmother, I was used to always hearing her say hóóhsa wóáhšé, which means see you again later. 

“And then as I started interacting with other communities, I started hearing different angles of how to say that. So, a lot of what's in the textbooks and all that you'll see for me when I read whatever's written out there in Cheyenne, it'll usually say, stóóhsa wóáhšé, or when I got to another community, they’ll say tóóhsa wóáhšé, and I go out to another community they’ll say stáama wóáhšé. For Cheyenne speakers, it's all understood. It's just there’s different variants of saying, “see you,” or “I'll see you again later,” and so, I just enjoy hearing the variants.”

Meadows said jokes are often lost in translation. 

“One thing I do enjoy is that when you get immersion to language, the jokes, the humor, it becomes a lot more vivid and becomes a lot funnier just around when we were working in the MA program together,” Meadows said. 

Elizondo agreed. He said when he was learning the language, he’d ask his elders to translate what they were saying, especially after he had heard a joke. 

 “Sometimes I would hear them and kind of look at me and they'll say, ‘we can tell you in English, but it's just not as funny,’ and I heard that throughout the years, and it wasn't until I got to really get down and go into depth with my own learning that I began to see their perspective within the language,” Elizondo said. “You know, some of our metaphors just don't translate over as well in English.”

Meadows said he fears that the end of the Cheyenne language could mean the end of Cheyenne people. 

“For Cheyenne people, language was mentioned in one of those… If we lose our language, Cheyenne people will cease to exist. So, I took it seriously to hold on to that, because they held onto their end of the bargain. But now it's coming up to where it's up to our generations to decide what it's going to look like for the future generations that aren't even here yet, and what kind of richness is going to be left for them,” he said. 

Elizondo said he is concerned about state and federal resources, and whether or not there will be funding to continue to offer language revitalization courses. 

“Everyone wants this particular funding to go in their direction or that direction, and it's, I know, unfortunate sometimes that those who believe that efforts with continuing our native language with any kind of funding isn't worth it. I know that there's that perspective,” he said. 

While Elizondo learned a lot from his grandmother and his community, he said it was the master apprentice program that allowed him to take those words and learn how to speak fluently. 

“Going back to my own language journey before getting involved with the master apprentice efforts, I could never string together a conversation,” he said. “I had a lot of words floating around in my head, and I can say but I couldn't interact with anybody. And so, whenever that funding came through to help me do it day-to-day, all those words are stringing together.” 

He asked one of his elders how they felt about him learning the language through the master’s apprentice program. 

“She told me, yeah, I can do it. She said, 'I can't … honestly can't see our language moving forward as it is,' she said, 'because everyone's busy with work, everyone's busy with school,'” he said. “And she said, 'I think that's what's kind of prevented our language from continuing.' And I said, fortunately, we have a little time here. We have three years under a grant that instead of me choosing another kind of work, our group can focus on learning from you directly. She said that'll be great, and it made all the difference in the world to be able to have that time and be able to have that support through funding.”

Meadows said his languages are important, and that learning them has changed his understanding of who he is. 

“I think about the set of peoples I come from, but also the journey I'm taking for the ones that are coming behind me, and so anything that I can do to leave an imprint left with the language I'm gonna do and devote my life to it,” he said. “I believe that language is the key to all cultures and all traditions, all ceremonies, even communication to nature around us, because there's a lot of different, you know, stories that cultures have.”

“It's the backbone to a culture. You need language for a culture to thrive, and you need culture for language to thrive. You know, there are two components that are synchronistic to one another. I'm an advocate for language and indigenous languages, because it's who we are as Indian people here on Turtle Island.