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AILDI
Cecilia Henry-Kee

When I first came
to
American Indian Language Development Institute
I wasn’t sure why I was here
Goal?
I did not want to think about it at that time.
I am a speaker of my language but not a linguist.
I had a question…
“Like what is morphology?”
Morphology?
I learned that “morphology was a breakdown of one word.
I am a writer of my language but I did not know about verb stems.
In Barrigan's class we developed a “Poster about Verbs” with one goal in mind.
We were so proud to display it in the Kiva
Hey!
That changed my frame of mind.
I wanted to set a goal.
It was about Dine’ bizaad.  
So I put aside doubts and cynicism for a while.
Then “Dare to Dream” happened.
We may not reach our most ambitious goals but trying will help us discover our full potential.
Technology?
It sounded scary
but I thought “I know I can do this”.
Audacity? Max Author ? More presentations.
What a worthwhile experience for me.
It was all in fun.
That’s not all… there was immersion.
Immersed in what?
It was speaking in Dine’ bizaad to teach.
Inspirations?
Yes!
I’m inspired to help younger generations to come.
Dare to step backv
Dream,
Reflect,
Plan,
And continue to embrace our language, culture for that is who we are.
Chief, Manuelito
Once said, “My grandchild, education is the ladder.  
Once more
we’ll climb the ladder
To teach
our heritage language to our grandchildren.