truthout.org · 10 hours ago

Yup’ik Immersion School Program in Alaska Opens Doors to Cultural Connection | Truthout

At College Gate Elementary in Anchorage, Alaska, a Yup'ik language immersion program is doing something that standardized curricula rarely can: helping children know who they are. When Amber Arnaqulluk Shields noticed her son withdrawing from other kids at the park, she eventually realized he simply couldn't understand them - and they couldn't understand him; finding the program gave him not just classmates, but a community that fishes and hunts together and brings salmon back to elders as gifts. The Yup'ik book at the heart of the curriculum, Qanruyuteput Iinruugut, carries a meaning that doubles as the program's quiet thesis: "our teachings are medicine." Now drawing visits from Indigenous nations as far as Japan and as close as the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, the school has become something rarer than a model - it is proof that when children are seen whole, in their language and their belonging, confidence follows naturally. "I see they're more confident," Shields said of her children. "They feel included."