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action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home3/nncmagaz/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114Language and Love in Wonder Valley<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n By Terria Smith<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hours of roads – big freeways, small highways, and tiny back streets – directed myself as well as lots of attendees through cities, mountains and farmlands to this year\u2019s Language is Life Conference at the Wonder Valley Ranch in Sanger, Calif.<\/p>\n The theme for this year was \u201cLanguage is Love.\u201d And indeed, love was all around.<\/p>\n It was my first time to this conference, which is hosted by the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, but I did not go alone. My reluctant 13-year-old daughter Emma rode with me in what we call our tiny little wind up car.<\/p>\n Lots of other families traveled to the valley as well. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, teenagers, children and babies came from across the state to learn how to be heroes for our precious Native languages.<\/p>\n Mojave poet, Natalie Diaz, opened with a moving keynote presentation about the importance of the meaning behind our languages. She illuminated the tenderness that is within our natural Native words and how much we need to be able to speak to one another in those words.<\/p>\n The reminders of the urgency for language revitalization did not negate the fact that there are lots of fun ways to learn to keep it. Kumeyaay language instructor, Stan Rodriguez, lead a group of youth in building traditional tule reed boats. After those little boats were built, they had a race in a pond on the ranch with onlookers cheering from the shore. Lyn Risling put together panels for kids to paint into a full mural. Raffle prize drawings seemed endless (and my Emma was a three-time winner)! There was even a nail-biting silent auction where I won an awesome basket filled with seaweed, salmon, eel, acorn soup and other goodies.<\/p>\n