DAMIAN

The picture of the house is The Language House in Oneida Wisconsin. This is where I had significant growth as a language learner with my teacher and used it to help my learning with Seneca. This was pure dedication, as an outsider, and making the decision to be there every weekday morning to learn from a speaker. There was no pay, no incentive, just the desire to be there.

The black and white older picture is my mom with her grandma, or my great grandma Viola Skye. According to my mom, she was the last speaker in our family.

I have a picture of Buffalo for where I grew up.

The picture of the board is when we were teaching place names. The pictures had magnets and we would take them off the board and time them for how quick they could put them in the proper places. I miss teaching class.

The picture of me and my friend in suits is just a younger picture of me in 8th grade. It was part of my public schooling at Montessori downtown

The picture with me and my first daughter is the day my life changed. I knew I had to do more and give her more, and language and culture would be a part of that.

The kids are tapping trees. This is from my first tree tapping season out here and it was so awesome to see our kids so excited to do something I had only read about. It made me love my job.