research conundrum

Although I have teaching contexts, I will focus here on my research context, as it is different.

For the past seven years, I have befriended and worked closely with a group of Seneca Indian people from upstate New York. The Senecas have been relocated by broken treaties and wars of the governments of Canada, the US, and NY and PA. New York (well, Canada, too) has conducted public works projects like building dams and highways on Seneca land which continues today. They are part of a confederacy of five other related groups.

Specifically, my friends live in the area shown in the inset part of this map. I have gotten especially close with two people, a husband and wife in their early 70's, and their families.

This portion of Seneca Soverign Territory where my friends live is called by New York State the "Seneca Allegany Reservation." It is located along the Allegany River and in the foothils of the Allegany Mountains, and 20,000 acres of land were flooded in 1964 by the Kinzua Dam built by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

There are many other Seneca communities. Allegany completely surrounds the City of Salamanca, the only white-occupied city in the US which is totally surrounded by Native land. Senecas embody a range of subcultures. My friends are traditionalists who follow the Longhouse Religion, established in the 1700's by Ganioda'yo (Handsome Lake) as a way to revive the traditional ways that were under assault by colonizing powers.

There is also a secular component of Senecas embodied in the Seneca Nation of Indians government. Some of these people are traditionalists, and some are assimilated into American culture and lifeways.

My friends have a complicated relationship with Nation government. Nevertheless, their main goal is to re-revive the religion, culture and language. The language is in or near Stage 7 on Fishman's scale of language endangerment: only the elders are fluent speakers (well, mostly). Chafe estimates 50-100 fluent speakers in entirety (including those in Canada, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin), although Ethnologue says 200. Community members say varying things.

The context of language maintenance changes daily there. My friends ran a traditional private school, which had 15 students in 2002, 4 students last year, and none this year. Parents pulled out students so they would not miss the state-mandated high-stakes testing curriculum. Alternatively, adults have joined the school to learn the religious traditions. The husband teaches this as he is a Faithkeeper.

In the wake of this, the wife, my dear friend and language teacher, has been struggling with ways of getting others on board, and in the meantime, teaching her own family. Her granddaughters teach Seneca as an FL-style elective in the public school, and her son works for the Nation Education Department. The Nation plans to open a K-3 school in the fall with plans of expanding the school. I have to dig up their initial plans as I have forgotten what they are.

Just two days ago, my friend decided to start a Language Nest with her family. She loves Hinton's How to Keep Your Language Alive and is inspired by the nests in new Zealand and Hawai'i.

Issues that I am thinking of today are:

Where else are they teaching Seneca? Who is teaching it? Who is learning it? In what ways? Who controls the process? Who is interested? Why does the language situation change like it does?