Intro to the translationships storytelling podcast
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Taiko: Hello, hola, welcome. My name is Taiko Aoki-Marcial
Cristina: I am Cristina Sánchez-Martín
Taiko: And we are introducing our multilingual community storytelling podcast called translationships.
Cristina: I’m very excited that we are doing this podcast together and that we are taking our experiences as educators who have both worked with multilingual, migrant and transnational communities and students for some time and turning that experience into this collaborative ongoing project.
Taiko: Absolutely! I’m looking forward to sharing these conversations that we have with students and community members about language learning and storytelling on this podcast. In each episode we will be talking with different people about their unique stories and their experiences sharing, retelling and translating these stories in community. The people and stories that we highlight come from a wide range of places, languages and cultures. During various workshops and through building relationships our guests have collaborated with us and others on developing and (re)telling stories that are important to them and have shaped them in some way or another. Many of these stories are available in various formats and languages on our project website translationships.net.
Cristina: Yes, so on the podcast we gather together again in small groups or with individuals and talk about the significance of these stories and the cultural context, languages and situations around them. The scope, focus, topic, tone, form, and origins of the stories all vary, showing complex and inequitable conditions and experiences in our communities, how stories circulate or not, and what it means to actively engage with them. In each episode you will hear guests speaking in multiple languages. Some shorter portions may be left untranslated in an effort both to preserve the essence of our guests’ words as well as to challenge what language scholars Nelson Flores and Jonathan Rosa identify as the reproduction of racial normativity that expects language-minoritized students to model their linguistic practices after the white speaking and listening subject (Flores & Rosa, 2017 p. 151).
Taiko: Another important aspect to note here as we introduce the podcast and the project is that while we are inspired by multiple traditions of storytelling, we are particularly grateful to the teachings of Indigenous storytellers, artists and leaders which informs both the work we do in the classroom community as well as on this podcast. For example, here in the area of the Coast Salish peoples of the Northwest where we live and work, artist and storyteller Roger Fernandes of the Lower Elwha S’Kallam Tribe teaches that the spiritual health that people need is told in stories that convey how a human being is to live in balance with family, community, and nature and that stories lead to a spiritual and emotional understanding of how to live in the world.
Cristina: Yes, you know, and those ideas extend to the multilingual and transnational contexts that we ourselves and our guests are a part of. Like, one of the quotes that really resonates with both of us and with our project as a whole was from Potawatomi scientist and scholar Robin Wall Kimmerer who writes that “as the world changes, an immigrant culture must write its own new stories of relationship to place - a new ilbal, but tempered by the wisdom of those who were old on this land long before we came.” (2020, p. 344). You know, I think myself, as a migrant and you as well, as a descendent of immigrants, we are both attempting to be conscious of the complexities and contradictions of creating understanding across place and across languages while at the same time maintaining and preserving knowledge through unique language expressions. I know as educators and hosts we both have many unsettled questions about navigating Indigenous, trans-Indigenous, transcultural and translingual relationships in unequal contexts.
Taiko: That’s so true, like another one of our influences Joy Harjo of the Muscogee Creek nation talks about when she describes riding the waves of language and acknowledging the force and impact of colonizing languages such as our own, you know, English and Spanish. But, I think we both agree that at the same time, transgression is possible and these languages become crossing places when we create spaces for coming together. So, this podcast is really about how we ride those waves and make sense of the world or worlds where we live in and through stories and how those worlds become more culturally and linguistically rich when we engage with others in ways that show genuine interest and care and a desire to be and grow together.
Cristina: I think the stories and conversations that are so generously shared with us in classes and workshops as well as here on the podcast are really a reflection of such a wide range of teachings and understandings and ways of being in the world. You know, we discuss storytelling through travel and archeology, through premonitions of and responses to natural disasters, through the retelling of ancient battles, through fables, through creation stories and more.
Taiko: This podcast is for folks who see stories as opportunities for growth and language learning and who are interested in the complexities of multilingual relationship building through storytelling. You might be an instructor, a student, a volunteer tutor, a community member or a family member, this podcast is an invitation to discover and learn more about these stories and the people who tell them in each unique episode.
Cristina: Transcripts and more information about the podcast, the translationships project and the stories are available on our website, translationships.net
Sources for this episode include:
Flores, N., & Rosa, J. (2015). Undoing Appropriateness: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and Language Diversity in Education. Harvard Educational Review, 85, 149-171.
Harjo, J. (n.d.) Living Nations, Living Worlds: A Map of First Peoples Poetry. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/ghe/cascade/index.html?appid=be31c5cfc7614d6680e6fa47be888dc3
Kimmer, R. W. (2020). Braiding Sweetgrass. Milkweed Editions.
Turtle Island Storyteller Roger Fernandes. (2006). Wisdom of the Elders https://wisdomoftheelders.org/turtle-island-storyteller-roger-fernandes/
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