Our Board of Women (BoW) and leadership have roots in multiple geographies including Bahrain, Cameroon, China, Colombia, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Lebanon, Mali, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Philippines, Palestine, Scandinavia, Southwest Minnesota prairie in the United States, Sweden and Taiwan.
LAURA MANN HILL
Community organizer, Program administrator, Teacher and Actor
Value statement
Self-awareness is an essential part of creating decolonized spaces for others. As we seek to create spaces for people to connect with their heritage languages and cultures, we also take time to reflect and build our own awareness of identity. Interdependence is an important value to remember as we work with our communities to reclaim and persevere language and culture. Our strengths can support others in the work they are doing. Intergenerational relationships, ancestral knowledge and imagination will carry us all forward in our work. Culture travels through art, dance, storytelling and other communication pathways to weave connections between us and around us.
MEGAN LOVITZ
Animator and digital artist, Color guard instructor
Value statement
True beauty comes from art that connects us to our ancestors and ourselves. Sometimes this beauty is the process of reconnecting to our roots and not necessarily the art itself. Through our work, I hope we enable others to understand the importance of our differences and to embrace them.
MARIA SCHWEDHELM
Researcher, Artist and Teacher
Value statement
We learn from our ancestors, from and with each other building relationships, connections, coalitions through the arts, through storytelling. We are the roots of our ancestors' wildest dreams.
YI-JU LAI
Postdoctoral research fellow, Linguistic anthropologist, and Discourse analyst
Value statement
We value dialogue, collaboration, and opportunities to work together with our communities to develop an inclusive environment where diverse voices can be recognized as sources of strength.
SARAH ZHAO
Social entrepreneur and Guzheng Artist
Value statement
It is the JOY that holds us together as a community. It is the PASSION that holds us together as a team. It is the TRUTH that reveals and connects us to our languages, cultures, and stories.
TINA MAYNOR
Veteran teacher and Instructional coach
Value statement
I am a part of Language Attitude because I love to help make COMMUNITY and build CONNECTIONS. I strive to practice CREATIVITY and GRATITUDE.
SARA MUSAIFER
Researcher, Educator and Education justice advocate
Value statement: Creativity is a mode of resistance and a source of sustenance for communities who have been continuously and systematically othered by dominant ways of knowing that monopolize and organize social life. Our collective labors, here at Language Attitude, for recognition of the words and worlds that give meaning to our lives and the lives of our loved ones near and far is an unapologetic insistence on our dignity and humanity. It is a collective struggle for anti-racism, for anti-colonialism, for more just pasts, presents, and futures.
VERONICA QUILLEN
Researcher artist, Cultural entrepreneur and Cultural analyst
Value statement
My spirituality is bound by my connection to my Ancestors and my cultural communities. We cooperate to create cultural expressions transmitting our teachings, which contribute to the preservation of humanity’s knowledge systems.
MARGRET OGAS
Professional dance artist, Instructor and Nonprofit administrator
Value statement
I believe art is critical to preserving culture and fostering community. Through community, self-expression and storytelling can be harnessed as radical modes of decolonization and future-building.