[Witness spoke in Oneida Sign Language, interpreted as follows:]
When we recognize indigenous sign languages, then we encourage language and culture, but when we also look at accessibility one of the issues that has been there, as Max, my husband, spoke to earlier, is that interpreters would come and not know the language. We have access but we don't really have access, it's this facade of it. If we start to roll it out, it's revitalizing sign languages within each tribe or each language within its own dialects and it would be throughout Turtle Island.
There are many people who are still suffering in that colonization state. When we're looking at our future, I don't want our future children to have to go through the same things that I've had to go through. I don't want them to be confused. I don't want them to feel a lack of identity or a loss of culture. I want them to feel strength and identity in their culture and language.
Thank you.