In the second and final interview in our series to honor Native American and Indigenous Heritage Month in November, I sat down with Sondra Segundo, Indigenous artist, writer, and singer, to talk about her heritage and how she's using art to preserve the Haida language for future generations.
"When I write, it really is healing...for the children that were abused in those schools*, and then the children that were raised by hurting parents, and the generational trauma that gets passed on. What we found is when we connect back to our language, we feel so good."
Whether it be through books or music, preserving the Haida language is central to everything Sondra does as an Indigenous artist. Sondra's story doesn't begin in South Seattle, where she was born, but in an archipelago south of Alaska and off British Columbia's west coast called Haida Gwaii. "It's where our people originate from," Sondra explains,
"We call ourselves the Seattle Haida...We do whatever we can to keep our culture thriving here just because it gives us a sense of belonging and it's really healing for us to stay connected to our culture and our language."
Sondra's Haida heritage derives from her mother's side who is full Haida, while her father is "half Ilocano," an Indigenous group in the Philippines. Sondra wasn't always so proud of her culture and shares about her insecurity growing up,
"I'm three quarters Indigenous but I didn't tell anybody. There weren't many of us, so I just told everybody I was Filipino. I was in the Filipino drill team, FYA...The teen years were difficult years where you're trying to understand your identity. I kind of hid who I was for a while."
While identifying only as Filipino in public, Sondra was also taking frequent summer trips to Alaska, where her mom was from, and spending time with grandparents. She explains,
"I was being raised as a Haida woman because we're a matrilineal society and all the matriarchs of my Haida side really raised me, taught me our language, taught me songs. They taught us to be proud of who we are."
Sondra's perspective really shifted when she learned about her grandparents' experience in the residential boarding school system where the government systematically and forcibly removed Indigenous children from their homes and placed them in schools that isolated them from their family and culture. Sexual and physical abuse were commonplace. Sondra's Haida grandmother was placed in the U.S. Indian Boarding school system, while her paternal grandmother, who was Katzie First Nations, was place in the Canadian Indian residential school system. "I never realized what our grandparents went through in the boarding schools until later in life and it really shattered me. It broke me," Sondra recounts.
As an adult, Sondra worked in Native education at Seattle public schools. She noticed that there "were hardly any books about Indigenous people and the books that were out there were written by non-Native people" with one-dimensional, stereotypical characters. The dearth of Indigenous books lead her to start writing. Sondra explains,
"I wanted my children to see themselves and then I started incorporating my language. I've been singing my whole life so I composed my first Haida composition from my first book, Killer Whale Eyes, and it's just been taking off. It's taken a life of its own."
Sondra felt like she found her calling and quit her job, telling her husband, "I think my language and my people need me." She contacted her cousin in Alaska who had been working with the elders to preserve the Haida language. She wanted to help, which eventually led to meeting Haida elder Jane Kristovitch and becoming her apprentice. Jane allowed Sondra to record her speaking in Haida as part of Haida Roots, Sondra's nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the Haida culture and language. She explains that there are only three surviving Haida dialects― Alaskan Haida, Masset, and Skidegate―out of the twenty that existed.
Sondra eventually published two additional books, Lovebirds: The True Story of Raven & Eagle and Kúndlaan: The Wolf Pup with Moonlight in Her Eyes, and became a professional singer. She sings for both her own music, as well as for the Indigenous band Khu.éex. Sondra sees her music as an extension of storytelling,
"I've always been a storyteller my whole life...That comes from my ancestors. We live in cold months. We actually have 13 months in my culture and the 13th month translates to 'too cold to go outside' month. So our people would stay in our warm longhouses with our fire and we would create masks and do all this storytelling, create these beautiful art forms and weave all these beautiful things...I come from a long line of singers of my clan."
Sondra's journey is an ever evolving one, which began with experiencing imposter syndrome both outside of and within her own culture. She explains,
"I felt more nervous when I performed in front of my own people. Not anymore because I feel like I've really been practicing our language and I feel confident on how I pronounce it now...I feel like a lot of us have imposter syndrome, not just in White spaces but even in our own heritage spaces. Oh, we're not this enough, we're not that. It doesn't matter which space you're in. You just never feel like you're good enough for either. "
Today, Sondra doesn't focus on the negative and instead on the love she has for her culture and ensuring it lasts so that her future grandchildren will know the love and warmth of her people, of spending time with elders as she had, for generations to come. While Sondra's why is grounded in serving the Haida people, she emphasizes that her music and the healing people can experience from it is for everyone.
To learn more about Sondra, visit her website Sondra Segundo, which has audio samples, as well as links to her books, music, and more.
*Schools refer to the U.S. and Canadian boarding school systems, later referenced in the interview.