By Miriam Lafontaine Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer is proud to be able to speak the same language her ancestors spoke. In the 1980s, Sky-Deer enrolled in one of the first schools in the Mohawk community of Kahnawake that immersed children in the Kanien’kéha language. “It was everything,” said Sky-Deer, in an interview. “It gave me a foundation of being proud of who I was.” At the time, many in the First Nation on the South Shore of Montreal were still attending church-run Indian Day Schools, where the language wasn’t taught, she said. Her former school still operates today, and the churches are no longer running schools in Kahnawake. The former grand chief of the community says she is optimistic about her community’s next generation, especially now that a new cultural arts centre…
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