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DL: When you were a little girl, did you learn much about being Dakota?
JP: I don’t know. My parents always talked their language. But then when we went to the public school where we couldn’t speak our language and had to speak English, they would never talk in front of us kids in our Dakota language.
DL: Did you speak Dakota when you were little?
JP: No.
DL: But your parents did.
JP: My parents did.
DL: But they didn’t teach you.
JP: No.
DL: It was just between them.
JP: Yes. Any relatives or neighbors came and they would speak it, because when my parents went to school they couldn’t speak the Dakota language either, so they just kind of kept it amongst themselves. I can understand most of it, you know.
DL: You still can.
JP: Yes. But as far as speaking it, they said that I shouldn’t learn at that time.
DL: Why do you suppose they said that?
JP: Because they had such a hard time – especially my mother. She lived down below the hill with my Grandpa Dave and they would walk from there about three to four miles to where the schoolhouse was then, and they would punish them if they did speak their language.
DL: Who was punishing them?
JP: The teachers.
DL: So it was: Speak English, or don’t speak at all?
JP: Yes. So what she went through, she didn’t want us going through.
