Perspectives of Indigenous Bridges

From left to right: Gary Smoke, Ambassador Jarden Kephas (Nauru), Ambassador Bikeni Paeniu (Tuvalu), Tony Coolidge On Monday, October 2nd, 2023, a day after the 45th Independence Day of Tuvalu, two Officers of the ATAYAL Organization visited the offices of H.E. The Right Honorable Bikeni Paeniu, Ambassador of Tuvalu. The purpose of the meeting was twofold: to discuss rebuilding efforts of communities in Maui and to discuss participation of Tuvaluan youth in the ATAYAL Organization's Indigenous Bridges Youth Ambassador Program (IBYAP).  Click to view profile of the organization and the IBYAP program The ATAYAL Organization offered a presentation about the Indigenous Bridges Youth Ambassador Program, and discussed its plans form an Austronesian delegation to participate in the program, including the annual Tribal Canoe Journeys in Washington State. The event is the largest Indigenous cultural event that brings together canoe-going groups, currently attracting thousands of participant...

  Over a three week period in July of 2022, the ATAYAL Organization facilitated an online cultural exchange event organized by Edu-Odyssey . The participants, which included two Indigenous Bridges Youth Ambassadors, brought together university and high school students in Taiwan to have meaningful, topic-oriented interactions with American students from Texas State University (San Marcos, Texas). The students had discussions in English and Chinese during their 1-hour sessions in breakout rooms using the Zoom platform, to provide more direct, personal exchanges. With the participation of the ATAYAL Organization, Directors Tony Coolidge and Gary Smoke organized a session dedicated to introducing Taiwan's Indigenous cultures to the American Students and Taiwanese students. Tony Coolidge shared a short presentation to the Taiwanese students and three youth ambassadors shared stories about their culture and what it meant to them to be of Indigenous lineage. While Syaman Lamuran shared ...

A-way introduces her native Saisiyat language. So’o kayzaeh ay! My name is A-way (ah-wai) Maya Titiyon and my mother is from the Saisiyat People. It’s one of the smallest indigenous groups in the country. Our traditional lands are in Western Taiwan, mostly in the mountainous areas of Hsinchu (Wufong) and Miaoli (Nanzhuang and Shitan). My tribe (Wufong) has been greatly influenced by the much larger ethnic groups of Atayal and Haaka through intermarriage, which is why our language has become endangered with only about 1000 fully-fluent speakers. Even though my mother grew up in a Saisiyat village when she was young, she never learned the language, as she had to speak Mandarin at school, and most of her classmates either spoke Haaka or Atayal outside of the classroom. So, I grew up in an environment where I had little exposure to our culture, but at important festivals like paSta'ay, my family would bring their children back to participate. Even if I'm rarely in the tribe while ...