The indigenous language revitalization movement of North America has roots in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's. Language loss in indigenous communities is often viewed as the result of linguistic oppression, with the boarding schools being a major example; and the effort to reclaim the lost language is an expression of freedom.

At the same time, language loss is moving faster today than ever before, no longer due so much to oppression, but more to modern media and other features of modern American life that leave no room for the mother tongue. We will examine case studies to show how indigenous people are battling to express their right to know and use their languages in the face of the overwhelming pressure from the English language.