S4E13 Pt. 1 Full Immersion: Remembering Mother Tongues, After Decolonization
Walpole Island is between Detroit, MI and London, ON in Lake St. Claire and home to one of the most effective indigenous language immersion experiences in the world. Monty McGahey II attended this highly esteemed program, Maatookiidaa Anishinaabewin Adult Immersion of Bkejwanong, in 2015 and has continued to immerse himself and recover one of his First Nations languages by growing in fluency one day at a time.
If you want to know how to recover after decolonization, listen to this story of each one, teach one from a pedagogy that is both slow in pace to support deliberate and sustainable growth of tribal sovereignty.
Ozaawaa Giizhgo Ginew (Monty McGahey II) is from Deshkan Ziibiing (Chippewas of the Thames First Nation) located in southwestern, Ontario and is of Anishinaabe and Oneida descent. He is married with two children. He is currently the Anishinaabemowin instructor for the Paswe’aatigook Anishinaabemowin Immersion Diploma Program through Fanshawe College (London, ON) and Language specialist for Chippewas of the Thames First Nation. A second-language learner of Anishinaabemowin, Monty has been teaching Anishinaabemowin classes since 2008. He holds a B.A. in First Nations Studies (’07); a Master of Professional Education – Leadership in Indigenous Education (’19), from Western University in London, Ontario; and a Bachelor of Education from the University of Ottawa, (’15).
He has over ten years of learning and teaching Anishinaabemowin experience at the elementary and postsecondary level. Monty completed the Anishinaabemowin Immersion Program at Sault College in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario in 2008, the Maatookiidaa Anishinaabewin Adult Immersion program in Bkejwanong (Walpole Island, Ontario) in 2015, and attended three summers of adult immersion in the Ojibwemotaadidaa Omaa Gidakiiminaang Ojibwe Language Academy in Cloquet, Minnesota from 2015-2018. Monty has also taught in the Anishinaabemowin Programmer Program at Georgian College in Barrie, Ontario in 2015-16. Monty is a co-founder of Eshki-nishnaabemjig, a two-week adult immersion program that has been held in Central Ontario every July from 2016-2019 and 2022-2024.
