Rising Above: Language Revitalization in the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

Today there are roughly two hundred first-language Cherokee speakers among the seventeen thousand citizens of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. In 2019 the United Keetoowah Band, the Cherokee Nation, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians declared a state of emergency for the Cherokee language.

In Rising Above Eastern Band Cherokee citizen Benjamin E. Frey chronicles his odyssey of being introduced to the Cherokee language with trepidation as a young adult and his eventual work revitalizing the Cherokee language in a Cherokee way. In the first book to examine the process of language shift and revitalization among this band, Frey explores the institutional, economic, and social factors that drove the language shift from Cherokee to English, interpreted through the lens of a member of the Eastern Band Cherokee community in conversation with other community members. Rising Above navigates Frey’s upbringing, the intricacies of language and relationships, the impact of trauma, and the quest for joy and healing within the community.

In addition to language documentation and preservation, Rising Above explores how to breathe new life into the language and community, using storytelling to discuss the Cherokee language, its grammatical components, and its embedded cultural ideologies alongside its interactions with broader American society.

Benjamin E. Frey (Eastern Band Cherokee) is an assistant professor of Cherokee language and culture at the University of North Carolina-Asheville. He is the coauthor, with John D. Loftin, of People of Kituwah: The Old Ways of the Eastern Cherokees.