By Corvo Rohwer, Puyallup Tribal News
A new, but familiar face is now leading the Puyallup Tribe’s Language Department. Puyallup Tribal Member Chris Duenas was appointed to the role in late June, following former director Amber Hayward’s election to Tribal Council.
Duenas began his career with the Tribe in 2011 as a multimedia developer for the Language Department, where he worked with Tami Hohn and Nancy Jo Bob. The department went through a shift following their departures and Language Consultant Zalmai Zahir was introduced.
“He taught us the methods of language nesting and domains to revitalize our language, and to actually use the language rather than learn the language,” Duenas said.
Over the years, Duenas continued developing media for the program, including social media work and language videos. In 2023, he made the switch over to the Heritage Division with the goal of carrying over what he had learned.
“I really loved working with language, and I loved working in that department,” Duenas said. “Heritage was developing into a full new division, and we had talked about expanding what I was doing with language into Heritage.”
His new position in the division was Heritage Multimedia Manager, a promotion from the developer role. Regardless of his movement to a new division, Duenas continued to be closely involved with the Language staff with his office placed in the Language Department suite following the opening of the new admin building in 2024.
“I had a spot right here in language. Even though I wasn’t working for language at the time, I was essentially working adjacent to them, because that’s who I was often with anyways,” Duenas said.
Once Hayward was elected to Tribal Council, Duenas recalled receiving a phone call from Heritage Division Manager Connie McCloud about the position.
“Amber had just gotten elected and (McCloud) said, ‘Chris, I just want to let you know that I’m putting in my recommendation to appoint you as interim director,’” Duenas said.
The appointment was made official June 22 and the interim tag was dropped, with Duenas stepping confidently into his new role as director of the Language Department.
When considering his vision for the department’s future, he said his priorities are continuing to strengthen the speaking community and providing more opportunities for new learners to get involved.
“Our process of revitalizing language starts with the individual, and I think that we’ve gotten to a point where you find those individuals who will take that upon themselves, but we also find individuals who need reminders, weekly classes and videos, that sort of thing,” Duenas said. “We are looking for ways to get them to be confident. We always say that we are a language program that builds language programs for you.”
Some of these strategies include working toward more traditional teaching materials like online classes and in-person community events, while also promoting self-driven learning goals such as language nests, areas within a home or workplace that individuals can choose to try and only use Lushootseed in to build up their language usage.
Duenas said he is also looking forward to not just increasing the number of Lushootseed speakers, but teachers of the language, as well.
“We have a certification teacher now who specifically works with certifying teachers, and we have a project manager who is there to build up and develop projects that will help revitalize the language further,” Duenas said. “We’ve got a pretty vibrant speaking community, so my goals are focused on strengthening that so it can grow.”
To learn more about the Twulshootseed language and access learning materials, resources and more, visit the Language Department’s website at puyalluptriballanguage.org.
