Language, History, and Identity: Ethnolinguistic Studies of the Arizona Tewa

Paul V. Kroskrity earned an AB in comparative literature, oriental studies, and religion in 1971 from Columbia College, Columbia University. He pursued graduate training in anthropology and linguistics at Indiana University, leading to a PhD in anthropology in 1978. Since then he has been a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is currently associate professor of anthropology. Dr. Kroskrity has served as the chairperson of American Indian Studies since 1985. His research interests include such topics as language contact, language and identity, verbal art, ethnography of communication, historical linguistics, voice constructions, and linguistic ideology. He has conducted extensive research on these topics in two Native American communities: the Arizona Tewa of First Mesa on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona and the Western Mono of east central California.

The Arizona Tewa are a Pueblo Indian group that migrated around 1700 to First Mesa on the Hopi Reservation and who, while speaking Hopi have also retained their native language. Kroskrity examines this curiosity of language and culture, explaining the various ways in which the Tewa use their linguistic resources to successfully adapt to the Hopi and their environment while retaining their native language and the cultural identity it embodies.