I feel like thus far the readings have mostly confirmed and contributed to my general sense that ‘literacy’ is a word and an area of study that is just as deeply imbued with ideology as ‘literature’ or ‘English.’ Sequoyah is good example of how ideologically based our Western notions of literacy are. Sequoyah was a Cherokee Indian who in 1821 completed his entirely independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, which made it possible to read and write in the Cherokee language for the first time. Sequoyah is widely considered to be illiterate, and if you look up biographic information about him, you will often find him described as an illiterate man. However, many people have pointed out the irony in claiming that a person who created a system of reading and writing was himself incapable of reading and writing. After its creation it was soon adopted by the tribe and the literacy rate among the Cherokee quickly surpassed that of the surrounding European settlers.
What I want to illustrate through this example is the precise way that one’s ability read and write has always been based on one’s acquisition and fluency in whatever language is dominant, and in the same ways that the language is dominant. The Cherokee people were only illiterate because they had never had a system of writing, not because they were not capable of reading and writing, or because (as in European culture) only certain people of high class status were given the opportunity to become literate. This also speaks to the different ideologies of the two cultures: Europeans had been utilizing writing technology for a long time, but had a highly stratified organization of who could possess and put such skills to use. Among the Cherokee, while they didn’t have a system of writing, once they did they immediately shared it amongst one another and used it for the benefit of everyone in their community. ‘Literacy’ and ‘education’ are always ideologically loaded terms.
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