The University of Minnesota Institute of Linguistics and Department of American Indian Studies hosted Anangong Migaading: Star Wars a New Hope Ojibwe Thursday to connect pop culture with Indigenous traditions.
The event premiered the movie “Star Wars: A New Hope,” dubbed and subtitled in Ojibwe. The event had over 100 attendees and featured a panel discussion with the voice actors after the showing.
Panel members included University alum Aandeg Muldrew, who played Luke Skywalker, and current linguistics PhD candidate Dustin Morrow who played Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Outreach coordinator for the University’s American Indian Studies department Nicholas DeShaw was one of the event’s organizers and said he hopes people’s biggest takeaway from the event is the understanding that Indigenous languages should be relevant for everyone.
“Indigenous languages have a place everywhere, and we need to see it everywhere,” DeShaw said. “We need to make them relevant to everybody, native and non-native, so I would really like to see this be just the beginning of something much bigger.”
The event was a way to offer a new generation of Indigenous people the chance to watch Star Wars in a way that resonates deeply with their cultural identity.
Morrow said it was really beautiful to see his work and language celebrated through the event.
“I love seeing the passion that people have for it,” Morrow said. “Whether it be just from being Star Wars fans or being language nerds, the intersection is pretty awesome.”
Morrow, who moved to Minneapolis in 2018, said seeing the closeness of the Native American community was meaningful to him.
Muldrew said this event raises awareness on the profile of what is possible for the Ojibwe community.
“Star Wars is this fantasy adventure, like, now you can imagine, like, what’s the future with Ojibwe being spoken in the stars, which is cool to think about,” Muldrew said.
Muldrew said the event was a great way to connect with his community and it was great to see the engagement and people with the university.
Institute of Linguistics Director Claire Halpert was another event organizer. She said she knew about the project well before the film’s release as Morrow was one of her students.
“We got a date and started talking to American Indian Studies and circle the distinctions because we wanted it to be a partnership and to also have community outreach,” Halpert said.
Halpert said the event was not just for people on campus but for the greater Twin Cities community as well.
“Events like this are just a really good opportunity to get to know these different corners and to be exposed to what’s going on the whole breadth of all of the really special stuff that we do,” Halpert said.
Event attendee and second-year student Kate Johnsen said the event was amazing and that the movie was awesome to see.
“I think it gives a big boost in language revitalization,” Johnsen said. “There’s been a big fear that the language is going away and we’re not able to save it. So I think this was a good community boost.”
Johnsen also said language revitalization is important, and it was amazing to have an event like this given the University’s history with the Dakota and Ojibwe tribes.
The University campus occupies Ojibwe and Dakota Homelands, which were stolen by Minnesota settlers through many forms of settler violence.
Muldrew and Morrow both hope they can act in the last two Star Wars Films of the original series and believe they need people from their community to learn film skills.
“We need people from our community, making these kinds of new projects, all that kind of stuff,” Muldrew said. “We need that in the language, so University is one of the main places you can get that.”
