Today is the third class of your current four class set. We will begin to day with a casual conversation. Our reading today is about color. We will try again please make your notes. Our listening is an Storycorps story with a transcript. Please read and underline any words that are not familiar with you. For the listening, please listen and follow the transcript at the same time.

Click HERE for the reading

Jasmyn Morris (JM): This is a conversation between two friends who grew up in Alaska. Grete Bergman is Gwich’in and for years, she wanted Facial Markings, a once banned practice for indigenous women. But in 2016, she became one of the first in the Gwich’in nation to get tattooed.

Grete Bergman (GB): And they are strong lines, bold lines, no fooling around lines.

Sarah Whalen-Lunn (SWL): They are no bullshit lines. [laughs]

JM: She sat down for StoryCorps with Inupiaq artist, Sarah Whalen-Lunn, Who gave Grete her markings.

GB: My dad would have hated it. He would have looked at me and he would have said, “What the hell you do that for”? [laughs]

You know, my dad was beaten in school for speaking his language because being native was the worst possible thing you could be. So, I didn’t know anyone who had their traditional markings and every time I brought it up, I always got the same sort of, “This is taboo. We don’t do this.”

SWL: A lot of people are still scared. When I gave you your markings, I didn’t yet have any of mine. So you all of a sudden became this pillar of strength to me.

GB: Oh, I’m weak as hell, girl.

SWL: No, you’re not. You keep on saying that, but it is not true. I see who you are. You were the first person that I tattooed.

GB: I didn’t realize I was the first one.

SWL: Oh yeah, I wasn’t going to tell you.

GB: Well, I’m glad I was anyway. You were somebody that I could trust.

SWL: When I came over to do your markings, I was nervous. But, I remember looking down and you were laying there and your daughter was holding your hand. 

GB: She was seven at the time.

SWL: That moment was a changer for me.

GB: It was a changer for me, too. [Laughs]

SWL: It’s more than just your appearance. It changes the way that you carry yourself. And we’re doing it so that our girls can.

GB: Yeah. I feel like I’ve given them something that my grandmother had taken away from her.

SWL: You show them it’s OK to be who you are and be proud of that.