Aspen Decker is a proud member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (T̓at̓ayáqn Séliš). Currently she is an MA student in linguistics at the University of Montana. She earned a BA in tribal historic preservation from Salish Kootenai College. Aspen is a Salish language instructor at the Salish Kootenai College. She is one of the last of 17 fluent Salish speakers left today, and she speaks only Salish to her four children and raising first language speakers of Salish. Aspen was recently awarded a grant from the Endangered Language Fund (ELF) for her project “kʷƛ̓ep Qe Sox̣ʷèp (revive our roots) language project for creating a seasonal curriculum, that teaches Indigenous knowledge and Séliš epistemology together with Séliš language.
