When Sherryl Whitehawk’s granddaughter suggested she create a TikTok account to share her stories, Whitehawk did not know what that was. Now she has more than 237,000 followers and a TV show with APTN.
“People connect with the grandmother’s spirit because everybody has wonderful memories of their grandmothers, and even the ones that don’t have memories of their grandmothers have thoughts of how they would want a grandma to be,” said Whitehawk, affectionately called Grandma Sherry by her family and followers.
When approached by APTN to do a cooking TV, she said she was excited until she was told she could only speak Dakota.
“That was, I say, the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my whole career was doing those shows in Dakota,” said Whitehawk.
“I understood the language, from my childhood, but I was disconnected with talking the language, and now I had to learn how to talk, and that was hard for me.”
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APTN hired a Dakota language speaker , who happened to be Whitehawk’s cousin, to help her with the show. The two are vey close, Whitehawk said, having grown up together in their grandmother’s home and sharing the same birth month and year.
Whitehawk said during the filming of her TV show, she realized “how important this was to show people that you can reconnect with your language.”
“I want Dakota people to watch my show and see me stumbling through and learning the language, but I also want all people to watch my show to support me and to support people learning to speak the language,” she said. “Don’t let it die.”
In a May 5 news release, APTN said Grandma Sherry’s Kitchen is an “important milestone” in its Indigenous language programming.
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The Indigenous broadcaster also announced the Living Languages Initiative on May 26. Partnering with Rocket Fund Canada, APTN said the initiative will “accelerate the creation of children’s content in multiple Indigenous languages” by creating a family-focused language education series.
Grandma Sherry’s Kitchen premiered on APTN on May 5. Episodes air weekly at 7:30 Mountain Time on APTN Languages, and are available to watch on APTN’s Youtube channel and streaming platform APTN+.
Jasmine Nasogaluak contributed reporting.
