Publications

FOR MANY STUDENTS, college is a chance to meet new people and join new communities. For identical twins Elaina and Nisha Supahan, coming to SOU was something more. It was an opportunity to bring their community—and their sense of community—to Southern.

Karuk Indians, Elly and Nisha grew up in the small town of Orleans on the Klamath River in northern California. After graduating from high school on the Hupa Indian Reservation, the twins came to SOU in fall 2000.

Elly majored in geography with a minor in land use planning. She received the Karuk Tribe’s Natural Resources Department Scholarship and the Klamath River Intertribal Fish and Water Commission’s 2004–2005 Scholarship. Elly has been on the SOU Dean’s List and was recognized by the American Association of University Women as the Outstanding Senior Woman in Geography. After her graduation in the spring, Elly wed her skills in geography with her passion for tribal communities by getting a job doing computer mapping for the Yurok tribe in northern California.

Nisha’s major was photojournalism. Her photographs have been published in News from Native California, and her self-portrait was displayed in the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico, this fall. Nisha has repeatedly appeared on the SOU President’s List. As a graduate, she plans to start her own photography business. Nisha also hopes to attend the Academy of Art in San Francisco for her master’s in fashion photography.

Both Nisha and Elaina were awarded Diversity Scholarships from Southern. While their majors helped them develop their individual passions, they were able to explore common interests through their minors. Both completed minors in applied multimedia, and Elly created a children’s book of a Karuk tale as a project for her Digital Art class. They also completed a Native American studies certificate, which, like the Native American studies minor, is the only such program in Oregon.

Elaina and Nisha are role models both in their local community and at Southern. The twins regularly participate in Karuk traditional and tribal ceremonies, and they are involved with the Karuk community across Siskiyou and Humboldt Counties. For many years, the Supahans have been committed learners of their native language. In recent years, they have become effective teachers of the language, as well.

Elly and Nisha have always been interested in revitalizing the Karuk language. Before college, they worked in Siskiyou and Humboldt Counties on language teaching projects. When they came to SOU, they proposed a community language course that was taught through the Foreign Languages and Literatures Department and Extended Campus Programs.

Elly and Nisha also worked and volunteered across campus, including for the Native American Studies Program, Women’s Resource Center, and the Communication Department, where Nisha won the Outstanding Service Award in 2004.

If all that isn’t enough, Elaina and Nisha are also moms. Elly and her husband, Phil, have a son who is almost two years old and speaking Karuk, as well as English. Nisha and Toby’s son was born in August 2005 and will also grow up learning the language. They are teaching their sons Karuk, hoping the new cousins will carry on the tradition of work with language revitalization.

Besides sharing the Karuk language by preserving and teaching it, Elly and Nisha recently shared it with another community— their fellow graduating seniors. Selected as the 2005 student commencement speakers, the Supahans presented their speech in both English and Karuk as they told the audience about the importance of the community and origins.

“Keep our past and mold our future around what we have learned here in this community,” they stated. “Whatever you choose to accomplish, don’t forget who you are and where you came from. And remember that your knowledge, your acorns, may grow to feed a single person or an entire community.”