Sara Snyder Hopkins shares her personal transformation from thinking Native American people should assimilate to advocating for preserving Native languages and teaching the endangered Cherokee language. She shares reasons for saving dying languages and ways that non-Native people like herself can help. Sara Snyder Hopkins is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Cherokee Language Program at Western Carolina University. An ethnomusicologist and linguistic anthropologist by training, she previously spent six years teaching elementary music for New Kituwah Academy, the Cherokee language immersion school in Cherokee, NC. She and her family live in Balsam, NC. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx