New street signs with Massachusett language translation will be installed in East Cambridge

Local News

More than new 70 signs will designate First through Eighth Streets after a participatory budget item.

An example of a dual language sign in the United States. Street signs marking First through Eighth Streets in East Cambridge will include translations into the Massachusett language.

After more than 2,500 Cambridge residents made their voices heard during the participatory budget vote in 2021, more than 70 new street signs in East Cambridge will include translations into the native Massachusett language.

Sage Carbone, a Cambridge resident, proposed the participatory budget item to add traditional Native translations to city signs, along with commemorating Native American sites in Cambridge with markers.

“Any representation is missing,” she said. Carbone is a member of the Northern Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island with Nipmuc, Massachusett ancestry.

The signs, which will include both the English and Massachusett languages for First through Eighth Streets in East Cambridge, will be at every intersection of those numbered streets. The group of mostly volunteer Native scholars and city officials, including Carbone, will be looking at mock-ups of the sign next week in preparation for installation in the spring.

According to Carbone, the translations will read “nekône taꝏmâôk,” for First Street, with the following ordinal numbers as “neese,” “neeshwe,” “yâwe,” “napanatashe,” “nequsuktashe,” “neesâusuktashe,” and “neeshwôsuktashe.”

In Cambridge, she said, there’s a lack of inclusive events and Native American visibility. 

“I hope that this project will also highlight some of the areas of improvement that need to be done and investment on the side of the city,” Carbone said. “There’s at least three cultural heritage centers run for and by Native Americans in Boston, and there’s zero in Cambridge.”

It was approved in December 2021 as a merged project called the African American & Indigenous Peoples Historical Reckoning Project, which also looks to restore and expand the existing African American Heritage Trail in Cambridge.

The project won more than 2,500 votes from 7,000 voters, becoming one of the seven projects funded in the city’s eighth participatory budget cycle.

The joint initiative was granted $180,000. This first phase including new street signs should cost less than $20,000, according to Sarah Burks from the Cambridge Historical Commission.

“We’re committed to doing the project, and we hope that it will make people stop and think about the history of this area,” said Burks.

Friends of the project include private nonprofit History Cambridge.

“Traditionally, there has not been a lot of recognition about the people who occupied this space for thousands of years before it was colonized,” said Marieke Van Damme, the group’s executive director.

“People of Cambridge don’t really know about the history, but they do want to know more, so we see an incredible need and a thirst to learn more about this history,” she said.

History Cambridge has worked with Carbone, along with other Indigenous advocates, for their Indigenous Voices project.

“All the markers that we have need to be rewritten and reexamined,” Van Damme said. “That’s just where we are. If we are truly interpreting the history of a place, if we’re truly talking about American history, we have to expand the narrative. We have to talk about more stories.”

The street signs are just the first phase of this budget item. Burks said there’s enough funding for multiple phases of both projects. 

While the Indigenous part of the project is moving ahead faster than the African American trail restoration, both are set to work with historical markers with the remaining funds.

“When you look at the current historical markers, most of them either start with white settlement and/or have really disparaging or incorrect data about Native Americans,” Carbone said. “In order to make those changes, there needs to be a comprehensive audit of the signage and research into how to better display those histories.”