Anyone who has taken online Cherokee classes with Ed Fields knows that he shares so much of himself, and in doing so, inspires a love of the language and culture. There is hardly any way that comes near expressing how many lives he has touched, and how much he has done for the Cherokee language itself. 

I wanted to create this film as a small way of saying thank you to Ed Fields. It’s important to say here that everyone involved in the film was a student of Ed’s. When I approached people to take part by lending their voices, the response was incredibly enthusiastic. Everyone wanted to help, and to be able to say thank you. There were 32 students involved, but if I had needed 100 more voices, I'm sure I would have easily found  100 more who were eager to be a part of this project. That's how much Ed Fields means to all his students.

Tsalagi Elohi Igvnadena means Cherokee around the World. The idea for the film came from something Ed Fields said one day in class—he imagined people all around the world speaking Cherokee and holding hands.

The truth is, people from all over benefit from his classes, and in just this one film, students were from Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Washington State, California, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, and even as far away as Belgium.

Everyone came together for the same reason. Simply to say, Wado Ed.


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