showcasing some of Harvard’s stellar graduates.
Eli Langley ’21 grew up in a family devoted to safeguarding the culture, history, and language of the Coushatta Tribe. His father, a tribal cultural adviser, and his mother, an anthropologist and tribal historian, nourished him with Native folktales and inspired him early on to take pride in his roots.
Raised in Elton, a tiny rural town in southwest Louisiana, Langley embraced his parents’ mission and his kin’s expectations as both a privilege and a responsibility, and began blazing trails from a young age. At 12, he asked his parents to send him to a boarding school to challenge himself academically. At 18, he learned Koasati, the language of his tribe, becoming its youngest speaker, and in 2016, he became the first member of the Coushatta Tribe to be admitted to Harvard.