Yes, we're on, we're on uh we wanted to talk a little this morning about
leadership and about changing times. I'm always impressed when I go back
through the Navajo documents and how many people were speaking out and
trying to do their best to make sure the land didn't get taken and the
forging a future, you might say for the next generation,
when I think about the meaning of leadership of course is different from
one time to another. And over the course of your life, you've seen a
variety of leaders, some of them very effective. But
it was an enormous challenge to fight off the various dangers to people's
water in people's lands, people's lives. I wondered when you were,
you know, when you came back to Navajo country, you had a opportunity to
being to think about that in a sense of see these different patterns of
leadership emerge. Oh,
DNA was obviously an important agency and it was in its own way of
political agency to taking on various
cases various issues, various problems. I had just come to the Navajo when
you know, this was getting started and you and ted Mitchell went out and
recruited some people and
there was work to do. Um when you think about the patterns of the
leadership or the people who are leaders today, what are some of the
important qualities or attributes a leader in Navajo country would have
had to have had or would need today.
My own perspectives on the issue of leadership is that every generations
have their own leaders. They
mhm did whatever it is that they think it should be done. And while doing
that throughout neighborhood history, they did a wonderful thing for the
Navajo people. And so uh these qualities or attributes of leaders really
comes in with time because every one of us, every one of us we have our
own leadership qualities, abilities and what have you. And it was one of
those situations in the life of many of the Navajo people that what they
did uh was significant and it was extraordinary. And in terms of the
qualities I would say for neighborhood leaders, one of those important
attribute is the individual has to know the Navajo culture, They had to
know the Navajo clan system, how people are all related uh to each other.
And there are things that comes with those relationships
a re Navajo family has for example in laws, they are married into another
family. And if you know the clan system very, very well then there are
things like the teasing
of never who individual comes into uh use by Navajo who's who's very well
versed in clan relationship and that's that's just to keep uh the uh
whatever the issue is at hand going and uh yeah the Navajo people well
during the election they will fight, but they always come back together
after the election and that's one thing that one has to admire the Navajo
people about. So the relationship between all these families, the
knowledge on the Navajo culture, the knowledge clan relationship for me
was very, very important. The second one is uh one of the qualities that
the individual has to have is a dream. You can't just look at yourself as
an administrator of the largest indian tribe in the United States, but to
be able to have a vision, to be able to have some degree of knowledge
about how to get to that vision that you're looking uh in distance away,
years away into the future. How do you organize so that you get the
neighborhood nation to get to be at a certain point at a certain time in
their history. So visionary uh leader, uh someone who has a vision is very
, very important. And I guess the other thing is that you also have to
have an ability not only in the Navajo language, in the Navajo culture,
but in terms of the ability to speak english very well and then be able to
articulate those dreams. Uh for me it was very, very important and I think
that's sometimes a quality that lot of people overlooked. Everybody has an
idea, everybody thinks about what is it that they want to do. But you
can't get lost in explaining what those visions are. You gotta be able to
articulate it so that you connect with people and you know what people are
thinking and so an articulation of those dreams,
your vision I think is very, very important. I always said also that a
leader has to know
that when he gets to a corner, he has the, he should have the ability to
anticipate what's around the corner on the other side without actually
looking at it. He has to be able to two
see the situation as as they really are and uh that anticipation of what
may be coming I think is very important also because when you, when you
have these kinds of leadership then you're prepared for anything that may
come your way. So the ability to get around to a corner and then look on
the other side of the building I think is very, very important for an
effective, good leadership. So I just wanted to say some things about
those, the qualities that I think never where people are able to to look
at the last one I think is very, very important.
Uh huh Navajo is going through and evolution
um being traditional person
and then goin from that kind of living, going from that history of the
Navajo people over to the modern way of life under on the reservation and
I think an individual has to have those experience that traditional people
had for example, herding sheep, tending to the horses, planting your own
corn, raising your own food and and then being able to live in a Hogan and
knowing the Navajo prayers, all of those kinds of traditional uh behavior
pattern, that neighborhood people have, one has to really understand that.
And you can only learn that those, those aren't taught in school. You can
only learn from your parents and grandparents and people in the community
, all those kinds of attributes. And uh, and you have to be able to
measure your own ability against some of your own, for example, uncles and
aunts and grandpas that live in those communities. And so it's important
that a person who wants to be a leader go through all of that process. And
it's something that I thought was was important and much of what people
did. Uh, they're in the, for example, the 1950s and 60s and 70s. And the
other thing that I think is very important is is that a person also has to
have some kind of an experience where they go through hardship themselves
and that they know how to react to those trying times. You don't, one
doesn't really know the quality of a leader until there is a problem, huge
problem, controversy, an emergency to see how that individual behaves. And
uh, if there's some kind of a tragedy, uh, some, some really, uh, an event
that really affects so many people, then you really find who the leaders
are. And because you can't just go in front of the people say, you know,
I'm going to be your next leader. They, they had to see that. And so I
think those kinds of experience are of necessity. I also would like to add
one other thing on this question and issue and that is just,
I admire the Navajo people in the past.
And I'll give you insight some examples
if you look at the time that the Navajo people were in prison uh, in fort
Sumner at well death
And we stayed there for four years and there were many, many Navajo people
that were imprisoned there by the United States Government at the time.
And, and the Navajo people that the Navajo leaders that were there, they
were actually medicine men. Chief Manuelito is a good example. Ganado
musha is a good example and some of the very well known Navajo people that
were imprisoned there and, and they survive because they knew the
neighborhood uh religion, they knew the Navajo ways of life, They know
that they knew that you had to depend on yourself to be self sufficient
and the United States Government thought that they might all die there,
but they survive, they survive. So they must have had something uh, for
them to do that and to go through all that, that ordeal and they came back
in 18, I believe it was in 1868,
during that period, they came back to the Navajo, but when they were in
the process of being released from fort Sumner, the leaders did not fight
, uh, they wanted to get back to their land, they wanted to get back to
their people, they were homesick for their uh, you know, for their
relatives and for their homeland. So they didn't fight over a little small
detail when they were signing the treaty, they just said that this, this
gives us an opportunity to get back to the, to our original land. So so
they did. And when they got to the, what was now the neighborhood nation,
it was just a small piece of elongated land that went from, let's say,
somewhere south of Window Rock. Arizona going all the way up north along
the state line, Uh, into Shiprock. And it was no more than uh, maybe uh
one million acres of land. A small piece of land that they accepted. They
didn't fight over or they didn't, they didn't really resist the fact with
the federal government. While the process of negotiation, they didn't
fight over the small piece of land that they were being asked to go back
to because I think they themselves agreed amongst themselves that
they would go back to the Navajo. And when they do that, they have a
tremendous amount of work ahead of them and which was to increase the
acreage that they, the original land that they went back to. I wasn't
anywhere near what they were looking for, but they didn't make a big fuss
about that. They just went back then they all went to work. Each one of
these chiefs leaders, They all went to work and they start adding to their
reservation every so often, maybe every 10 years every five years they
would, for some reason they would keep on adding to the Navajo nation. So
from 1868, when they went back to that one million acre of land two, 2000
oh eight, They now have 17 million acres of land. So you go from one
million acres of land 2 17, about 17 million acres of land. That's a huge
, huge edition. Wow. How did that happen? Why did it happen? I always say
it happened because the neighborhood leadership for that long period of
time, for that long period of time, over 100 years, each one that there
was leaders, uh, that they came out of the neighborhood generation, They
had the same uh, goal, uh, that what they wanted to do was Navajo
population is increasing. We're getting more and more young people into
their tribe each year. Therefore the land has to grow as, as the
population of the Navajo people is also grown and none of those leaders
ever said, we shouldn't be doing that. We should be happy with a model
acres that we have. They all spent resource. They all did exactly the same
thing from one generation to the other and which was to add more land to
the neighborhood nation.
I like the leadership of Chief Manuelito because he knew, he knew that
that was happening. He also said what we now need is education
and so at a time when the idea of center neighborhood youngsters to, to
receive their education was a bad thing among the Navajo people. He chose
the route of something are never who youngsters to colleges and university
to boarding schools. He said that they have to learn how to speak, english
, they have to learn the white man's ways. If we can send our Children to
to school, have them learn the white man's ways, then we can use the
education, the education system as a way to win our battles. And so he
didn't shy away from a controversy where majority of neighborhood people
at the time did not want to send their Children to school. He make sure
that the neighborhood Children, uh, and the Navajo families gave up their
Children to go to school because he knew that was something that needed to
be done because we were adding land to the Navajo people, the Navajo land
right and left, you know, every four or five years and the Navajo
population was increasing. And he said that we can't really just stay that
way. We're going to send these people out to school, Let him become
doctors, let him become engineers, let him become nurses, let him become
uh, lawyers and that we can do that. We can use the same thing to fight
our battles. And these young people will fight our battles for us and
we'll win in, uh, in many of those situations. And uh, we'll win, uh, by
educating our youngsters. And he said that the only way you could do it is
is to learn more about the ways of the white man. And after we are kids
learn all about that. You know, then they can fight their battles
effectively because at that point it would be almost like them. So I think
that's such an ad. And Admiral, I really, I really admire the way the
neighborhood leadership progress in that fashion. Put in, uh,
all of the land expansion, uh, together with, with education. And so when
something like that happens, you can't have be positive for the future of
the neighborhood nation. And I think that's going to continue anyone who
is a good example earlier time, anyone. Nika is an individual that
probably did the most, uh, any neighborhood leaders. And she did it
because
that was her personality. She did it without much education. She didn't
have the greatest education in the world that one could receive. She
didn't have a college degree, But she had qualities that most people
admire and those qualities was the ability to communicate very well with
the Navajo people in the neighborhood land, which on health issues. For
example, she was one of these individuals that had the ability to see
what's around the corner that most people didn't see. She knew what was
coming. And so she anticipated some of these things and then she did not
just not do anything that bothers. She went out and she did something. So
when the Navajo people were being affected by tuberculosis, never what
people were dying left and right from uh, from tuberculosis, she did
something about it. And so she single handedly built, mhm all of these
sanatorium one here in phoenix and I believe one in colorado springs and
she went before congress to have congress appropriate money so that the
Navajo people who was further alone and and uh the uh tuberculosis, the
stage of sickness, those people were then put at the sanatorium, she
visited with them almost maybe twice or maybe even four times a year. And
so she had that quality and she's uh, she always remained as one of my
favorite Navajo leader. You think in many indian communities, you have
leadership is something that runs in the family. There's an expectation
come of age that your father was this or you're grandmother was sad or
your uncle was this. And uh there's that since a lot of different in the
community. So that is something that you sort of called upon to do in part
because you come from a family that historically and in our own time has
provided that leadership, that expectation that you will carry on.
And sometimes it's hard to see, you know that family because you can't
automatically trace it. But you know, you think about
people believing in themselves and empowerment and necessity to fight for
what was right and they really had to fight. I mean, they had some good
allies, but in the end it was you think about tom dodge who I think is an
overlooked
leader of great importance. And tom dodge had his way livestock production
period would not have gone about it quite the way it was. Even though he
lost that fight, he uh you know, he was trying to do the best he could do
two make that program not quite as terrible as you have been. You go back
and look at the tribal council minutes and you see the speeches that
people gave and the protests they articulated, it's not just about
livestock production as you know, it's about conditions for people working
in fields off reservation, a whole series of things, this phrase and
english about history and they said, we really need to look more at
history is something that people make rather than have a history of
something that happens to you. My sense of not the leadership is one, it
is engaged in these matters because I really don't have any choice and
they need to fight in different ways for themselves. You look through time
, there are a series of issues like that, including our own time, there's
water rights or coal mining or variety of things like that. Think about
someone like Willie morgen, William morgan's, it was a pioneer in terms of
written Navajo and working with the languished robert young that took real
ability. And really, you're talking about perceptiveness sort of looking
at the future. He understood that he was not going to be a politician in
that sense, but he was going to do something that would really make a
difference in terms of the language and the languages future. We don't
always worry anything about
something like bob russell, you mentioned in the past, some of these are
Navajo people, some of these are married people,
but there are people who over the course of time understand something
about what the needs and what the obligations
when you were
the head guy and DNA that was a leadership position.
Did you?
And you've talked about the Mcclanahan case. Another other things
tell me something more about how leadership was important within that was
ted Mitchell a leader. Somebody that made everybody unhappy
when I was a DNA. Uh huh. I came to the program as, as a young person. I
must have been out of college only several years when I was called upon
two mhm had one of the largest american indian legal services program in
the United States. You have to look at that situation where perhaps I was
the only non indian american indian director at the time. And that raised
a lot of questions mainly from uh lawyers and maybe from the State Bar
County Bar association, how can we have a non indian person lead in such a
large american indian uh legal services program, but one one. Uh then back
then they didn't really understand that to have uh a skill and to be
trained legally was only one aspect of directing the program. Maybe in so
many ways it was better to have a non indian or excuse me. Uh maybe it was
better to have a non lawyer director who is an american indian from that
from that nation from that country. And so I was one that there was
individual that let a program that was very effective. It was highly
respected by the Navajo people. Yes, we had a situation where also many of
the people from away from the reservation did not really like the
activities DNA people's legal services program basically, basically
because we were defending the rights of individual american indians. And
so Ted Mitchell was one of these individuals at first came to Navajo
reservation right out of law school at Harvard University. And he was
asked by uh, the O. N. E. O. Program too build and to establish a legal
services program. And I must have been either the third or the fourth
person in his administration that was hired to run the legal services
program. And so he made me the the director of tribal court advocacy
program for the DNA legal services. And uh, and Ted Mitchell certainly was
a leader. He was a leader in his own right. Uh and he also had legal
skills and legal talents. And uh, he was one that there was individual
that was not afraid to say what was on his mind. And uh, he was in the
ritual that also cared a lot about the indian people, the Neverhood people.
And by everything that he did, it was geared towards protecting the
rights of individual that every person has certain had certain rights. And
uh, and he was there to protect those rights and have people understand
that situation.
When you think about the Navajo country From the 1970s for a long time,
it's been a very challenging time for the Navajo nation and there's been
some great victories as well.
I think the trust fund is something we've talked about this. If you had to
name several accomplishments or things that happened during your point of
service is tribal council chair nomination ship. I would think that would
be near the top of your list in terms of long term significance. But one
thing is always related to something else isn't one connection with
another. But I've often thought about your particular upbringing. It low
mountain in your sense about the chapter house and the fact that you
didn't want to window rock to be the only place where they were making
decisions.
But the challenge of making no ship equivalent sort of rights or authority
or power at the chapter level. Uh, that's in terms of voting variety of
things. That seems to be something that you've been dedicated to for a
long time. You didn't want when you became the chairman, you don't want to
be the imperial president. You want to make sure the local people had to
say and what was going that is that a correct assumption on? Yeah. Yeah. I
would say that that is probably a correct exemption because uh it was
something that I was involved in right from the beginning. I mean I cared
about people, I was very well a reverse in what people, the hardships that
people went through. And I also knew about the needs and the desires of uh
individuals that live out in the community of low mountain. And I knew
that if given the opportunity that many of those people that I grew up
with would take advantage of those opportunities. And so sometimes you
have to be mindful of the fact that when you present those opportunities
to individuals, uh you also know that many of them will take advantage of
those opportunities. And it's those individuals that did that, that was
able to function very well in their community or even on or after
reservation. And because they saw how important those opportunities were.
And one of those opportunity was going out and receiving your education
and then using that education too better not only your own family, but the
whole nation, the
the neighborhood nation for example can benefit from that. And so yes, I
would say that I spent a lot of my career, a lot of my life time defending
the rights of individual because I knew that if given some opportunities,
these individuals would surface, uh, somewhere to become leaders of the
Navajo nation. I guess that's the reason why I'm here at Arizona state
University because I see a lot of good qualities and young people. Uh,
Navajo people that come through colleges, the university here in the
valley and when I see one always worked with them in such a way that they
understand tried to make them realize that they have a duty back to their
home communities wherever they came from.
If you think about the people who people from nomination have come here to
school the numbers, the statistics are really remarkable. I mean when you
were finishing up at ASU, I bet you, somebody said to you x number of
years from now contrast how many none of us are at issue now. Uh, there
will be, You know, 1000 or whatever the right number is. You would have
probably been pretty skeptical that day with come and yet you've had a
major role in bringing that about in terms of working with the emission
staff and financial aid and a variety of other things like that. There's a
big university, it's a lot to take on more to take on in some ways than
when you were here a different different way. So there has to be also, I
would think great satisfaction for you in terms of seeing the concrete
positive results and not everybody is a success story, but what I find
myself saying to novel students know suicide, the key messages, one of
empowerment, you're saying you can do it, you have to believe in yourself
, but this is an opportunity and I've seen person after person, you know,
accept that challenge at the end of the year, need paul or wherever we are
, when you're speaking about the people are graduating and going on, that
has to be a an evening of particular pride and emotion for you.
Well, that all came about because
I had a vision and I had a dream of my own where I, one of these
individuals that really believe that if we can educate more people on the
Navajo reservation, if we can educate more of our Navajo youngsters
that they would rise to the occasion, become self sufficient and solve
their own problem. And the way to get to that stage is if you go out and
recruit those students who are able capable, good character, good academic
record that sees all that this as an opportunity. If you, if you can't get
those individuals to a university and then began working with them, that
that is something that I wanted to do and I wanted to promote and from my
position here, working out of the President's office, Arizona State
University, I was able to do that. It's also one of those things where if
you really really know the situation, you have to set your goals. Uh In
other words when I came here at A. S. U. One of the things I was told that
the university is really interested in was to get in more students. Well I
have to figure out how do you get more students? And uh and then I start
going uh out into the communities or start seeing different tribal
governments within the state here as well as in the southwestern start
recruiting students. And when you start dealing with those numbers, you
have to set a goal for yourself. And so that's when we sat down and said
uh bye A year 2000
12 or 2015 we've got to have this many american indian students here on
campus and it's a goal that we set. And what you do is you have to just
people that you're working with, you just have to keep on reminding them.
You know that that's the goal, that's something to work for. And so that
what that does is that every morning when you get up you have to look at
those goals, you have to think about those goals and say today I got to
recruit so many more students that I can convince to come to a issue. And
so I did all of that because I know that if we can get a lot of our Navajo
and indian youngsters to come to a. S. U and then put them back on the
reservation that much of the problems that we see out there uh will come
to its own resolutions by its own people. You know from those areas you
can always have and expect somebody to come in from somewhere and uh and
start working on those problems for them. It has to be done from within.
And there's those american indian students that have an opportunity to to
blossom into a powerful leadership. That's the only way that you can
resolve a lot of those issues. It's a fragile business isn't even during
the time I was teaching at the college people were just doing great in the
classes and come in on monday morning. They were gone. Yeah. You know, and
you said what happened? Well, you know, there was this problem at home or
that from him to be resolved. And you know, Arizona seems to specialize in
absolutely the longest semesters in the history of the world. You know,
you're I just have been reminded again and again how important sometimes
it's a small financial problem but it doesn't seem small when you're in
the middle of it or something happened at home or whatever. And I think
given the support staff and your office and others there's been a much
better record in terms of taking that on and seeing a way you can help
work through this situation rather than just sort of,
But you know, I think in american society more generally, there's more
uncertainty about education and what will, what will bring and where,
whether it'll take people away from you. And I think you and others
deserve a lot of credit for your determination to, you know, set a course
that would be productive. I mean, he said this our discussion for, I can't
walk across campus almost any time of the day without seeing Navajo people.
And that
that's really something. Well, that, that's a wonderful thing to see. I do
the same thing. I went to school here at Arizona State University and I
enroll here In the 19, early 1960s. And when you walk across campus, you
didn't see anybody that was native. And nowadays I walk across the campus
and it's not unusual, for example, to go from my office over to the law
school and along the way have three individuals that stop you and they
want to shake hand and they want to introduce themselves. And then, uh,
and those are our own people. Those are our own american indian students.
And uh, and the same thing happens when I go from my office over to the
President's office or to the football stadium. It's not unusual to see 3-5
people that stopped you and introduce themselves as individuals who come
from your tribe. And it gives, it gives me a great feeling, uh, you know,
and a lot of satisfaction and the fact that you're beginning to see many
other indian students here, I saw that don't know what you call it, not
really a brochure, but this publication about esu and looking towards the
future and you you're rather prominently featured in that. Mhm. How did
you feel about that? Well, it's one of those things that uh you don't
actually seek out to be in that position or to be mentioned in those kinds
of uh either newspapers or booklets or magazine. But when you work long
and hard and long enough, you know, people recognize what's happening and
I think uh the discussion that we're having today uh is one of those were
people are beginning to realize the significant of american indians
students presence here at Arizona State University and the magazine that
you're referring to is just recognizing the fact. Uh a lot of the work
that was done was done by uh myself and others and I can't really take all
the credit by myself. There were so many people that had a role in uh in
bringing many of these students to the campus here.
What are two or 3, two If you prefer major challenges that the nomination
face today or I faced in the recent past.
I think one of those challenges
right now is
trying to keep
the never who government
to be accountable to the people we have for the first time, the Neverhood
tribal budget is
Almost 200 million. Wow. I believe the last time I read the some of the
work that they're doing regarding generating more revenue is what the
tribal government, I think they were using something like 175 million as
an annual budget. And when I went into uh run in the Navajo government, It
was barely $35, $40, $40 million. And then because of all the work that we
did, we came up to something like 50 or 16 million and you could run the
tribe efficiently uh with that amount of money and the tribal government
was small. But during the last several years it has really blossom uh into
such a huge, huge bureaucratic organization. And when you do that, you're
going to end up spending more money because you have more people that are
managing a lot of these programs for the, for the neighborhood nations.
And I think one that the challenge that they're facing right now is is how
do you have the Navajo nation government continued to be accountable to
the Navajo people and at the same time become an efficient in what they do.
For example, there's just too many rules that applies to the daily life
of people and sometimes you can't really do anything about a project that
you're trying to pursue without getting some kind of approval from
somewhere or a committee and sometimes that becomes a very discouraging
and disheartening for individuals who want to do something. And so I think
that's the biggest challenge. The other challenge that I see right now is
managing the appropriate management of their resources. We're an indian
tribe that has a huge amount of resources, diversified resources. We have
, we have the cold, we have the uranium, we have the water, we have the
land, we have the force and we have oil and gas, we have all these natural
resources at our disposal on the Navajo. Uh, what does one do to
effectively manage those resources? And uh, so the balancing act that the
Neverland nation has to do is how do you protect and preserve, but at the
same time develop those resources to provide employment for, for the
Navajo people. And that's going to take a lot of education, is going to
take some good experts and it's going to also take a tremendous amount of
resources, a lot of money to do an effective job in managing the
management of those resources. And I'd like to see the Navajo people
themselves do that. And so I think we're at a stage where the Navajo
people are able and capable of doing and managing their own resources and
there's something that I think never people I need to do. And that I would
say is also one of the, the biggest challenges that they're facing. I mean
, we had to worry about water water to every community and never have been
as large as it is, it requires more resources to do that. And now people
need homes, that people need more schools. Uh, and you know, they need all
these infrastructure and to build infrastructure on that reservation is
very costly. And uh, and they have to find ways to do all of that in the
most efficient way to me. That's a big challenge that the Navajo nation is
facing right now.
When you think about leaders in the past and the present, you think about
all those challenges and difficulties President share would have to face.
It's like they were joking on election night about Obama. They said if he
wins, he should demand a recount because nobody should really want to take
that all on. You think about that head of the Navajo nation, it's just, I
mean, it's can be rewarding, but it's also even more challenging, even
more difficult, Even more contrary than probably a winning candidate right
, realizes being actually in that chair in that spot, dealing with demands.
It's easy to be on the outside. Not easy, but it's different. And I think
about it's no wonder that Navajo political battleground is being the way
it's been because it's just unprecedented demands upon leadership and
variety of people were eager if given the chance to
let let the President have the opportunity to go in some counterproductive
directions.
And it's just, it's a warren harding the President of the United States
said it's a hell of a job. I mean it really is. And yet if you can somehow
make your way through this gauntlet labyrinth that has to be enormously
satisfying to you, but you can certainly recognize why other people in the
modern age of upon occasion faltered or lost their ways. And
Well, I think the Navajo people have to recognize that
being the Navajo president or chairman is not easy, particularly with the
Navajo because uh if you look at the population of the Navajo,
you have many non english speaking traditional people that still hang onto
the land. They still uh live traditional lifestyles. You also have young
people on their reservation that have message degree, doctorate degree and
they're highly educated and their demands from the tribal government or
from the neighborhood nation is way lot different than the traditional
people. So you have a wide
mhm concepts at the way life is and because of that, because of such a
vast difference in between those two lifestyle, it just makes your job a
lot harder because you had to constantly go back and forth in terms of
your working ability and then the time that you spent on different issues.
And so it's because of that, you know, it's a it's very complicated
hard position and it takes a skillful person to deal with all of those
issues. Uh while if you look at the state of Arizona or the state of New
Mexico or California? Yeah, they have their problems. Their problems are
different. But I don't think it's as hard as, as the Navajo because out
here, you can use television, you can use radio and because of the
education and sufficient sophistication level of the people that live in
these states, you can reasonably expect that whatever it is that you're
doing, that they will catch on. They'll know, uh, what you're trying to do
under Navajo, you have, you have the white spectrum of beliefs and
lifestyle and that makes it harder. And so it's something that I think the
Navajo people have to really recognize in terms of, uh, the people that
they like to to run their government.
There's a phrase about the adjoining countries of Belgium Luxembourg and
the Netherlands, they say they are inseparably divided. Yeah. And that's
sort of reminded me of Navajo nation and politics that people out at
Torian or somewhere like that, or you have somebody up whipper will or
whatever. These are people who are not exactly, you know, within fighting
distance of Winter rock and they, you know, even though the something's
changed, that's an ongoing dilemma and, you know, maybe opportunity to.
But um, it's you think about representation. Yeah. Should there be more
women on the council? Should there be more
voices heard? It's difficult to, because people are very different to
advantage points on their own life experiences?
I've got one last quick question for you, Do you think the best days of
the Navajo nation are still becoming, I really believe that, I really
believe that from here on out, you're going to see more neighborhood women
on the council in leadership position because
of what's happened then. Uh within the track, if you look at the last
election for chapter elections this last month in november, there are more
Navajo young women who were elected at the local chapter houses. And it's
just alarming in a good way that these things are happening for the first
time. The Navajos don't have that stigma attached to the concept that
women shouldn't become leaders. There are more and more of them. And I
think that group is gonna gradually evolve into getting into the council.
And uh, and maybe some people may look at that in a negative way. Uh, I
tend to look at that in a positive way. It's a good development. We should
have uh equality of between male and female in the council because after
all, the population is almost evenly balance between male and female. So
we've got to have that representation. So I think good things will come
out of that. And I think the Navajo people are at that stage right now,
you very much
good. Thank you.
I was thinking of my old friend glow, Gene Benson to Jeannie and you know
, she's on the, was the county board of supervisors who were in new Mexico
and just had a christmas card. She's really enjoying it. It's tough. Uh
Anybody who marries into the chinese probably have to be pretty tough to
start with. She she's really happy to have this chance and she's not so
young. But when you think about I think the next generation of you're
absolutely right. It's really gonna be a transformation of the council
because of the kind of you know the people who are going to be a part of.
Yeah mm if you'd like to just take that with you and give it back to
Joyce I was giving that as a gift to them but I thought you might like to
borrow it. Just look at it if you want. Okay I like to look at it. Yeah I
read it then bring it back just yeah I'm gonna get after. Yeah I want to
make sure some of these paper things that I have get passed along to other
people can use some net. We had that term paper assignment last semester
about DNA legal services and it was great to see all these students. Okay
looking at your papers and DNA stuff you know they really they were very
possible about that. Really learned a lot about you. Think about how long
this outfit has been going and how many lives it's touched. It's really
something but it's interesting to me as a historian. I used to go back and
look at these early issues in early discussions that are going on.
Good. Okay. Yeah sure that's fine.
Mhm. Okay. Mhm. Good. Okay. Well I gotta I gotta run my friend. Yeah.