Okay, we're back on. So.
Mhm. Okay. Among the education policy,
uh education policy, who was a policy that needed to be mhm. Done by the
tribal government where in we can state
how we feel. Uh Navajo education should be in the future and that culture
, history,
a land in which life, Neverhood lifestyle, uh the neighborhood way of life
, including the retention of the clan system and cat. Uh Those are all
important to the survival of the Neverland nation and uh we shouldn't lose
it, we should enhance it. Uh And the best way to do it is with the young
Children, the young Navajo people and that we're going to mandate the
schools that they should teach, the language they should teach. Navajo
culture. Never hope history. And that is a good beginning. It's a good
start with the young people. And so we did that we did that. And we also
knew at the time that this is an instrument uh that could be used by a lot
of folks that are in education, whether that be the the federal government
or state government or other tribal governments, that it was a model
education policy. And it was a statement of desires, statements of belief
by the Navajo people in education, certainly a continuation. What Chief
Manuelito said years and years ago when he uh talked to them that were
people about how he felt about education. And it was time for Navajo to
embrace fully the education of the white people. And I think at the time
what he had in mind was the Navajo people getting uh and gaining knowledge
about the work of the non indian people and uh, and that we need to know
how they come to certain conclusions and all of that and that you just
can't continue fighting somebody that you don't understand. And yes, we
may not like many of the things that they do, but why do they do it and we
need to understand them and to do that, we've got to have an education. So
we've got to send our kids to learn more about the white man's way of life
and that's to go to school. And so from the neighborhood side, it was
really a policy that states the obvious, which was that we need to tell
the world how we feel about education and how we view education and that
we want our Children to remain in school and get the education education
that they deserve. And so that was why we did what we did uh huh. And
education policy also was not cast in stone that when time goes by, it has
to be changed to reflect the growth of the neighborhood people in
education And as a result, uh, the Navajo nation, this past two years,
three years ago passed another education that replaces that and not
completely throwing away the old neighborhood education policy, but really
to update it and to enhance that. And uh, the way I put it is to put it
into second gear. You, you, we had the truck running in first gear and,
and three years ago it was a matter of shifting to the second gear because
of all the process that has taken place in the area of education. So that
was, that was, uh, education policy, uh, on the Navajo, we have a large,
large
area to cover. We also have many, many neighborhood Children out there
that needs to go to school, that should be in school. Somebody told me the
other day that we have something like 72,000 Students. Neverhood Students
of School Age. That means from kindergarten all the way to uh, never who,
uh huh students that go to graduate school and they become doctors. Those
are people that are of school age. And uh, and that's a, that's a huge, uh
, a group of people and they go to these different schools, like the
public schools, the contract schools and then the grant school, they also
have mission schools. Then they still have some boarding schools on the
Navajo nation. And then you have, uh, schools that are run by the state
adjacent to the Navajo Nation with high population of Navajo students. And
they weren't all, they weren't all following the same policy. Uh, each of
those six schools had their own policy, but they really didn't consider
what the Navajo wishes are. I'll give you one good example. One of them
was the mission school, the mission school were really only interested in
their own denominational agenda.
And so they promoted that and uh what education policy is supposed to do
is not to completely replace that but to supplement that in some way and
say Navajo culture is also important the land which is also important. And
so the result of that uh huh
questions that were raised by those local educational agencies was to
refer them to the statement and the education policy. And so that all
these six different kinds of schools on the Navajo could could follow that.
uh somebody also told me that there's something like 240 schools,
physical schools, these are federal schools, public schools, those are
facilities that are out there and and neighborhood schools also employ a
large number of Navajo people as well as the non indians. So education on
the neighbor who was a big business and you have to deal with it that way
from the tribal government side. You have to look at it as a big business
because food has to be given to those students. Busses
have to be
have to be obtained by the local school boards. Uh there's a lot of things
that they generate business wise in the community. And uh so school
becomes a big business on the Navajo and you have to look at it as such
and we try to do things in such a way that education policy would pull all
of that together or at least bring about an understanding from the
community, what that was all about. And that was something that I believe
that education policy, at least the way we view that was supposed to
resolve those issues. And so that's that's something that uh, the
neighborhood people face at this point and it's something that I think it
goes back into the history of the indian people where to me,
to me, uh huh way back, years and years and years ago, uh, before the
coming of the white man, uh, Navajo people as well as other indian people
were living in certain ways with certain values. They had their goals and
they had their aspirations and they were self sufficient, they were doing
things on their own. And uh and then all of a sudden the
white man came to this country and they began looking at the land, they
began looking at all that, the other resources that the indian people had
, and I guess the question was uh the indian people are always in in the
way of our progress. We wanted to branch out into these different areas
and increase the land base that we have and we need to go out there and
claim the land and uh the indian people, the Navajo people, what they were
doing simply was protecting their own turf. They were protecting their
land, their land base and they did that in the name of their Children and
growth of the tribe and the non indian people on the other side did not
really see it the same way they said that we, we need to expand that we
need to follow this manifest destiny uh, to the letter and be able to
achieve those things that we want to achieve in terms of grabbing the land
as much as we can while we can. And so basically the two opposing view
clash and indian people have to be had to be uh gather and take into a
certain and prison imprisonment camp in my book, uhh two try to
I guess uh convince us that we should go to one place here in the United
States and that's where uh in the world, indian country is going to be.
And so the Navajo was no exception. The Navajo people were taken to Fort
Sumner In New Mexico some four or 500 miles away and they were uh taken on
a long walk where many, many of them died along the way, young Children,
women that were pregnant and they couldn't walk anymore. Words was shot to
death. People that broke out with sores on their feet because some of them
didn't have any shoes, they were just killed. And so it was such a
devastating period in the history of the Navajo people. And but since
there were so many of us, we managed to survive and when we managed to
survive, we sign a treaty at the end of a four year period with the
federal government because the Navajo people didn't want to be taken all
the way into Oklahoma. And so they decided that they should just uh huh
start negotiating as to looking for something that would take them back to
their home original homeland, back in the four corners area here in
Arizona new Mexico and Utah a little of colorado. And so they negotiated a
deal. They weren't so much concerned about how big a land or how small the
land they were getting. According to some of my friends, older friends and
relatives, uh they wanted to leave the size of the reservation until a
later date. So they went back to this three million acres of land, only
three million acres of land. And they said that, Okay, well we'll go back
to that area but as the years went by, uh they branch out into different
areas beyond that three million. And uh and so they mhm told the federal
government, we're just simply going back to before the long walk period to
the land that we used to occupy. And so from The year 1868
for the next 100 some over 120 and 30 years, We have increased our land
based on a tiny three million acres To now, almost 17 million acres of
land today. And we're still buying land because we save the money and put
money into trust land acquisition fund. It's now holding almost 50 million
and that money will be used to buy additional land. So we're not we're not
finished, we're not finished and we're going to continue buying a lot of
those land back. And so when they signed a treaty they were allowed to go
back to the neighborhood nation. And one person, there were many, many
neighborhood leaders. Barbara esposito was one of them. Ganado moshe was
one of the chief Manuelito was one of them and Chief Manuelito and his
wife Juanita. They were they were just A visionary leaders between those
two and I saved his wife because his wife also had a lot to do with manual
Manuelito was governing the Navajo people in his area in his area. And
since we're on education it was Chief Manuelito who said uh huh we got to
send our kids to school and that's the only way that is something that
that we need, we absolutely need to do. And and he said it at the time
that education was not popular. Uh huh. Many many Navajo people did not
want to send their Children to school because of the work what the white
people did to them. And by Chief Manuelito says listen there's more of
them less of us and it seems to me that we should try to understand the
situation that we're in and uh and the way to go about it is getting our
Children educated. And so I I for one also really, really believe in that.
And the reason why I believe in that is that if you look at all of the
other indian nations of the indian people, they have famous american
indian leaders.
Sitting bull is one of them. Red cloud is another chief joseph. You have
Geronimo, you have Elsa Se for the Apache, White mountain Apache and you
have all these indian leaders
that had to negotiate a deal with the federal government. But many, many
of them were so stubborn that they didn't want to come off their basic
beliefs. And as a result they clashed with the federal government and in
the process of clashing with the federal government, they got so angry at
one another that neither one of them were able to give in. And as a result
, many of the indian tribes lost much much much of their land. Maybe
because of the attitude of either themselves or their tribal leader. Never
to me, the Navajo people took a different, a different approach which was
uh we should negotiate while we can and uh and not wear so much about the
details of the agreement and all we need is something that could take us
back to our original Navajo land. And once we get back over there will
increase our land base, we'll do all these other things that we need to do.
So as a result. They were so lucky. They were so lucky that they got sent
back to their original homeland. I can't say the same thing about other
indian tracks because they were relocated to uh different areas than where
they wanted to be. And so one has to think about what is what is it that
these older people? Uh huh.
The neighborhood leaders at the time had that convinced them and persuaded
them that they should they should do the thing that they did. Uh And it's
because of their leadership, it's because of their vision that we now have
the biggest land base of american indian tribe in United States. And one
just has to one just has to look at the ability and the vision that they
had back then to do what they did. I'm not so sure the current the current
leaders could have done the same thing and so basically I think this is
where we should and our conversation then tomorrow go into the discussion
on the general education and and what happened why we do some of the
things we do today. Okay.
Mhm.Good