WEBVTT

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 Okay, we're back on. So.

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Mhm. Okay. Among the education policy,

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uh education policy, who was a policy
that needed to be mhm. Done by the

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tribal government where in we can
state

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how we feel. Uh Navajo education
should be in the future and that culture

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, history,

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a land in which life, Neverhood
lifestyle, uh the neighborhood way of life

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, including the retention of the clan
system and cat. Uh Those are all

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important to the survival of the
Neverland nation and uh we shouldn't lose

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it, we should enhance it. Uh And the
best way to do it is with the young

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Children, the young Navajo people and
that we're going to mandate the

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schools that they should teach, the
language they should teach. Navajo

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culture. Never hope history. And that
is a good beginning. It's a good

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start with the young people. And so we
did that we did that. And we also

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knew at the time that this is an
instrument uh that could be used by a lot

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of folks that are in education,
whether that be the the federal government

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or state government or other tribal
governments, that it was a model

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education policy. And it was a
statement of desires, statements of belief

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by the Navajo people in education,
certainly a continuation. What Chief

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Manuelito said years and years ago
when he uh talked to them that were

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people about how he felt about
education. And it was time for Navajo to

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embrace fully the education of the
white people. And I think at the time

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what he had in mind was the Navajo
people getting uh and gaining knowledge

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about the work of the non indian
people and uh, and that we need to know

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how they come to certain conclusions
and all of that and that you just

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can't continue fighting somebody that
you don't understand. And yes, we

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may not like many of the things that
they do, but why do they do it and we

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need to understand them and to do
that, we've got to have an education. So

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we've got to send our kids to learn
more about the white man's way of life

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and that's to go to school. And so
from the neighborhood side, it was

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really a policy that states the
obvious, which was that we need to tell

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the world how we feel about education
and how we view education and that

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we want our Children to remain in
school and get the education education

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that they deserve. And so that was why
we did what we did uh huh. And

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education policy also was not cast in
stone that when time goes by, it has

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to be changed to reflect the growth of
the neighborhood people in

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education And as a result, uh, the
Navajo nation, this past two years,

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three years ago passed another
education that replaces that and not

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completely throwing away the old
neighborhood education policy, but really

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to update it and to enhance that. And
uh, the way I put it is to put it

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into second gear. You, you, we had the
truck running in first gear and,

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and three years ago it was a matter of
shifting to the second gear because

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of all the process that has taken
place in the area of education. So that

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was, that was, uh, education policy,
uh, on the Navajo, we have a large,

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large

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area to cover. We also have many, many
neighborhood Children out there

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that needs to go to school, that
should be in school. Somebody told me the

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other day that we have something like
72,000 Students. Neverhood Students

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of School Age. That means from
kindergarten all the way to uh, never who,

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uh huh students that go to graduate
school and they become doctors. Those

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are people that are of school age. And
uh, and that's a, that's a huge, uh

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, a group of people and they go to
these different schools, like the

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public schools, the contract schools
and then the grant school, they also

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have mission schools. Then they still
have some boarding schools on the

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Navajo nation. And then you have, uh,
schools that are run by the state

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adjacent to the Navajo Nation with
high population of Navajo students. And

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they weren't all, they weren't all
following the same policy. Uh, each of

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those six schools had their own
policy, but they really didn't consider

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what the Navajo wishes are. I'll give
you one good example. One of them

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was the mission school, the mission
school were really only interested in

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their own denominational agenda.

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And so they promoted that and uh what
education policy is supposed to do

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is not to completely replace that but
to supplement that in some way and

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say Navajo culture is also important
the land which is also important. And

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so the result of that uh huh

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questions that were raised by those
local educational agencies was to

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refer them to the statement and the
education policy. And so that all

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these six different kinds of schools
on the Navajo could could follow that.

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uh somebody also told me that there's
something like 240 schools,

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physical schools, these are federal
schools, public schools, those are

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facilities that are out there and and
neighborhood schools also employ a

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large number of Navajo people as well
as the non indians. So education on

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the neighbor who was a big business
and you have to deal with it that way

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from the tribal government side. You
have to look at it as a big business

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because food has to be given to those
students. Busses

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have to be

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have to be obtained by the local
school boards. Uh there's a lot of things

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that they generate business wise in
the community. And uh so school

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becomes a big business on the Navajo
and you have to look at it as such

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and we try to do things in such a way
that education policy would pull all

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of that together or at least bring
about an understanding from the

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community, what that was all about.
And that was something that I believe

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that education policy, at least the
way we view that was supposed to

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resolve those issues. And so that's
that's something that uh, the

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neighborhood people face at this point
and it's something that I think it

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goes back into the history of the
indian people where to me,

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to me, uh huh way back, years and
years and years ago, uh, before the

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coming of the white man, uh, Navajo
people as well as other indian people

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were living in certain ways with
certain values. They had their goals and

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they had their aspirations and they
were self sufficient, they were doing

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things on their own. And uh and then
all of a sudden the

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white man came to this country and
they began looking at the land, they

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began looking at all that, the other
resources that the indian people had

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, and I guess the question was uh the
indian people are always in in the

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way of our progress. We wanted to
branch out into these different areas

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and increase the land base that we
have and we need to go out there and

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claim the land and uh the indian
people, the Navajo people, what they were

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doing simply was protecting their own
turf. They were protecting their

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land, their land base and they did
that in the name of their Children and

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growth of the tribe and the non indian
people on the other side did not

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really see it the same way they said
that we, we need to expand that we

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need to follow this manifest destiny
uh, to the letter and be able to

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achieve those things that we want to
achieve in terms of grabbing the land

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as much as we can while we can. And so
basically the two opposing view

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clash and indian people have to be had
to be uh gather and take into a

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certain and prison imprisonment camp
in my book, uhh two try to

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I guess uh convince us that we should
go to one place here in the United

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States and that's where uh in the
world, indian country is going to be.

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And so the Navajo was no exception.
The Navajo people were taken to Fort

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Sumner In New Mexico some four or 500
miles away and they were uh taken on

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a long walk where many, many of them
died along the way, young Children,

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women that were pregnant and they
couldn't walk anymore. Words was shot to

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death. People that broke out with
sores on their feet because some of them

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didn't have any shoes, they were just
killed. And so it was such a

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devastating period in the history of
the Navajo people. And but since

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there were so many of us, we managed
to survive and when we managed to

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survive, we sign a treaty at the end
of a four year period with the

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federal government because the Navajo
people didn't want to be taken all

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the way into Oklahoma. And so they
decided that they should just uh huh

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start negotiating as to looking for
something that would take them back to

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their home original homeland, back in
the four corners area here in

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Arizona new Mexico and Utah a little
of colorado. And so they negotiated a

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deal. They weren't so much concerned
about how big a land or how small the

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land they were getting. According to
some of my friends, older friends and

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relatives, uh they wanted to leave the
size of the reservation until a

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later date. So they went back to this
three million acres of land, only

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three million acres of land. And they
said that, Okay, well we'll go back

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to that area but as the years went by,
uh they branch out into different

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areas beyond that three million. And
uh and so they mhm told the federal

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government, we're just simply going
back to before the long walk period to

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the land that we used to occupy. And
so from The year 1868

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for the next 100 some over 120 and 30
years, We have increased our land

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based on a tiny three million acres To
now, almost 17 million acres of

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land today. And we're still buying
land because we save the money and put

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money into trust land acquisition
fund. It's now holding almost 50 million

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and that money will be used to buy
additional land. So we're not we're not

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finished, we're not finished and we're
going to continue buying a lot of

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those land back. And so when they
signed a treaty they were allowed to go

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back to the neighborhood nation. And
one person, there were many, many

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neighborhood leaders. Barbara esposito
was one of them. Ganado moshe was

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one of the chief Manuelito was one of
them and Chief Manuelito and his

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wife Juanita. They were they were just
A visionary leaders between those

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two and I saved his wife because his
wife also had a lot to do with manual

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Manuelito was governing the Navajo
people in his area in his area. And

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since we're on education it was Chief
Manuelito who said uh huh we got to

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send our kids to school and that's the
only way that is something that

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that we need, we absolutely need to
do. And and he said it at the time

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that education was not popular. Uh
huh. Many many Navajo people did not

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want to send their Children to school
because of the work what the white

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people did to them. And by Chief
Manuelito says listen there's more of

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them less of us and it seems to me
that we should try to understand the

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situation that we're in and uh and the
way to go about it is getting our

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Children educated. And so I I for one
also really, really believe in that.

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And the reason why I believe in that
is that if you look at all of the

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other indian nations of the indian
people, they have famous american

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indian leaders.

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Sitting bull is one of them. Red cloud
is another chief joseph. You have

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Geronimo, you have Elsa Se for the
Apache, White mountain Apache and you

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have all these indian leaders

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that had to negotiate a deal with the
federal government. But many, many

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of them were so stubborn that they
didn't want to come off their basic

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beliefs. And as a result they clashed
with the federal government and in

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the process of clashing with the
federal government, they got so angry at

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one another that neither one of them
were able to give in. And as a result

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, many of the indian tribes lost much
much much of their land. Maybe

00:17:40.299 --> 00:17:47.107
because of the attitude of either
themselves or their tribal leader. Never

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to me, the Navajo people took a
different, a different approach which was

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uh we should negotiate while we can
and uh and not wear so much about the

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details of the agreement and all we
need is something that could take us

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back to our original Navajo land. And
once we get back over there will

00:18:09.710 --> 00:18:13.677
increase our land base, we'll do all
these other things that we need to do.

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So as a result. They were so lucky.
They were so lucky that they got sent

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back to their original homeland. I
can't say the same thing about other

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indian tracks because they were
relocated to uh different areas than where

00:18:28.880 --> 00:18:35.607
they wanted to be. And so one has to
think about what is what is it that

00:18:35.640 --> 00:18:40.506
these older people? Uh huh.

00:18:40.539 --> 00:18:46.516
The neighborhood leaders at the time
had that convinced them and persuaded

00:18:46.549 --> 00:18:52.306
them that they should they should do
the thing that they did. Uh And it's

00:18:52.339 --> 00:18:58.667
because of their leadership, it's
because of their vision that we now have

00:18:58.700 --> 00:19:04.137
the biggest land base of american
indian tribe in United States. And one

00:19:04.170 --> 00:19:11.877
just has to one just has to look at
the ability and the vision that they

00:19:11.910 --> 00:19:17.947
had back then to do what they did. I'm
not so sure the current the current

00:19:17.980 --> 00:19:23.286
leaders could have done the same thing
and so basically I think this is

00:19:23.319 --> 00:19:30.427
where we should and our conversation
then tomorrow go into the discussion

00:19:30.460 --> 00:19:38.460
on the general education and and what
happened why we do some of the

00:19:39.059 --> 00:19:44.607
things we do today. Okay.

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Mhm.Good