Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Contemporary Navajo Writers' Relevance to Navajo Society

2007; University of Minnesota Press; Volume: 22; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wic.2007.0001

1533-7901

Esther G. Belin,

Archaeology and Natural History

Contemporary Navajo Writers' Relevance to Navajo Society Esther Belin Sometime in early fall 2006, I received a surprising e-mail from Shawnee writer Barney Bush, whom I had met during my student years at the Institute of American Indian Arts. I met him through my husband, who attracts the rugged, AIMster/gangster-type Indians. We became acquainted at a time when the IAIA was experiencing very arduous downsizing and reorganization. Immediately upon looking at the sender ID, I imagined it was a call to action. I was to be recruited in the Shawnee Boot Camp of Liberation and Freedom Fighting. But I was not to be alone. Barney had done his research well and gathered a group of four emerging Diné writers to be immersed for a week among our kindred youth, Rough Rock High School students. His intent was to expose his students to a mirror. A mirror that, even if shattered, would still reflect and transfer beauty way past our current situation. I was traveling from the Colorado side of the Four Corners. I have lived in Tó'ahtín, Durango, Colorado, for nine years and have finally become at home in this sacred mountain desert. My internal home is still the one of my ancestors, Dinétah, and the connection holds no translation, but every time I move down from the mountain climate into the vast red flats, I don't see a desert; I see the ocean floor. The concave, deep space densely packs in the silence. I cannot see the roots of the massive sandstone monuments, but I feel them soak my feet in their waves of silky terra cotta sand. [End Page 69] My fellow writers travel from off-reservation homes as well. Two of them are students at the Institute of American Indian Arts and the third survives as a poet living in Tucson, Arizona. The situation of urban Indians is no longer a situation but a reality. Today, concentrations of Indians exist in many large urban centers. The relocation and crossover of Indians into the mainstream has been a desired outcome of U.S. Federal Indian Policy since before the inception of BIA boarding schools. Our group is not so unusual except maybe for the fact that we call ourselves poets as well. My drive to Rough Rock is really a trip to Chinle, the closest town with available lodging. I have been to Chinle before and am quite familiar with the road, but I still make sure I arrive before dusk so I can avoid hitting any free-range horses and sheep. However, what I need to remember is that this reservation road is a reservation road. There is no white, reflective paint neatly delineating the severely potholed surface. The highway signs that could indicate a curve in the road have been graffitied into unrecognizable metal stems as irritating as the Russian thistles that have taken root on our homeland. I arrive at my destination hungry and stop for some munchies at the corner Mustang gas station/laundromat. While in line, I encounter a variety of locals, including a young teen mother in front of me. She is dressed in baggy sweat pants and a basketball jersey. Although I do not know her, I imagine that she was once a basketball star from Chinle High School. I wonder if she has named her son Kobe after Kobe Bryant from the Lakers. Or maybe it is Lars, like Lars Ulrich from the heavy-metal band Metallica. I notice her boyfriend wears a black T-shirt with jagged letters spelling out METALLICA. It used to be that you could easily identify really rezzed-out names: Gymson, Tomalisa, Philbert, Ritasha. But increasing numbers of teen parents has resulted in the flourishing of pop-culture names in Indian Country. In Durango alone, I have met two boys named Kobe and one named Keanu. The surrealism of American influence on my tribe still lingers from my first night's experience as the waitress...