My intuition is telling me there will be better days.
Adobe Brick Home Ready to be Plastered. Bricks made by NM earth.
Love on the Land
The allure of summer is the way it calls us back to the way we knew it as a child. That meant days spent outside, on the land, engaging, imagining, questioning, meditating, connecting to our Original selves. In Diné culture, children are most sacred because of their connection to the holy ones. The land also connects you to your relatives. Relatives herding sheep, in neighboring homesteads, or cuzzins you ran around with.
My carefree summer days were spent in between Iyanbito NM, St Michaels AZ or in our family sheep and cow camps in the Chuskas. Some of my fondest memories were exploring the forests & canyons. As much as I loved it, I hated seeing trash dumps littered throughout Iyanbito and St. Mikes. We would play “house” and our “shopping” was done at the dumps. We reimagined the junk and it furnished our treehouses. Other times, they were eye sores and crept us out as we headed to our favorite canyon.
As a kid I saw the beauty in the land - the same beauty that I see today. I remember always having an urge and questions of, “How does this happen? How do we clean this up?” In college for my senior project, I wanted to examine trash dumps and figure out a plan. Our assignment was to write a proposal that we could submit for a grant. (Introducing us to the non profit industrial complex, but that’s another topic). When I submitted my draft, Dr. Smith said, “Not again, No. Why is it that every one of my Navajo students wants to do this topic?! Pick something else!”
Sifting screen for last layer of trash separation of earth and decomposing trash. Most of the trash will take decades to decompose.
This summer as I was knee deep in ancient trash, I remembered Dr. Smith’s words. I thought to myself, I should have not let him mansplain issues in my own community but also, it meant that this waste issue is so prevalent in Diné society. Since I was young I knew I wanted to do something about this waste. I also came to the conclusion that you either clean it up or it will be there FOREVER. Most of the waste does not and has not decomposed and it's mad toxic.
So far, we’ve cleaned up almost 4 acres of landfills. While on the land this summer I was reminded of those times out on the land with my cousins and siblings. I thought about our ancestors and what the land was like when they were my age. I thought about the history of consumption and capitalism. About the resource industry and the toxification of the land and water. Mostly, I worried about the future.
Before and after of trash dump along watershed.
Waste management on Dinè BiKeyah has been an issue since before my time. This summer we heard stories of what the watersheds were like, stories of failed attempts to tackle the waste problem at the chapter level. We also saw other Diné actively hauling trash, (old and new), recycling and salvaging metal. As I saw some of my fellow Diné putting in work I realized that it’s an issue that must be fixed by the Navajo Nation government. Some Diné folx are actively cleaning it up, Everyone sees the problem. Everyone knows the problem but still in 2021 we don't have any nation-wide waste program. Our relatives at Nambe Pueblo have a waste system and recycle center that I envy when I visit. (as my niece says, “ALL SAD”). There is also a huge lack of education. From the basics of what is waste management, how you recycle, what is compostable and what is not, to what is the range management plan, how healthy are our watersheds, & what the F is our nation doing?! Are all valid questions.
What led me to this work is my hope to start building my own homeplace. I hope that my siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews will move home too. For that reason, I have to connect the dots of the trauma on the land/our communities and the trauma on our bodies. All I had to do was look at my current reality, what’s in my own backyard? Also in my work I can't be talking about liberation and healthy environments if I am not protecting the water and defending the land where my umbilical cord is buried, our holy land. As I reflected on my life’s journey from that chizzy lil rez kid to now, shit is the same! I’ve been here over 3 decades and there are no huge changes and developments in our communities. Every city and town around us has evolved, changed, grew, profited. A large majority of that profit is off of our people - in border towns, energy sectors, our water, resources, the list goes on and on.
Throughout our lives the trauma of colonial, evangelical and imperialist history isn't taught or even acknowledged in our community. Those oppressive systems are deeply embedded in our current society. Our local chapter houses, our whole government system, schools, churches, and families uphold these systems. They are designed to condition us. That conditioning is almost at the point of no return. In 2021, Navajo society still actively upholds and glorifies colonialism. We must know all of our history in order to better plan and understand our sovereignty and to reclaim that power as a nation.
St Michaels, where I grew up, is 3 miles from Window Rock, AZ, the “capital” of the Navajo Nation. Window Rock is also right at the border of so-called New Mexico. This area was one of the first settled on our territory. 10 miles north of Window Rock, is Fort Defiance - the first military post in AZ. It was established in 1851 to create a military presence in Navajo territory. Dine’ warriors defended their land fiercely, they eventually had to relocate the Fort because of the Dine’ resistance. The militarization led to the forced relocation of thousands of Dine’, the slaughtering of our livestock and demolition of our food & water systems. In 1868, the Navajo Nation government was established through the treaty of 1868.
Repurposed signs to discourage trash dumping and encourage watershed restoration.
Soon more fed agents and agencies came, the schools came in, then the churches. In 1898 the Fransician Friars (Catholic) invaded Ch'íhootsooí, what is now known as St. Michaels, AZ. Traders also started to settle around this newly established government. More Catholic clergy invaded Ch'íhootsooí, privatizing and gentrifying it. In 1902 the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament started a Catholic school. The 2 merged together to colonize Dine’, the church and school stripped Dine’ identity and names from locals. Dine’ names now became government white passing names.
While this was happening on the ground, John Collier and other fuckfaces started to map out natural resources for the feds and soon to be energy corporations. Soon the Window Rock area was surrounded by fossil fuel exploration. Coal, Gas, oil deposits and the railway soon created the energy corridor of the southwest. Resources were exported from Diné BiKeyah to border towns to feed the railway and eventually Interstate 40.
The shift on Dine’ homesteads was detrimental. The terrorsim was traumatic. Being forcefully relocated and starved, and back again; children stripped from their idenity and homes and put in boarding schools; to the rape and exploration of the land. There was really no time to heal, just adapt. The currency also changed. Rations and canned foods replaced hunting and gathering, planting and a nomadic lifestyle.
These capitalistic concepts also introduced waste. It changed our relationship to the land. Wagon trails and watersheds were full of the glass, tin, silver and other materials. All this learned behavior was taught by a new wave of patriarchy. Cowboys, priests and feds invaded a matrilineal society deeply embedded in Sa'ah Naaghai Bik'eh Hozhoo. By the mid century Navajo men left to work to build the pipelines, railways, power plants, and join the military. All the abuse and the learned behavior of violence that was learned then is now so normalized. The fracturing of our land, bodies and kinship.
Diné men laying the El Paso gas pipeline. The El Paso Natural Gas (EPNG) is a 10,140-mile pipeline system which transports natural gas from the San Juan, Permian and Anadarko basins to California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Northern Mexico. A huge majority goes through Diné lands. My great grandfather was killed by an explosion while laying the pipeline. EPNG also owns approximately 44 billion cubic feet of underground working natural gas storage capacity in Southeast New Mexico.
We have and continue to hide the trauma. Some hide their identity (bc of boarding school trauma), some hide their identity because they are Two Spirit or Trans and forced to be heterosexual (bc of the trans and homophobia). We may all suffer from an identity crisis at some point in our lives. Trying to uphold tradition but going up against colonialism and christainity. We hide sexual violence and abuse, sunstance abuse traumatic sicknesses that has and still plauges our communities for centuries. Which then uncovers the mental health crisis that comes with the hiding of our traumas. If we can’t acknowledge these things then we can never truly heal.
Hetero patriarchy is the main driving force of the decline of our Dine’ society. So much so that some folks say there’s a “prophecy” that when a Dine’ woman is President/ Chairwoman that it will be the end of the world. That most definitely sounds like some colonial BULLSHIT. Clan mothers and matriarchs have ensured that our clans, ceremony, language and planting perseveres. Shit, when the men left to work the woman had to maintain the homestead, fields, harvests, seeds, livestock, families and ceremonies. To this day Diné womxn still uphold all those responsibilities and our beloved ceremony and language.
Diné matriarchs holding down the farming in Fruitland NM, a major food hub for Diné society. The farmland is irrigated by the San Juan River.
In 2021 it’s vital that we examine Navajo Hetero patriarchy and toxic mascilinity. We need to reflect and heal. Our lack of doing so is showing. It shows in the way our homeland is littered with trash dumps, abandoned fossil fuel toxins, overgrazed land and yazh lords (sonny boys). Toxic matriarchy goes hand and hand with the upholding of these hierarchical destructive systems. We are so far from healing our traumas that we actively inflict the destruction of ourselves. Our society is so desperate to please the white man and uphold their vision of status while we are dependent on the economic systems and imperial values.
The biggest question is what are we going to do? What am I going to do? When and how are we going to acknowledge and heal all this violence and trauma that haunts our lands? How do we treat the land? Each other? What’s in our backyard? Is it violent?
These are the questions that continuously came up for me during my trash clean up in the land that raised me. Each layer of trash was a new layer of learning. Like an onion peel, layer after layer of uncovering trauma on the land and while trying to heal the layers before.
Before and after trash clean up. This is a “small” corner of the 3 acre community landfill.
I know that I have inherited traumas. Land violence has physically made me sick. For half my life I have fought an autoimmune disease that made me dig deeper into how the land makes me sick. Every time I am on the land cleaning I also go on a detox. Healing the land and healing myself. Being in sync with earth mom as we heal together. This enlightening process is ceremony and vital in my healing process. It challenges me to connect the dots of my sickness.
Also to acknowledge who allowed and allows for the sicknesses to plague our lands? For me, a catholic baptized person raised in Diné tradition, it has been a lot of unlearning and unbaptizing, trying to find answers on the land, in ceremony and relearning a lot of what my grandparents taught me. Which is hard since all my grandparents have gone on to the spirit world.
Covid has shown us how these systems made us more vulnerable to the toxins and dependent. We’ve made the energy corporations, border towns and “healthcare” industry millions since covid came, we made them a lot before but once surges of assistance came in, we took it, paid energy bills, shopped in border towns and became guinea pigs for the covid vaccine. I've always heard in my work “get involved in the government'', “get involved at the chapter level”, “talk to your delegate”. These systems are the very pillar that upholds John Collier's agenda. 1900 policy with 20th century technology - in the 21st century. The truth is that we need to reclaim our ancestral ways of decision making, Of building community, and uphold ceremony. The systems and structures in place are failing us.
Another reflection that was heavy on my mind this summer is that shit is the same! We still have tribal buildings that are filled with asbestosis or run down mobile homes as our tribal offices. After decades in the billion dollar fossil fuel industry we are in the same place. Hetero men still fill most of the leadership seats. We are pushing plans that have been planned for years but havet come into fruition. Stuck projects and plans. We need an extensive range and watershed management plan. That vital mapping will show us where the landfills are, watersheds, erosion, abandoned toxic sites. Without that knowledge and planning we will continue to have an unstable food and water system. Two major components to our survival in an ever changing climate.
Raise the Roof
This epiphany of my life’s journey has shown me what I need to do. Stay in St. Mikes. As simple and easy as that sounds, it's not. In order to live in a healthy environment I have to clean up decades old landfills because my family's land is on the route of an old wagon trail which leads to the Catholic Church. My family’s land is also at the start of “Grazing permit” and “Homesite leased” land. It is at the base of the Defiance Plateau of the Chuska mountains. In the 60’s a huge sawmill was built 30 miles Northeast of St Mikes in Navajo NM. This mill’s clearcutting had a devastating impact on our community and beloved sheep camp havens. Financially it brought jobs and economic opportunities. Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment was an OG environmental group that was created to shut down the mill due to deforestation. They were successful in the closure. Navajo NM fell victim to the boom and bust cycle. It brought “economic development” but also took it. The closure also put a 20 year hold on development throughout the Chuskas. As the hold is lifted I find myself hoping to build at the base of those very mountains. It’s really no wonder that the amount of Dine’ that live off our homeland is 56%.
The lack of housing and the policies and procedures around make it harder for folks to invest into the community. That lack of investment into our community shows in our education, economic and housing infrastructure. It’s easier to build a church than it is for a Dine’ person to build a home. I would like to continue to examine what building and land use planning looks like in my hometown. Now that the landfills are cleaned and starting to be detoxified, watersheds restored, the next phase is planting seeds and building. Learn and reclaim my history so that I can help build a healthy environment. Part of that reclamation and decolonization is building. Reclaiming our principles of sustainably built homes. These days they call them “tiny homes” or “permaculture” or “energy efficient” we call them Hooghan.
The first structure we will build will be for ceremonial use. A hooghan made from earth bags, then the next structure made out of stone and adobe then finally one of strawbale. The goal is to come up with a prototype that uses natural building techniques so that housing can become affordable and energy efficient. To restart our hooghan building societies and truly build community. I have started learning about the different techniques of building. I'm on an interesting path to decolonize my relationship to the land so that I can earn the right to build on the land of my ancestors and make them proud.
“Tribes are not vestiges of the past, but laboratories of the future”
Kim helping and learning how to build a strawbale home in the mountains of Montezuma, NM