Ya'at'eeh

"Ya’at’eeh." That is what I should have said. Ya’at’eeh is a Navajo greeting. It is always accompanied with a hand shake, and, if the parties do not know each other, it is usually followed with a formal introduction. I had just finished my shower and was getting dressed when they walked in. Immediately I could feel my defenses go up. "Who do you think you are?" I wanted to ask. "You don't even know me, or who I am!"

My family and I had moved back to the Navajo Reservation about a year earlier and were living in a traditional Navajo hogan located out on a sheep camp. We did this so we could gain a deeper understanding of my Navajo culture as well as experience a life that was not uncommon for our people. We were six miles off the nearest paved road on a dirt road living with no running water or electricity. I was working at that time as a computer consultant. Much of my work I could do from our hogan, but I also occasionally had to travel into 'town' to meet with clients. On those days, I would usually go in early and stop by a local gym where, for a fee, I could take a shower and get cleaned up. This was a common practice for our rural community, and by doing this I felt a deep sense of affinity towards others who were in the same boat as me and even a sense of pride of where I came from.

As I was getting dressed some white men came into the locker room, they were at the gym for more than a shower; they were there to get some exercise. They looked like they lived in town and were regular members of this particular gym. But for some reason, I saw them very differently that morning. I felt very aware of the fact that I was there only to shower, and I feared that they too knew I was from the reservation and was there because I had no running water at home. I feared they were looking down on me with contempt and disgust (even though they did nothing to indicate such an attitude). I had this urge to tell them angrily that I probably had a better education than they did (I graduated from UCLA) and that I probably earned a higher hourly rate than they did. These thoughts surprised and shocked me. I had never before felt such intense feelings of insecurity and fear of being judged over the color of my skin. After they left the room my emotions subsided, and I was left to myself, pondering where those emotions had come from and not knowing what I was supposed to do with them. These men never spoke to me, nor I to them. This entire ordeal was played out only in my mind but is served to drive a wedge into my heart and caused me to begin to emotionally isolate myself from the dominate society, an isolation that took me years to overcome. But it also opened a door for me to begin to understand an aspect of Racial Reconciliation that I had never considered before.

Looking back on that day, I think my entire emotional upheaval could have been avoided had I just remembered the lesson that I learned years ago. When I was in college I joined a Bible study group on campus. God used this to ignite my faith and teach me how to live as a Christian. I remember one lesson in particular. Occasionally, as a group, we would go around the city to give sandwiches to the homeless people we met. We saw in scripture that Jesus loved and cared for the least in his culture, he healed people who were sick and became friends with 'tax-collectors and sinners', even spending time in their homes. This challenged us to look for ways to love those in need around us. But these interactions generally felt very awkward to me. Where I grew up, I was used to people asking for money, and had grown very adept at turning them down, telling myself I was doing them a favor because they would only spend the money on alcohol and feed their addiction. Because of this, I now found that I had no clue how to interact with people I met on the streets and was unable to treat those in need the way Jesus did.

I did not know what to say or how to start a conversation with them. After a few years of this type of bumbling interactions, I decided that I needed to take some drastic action in order to overcome this block. So one weekend a friend and I decided to live on the streets of Santa Monica for 24 hours. The next Friday we dressed in old jeans and t-shirts and took a bus to a busy street near the ocean where we began our journey. For the next day, we were no longer the rich college students with extra money in their pocket. Now, we were just some guys on the street who had no idea where to get food or where to sleep so we would not get arrested. Suddenly, we found that we were now dependant on the very people we once gave charity to. Our interactions were much different now because we had nothing to give and everything to learn. We understood well the dangers of the streets of Los Angeles, and we approached our ignorance with slight fear and trembling. Even when the other homeless people found out that we were students and just doing this as an experiment, they still welcomed us as one of them and shared with us where to get a good hot meal and where and how to sleep on the streets. It amazed me how quick they were to welcome us into their world and help us to adjust. That night, before we went to sleep, we sat around with several people talking and telling stories. The next morning we woke up and were on our own again.

That day I noticed and experienced how lonely and isolated it can feel living on the streets, even though there were people all around. I remember one moment in particular when I saw someone notice us walking on the sidewalk toward them, and they crossed the street and walked on the other side. By afternoon we were exhausted both physically and emotionally. It had been a long lonely day that stood in stark contrast to the previous night. I guess during the day, most of the homeless population is out looking for money or working day jobs, and so the only interactions we could have had was with people who had homes, which essentially meant we had no interaction with anyone. And so we felt tired, lonely, hungry and discouraged; and this was after just one day! I could only imagine how we would feel after weeks, months or even years of seeing people cross the street or turn the other way when we came towards them. I learned that weekend that one of the biggest needs for people on the streets was the need to be acknowledged and spoken to, kindly and with interest. Food was easy to find, but people willing to talk and engage in conversation was much harder to come by.

Had I remembered this lesson, I probably would have handled my insecurity differently that morning in the gym. Instead of sitting in silence and stewing in my emotions, I should have spoken up and interacted with the men who walked into the locker room. Not to challenge them and justify myself, but to hold out my hand and say “Ya’at’eeh”; and then to introduce myself and begin to get to know them.

Since that day in the gym, God has been working in my heart and continues to challenge my behavior. Today, I spend a significant amount of time initiating interaction and building relationships with churches, organizations, businesses and people off of our reservation and around the world.

Living on the Navajo Reservation feels very similar to the 24 hours I spent on the streets of Santa Monica; it is very lonely. Our nations and peoples have been pushed aside to scraps of land that are largely unwanted and out of the way. The majority of people who visit us are those coming to give us charity or those coming to take pictures at the 'Native American zoo'. Very few actually come for friendship.

I have tried to explain to people that being Native American and living on the reservation feels like I am an old grandmother who owns a very large house. It is a beautiful house with plenty of rooms and comfortable furniture. I am upstairs in my bedroom tired, weak and sick. Meanwhile there is a party going on in my house. It is a large party with plenty of food and drink, games and laughter. People are all throughout the house having a great time. Yet no one ever comes up to my room. No one comes in to say hello and no one stops to acknowledge that the house belongs to me. It is not even that I am sad that I cannot join in on the festivities, or that I would be unwelcome to come out of my room. It is that, no one comes to me. And at times I wonder if they even remember whose house they are in.

The temptation is to stay on the reservation and remain silent – to stew in my hurt and allow my emotions to fester. It is tempting to say, if no one remembers us, than we should just forget about them. But that will not lead to reconciliation nor is it the will of our Father in heaven. God has continually called me to step off of our reservation and to give myself to relationships. Not to assimilate and 'fit in' with everyone else. But to introduce myself as a Navajo man and invite people into friendship.

This is not the final solution. It is a step. It is only an entry point into a much larger process and a much bigger dialog. But we have to start somewhere. Our world, our country, our churches and our people are divided. There are generations worth of injustice, shame, hurt and anguish that drives fear into our hearts and fuels our isolation. And we are frequently just sitting in silence and stewing in our insecurities. I am not offering a solution, but rather a step. Can we stand up, put aside our insecurities, look each other in the eye, extend our hands and say “Ya’at’eeh”?

"When I grow up I want to be a shepherd"

I imagine that is what my grandfather said when he was a young boy growing up near Blanco Canyon in New Mexico. I remember him telling me stories about when he used to herd sheep as a child. That is until he was 'enrolled' in school. At a young age my grandfather was removed from his home and sent to a boarding school. There he was forbidden from speaking Navajo, practicing Navajo traditions and culture, and even learning from his elders. He was made to pick an English name and a birthday. Everything that was 'Navajo' was pushed aside and replaced with what was 'American'. He no longer was given the option of becoming a shepherd when he grew up. He was forced, at an early age, into a whole new world and this world had little value or patience for who he was or where he came from.

In an effort to give their children the best possible chance of surviving in this new world, my grandparents encouraged them in English and in their education. At the same time, they also heavily deemphasized the Navajo language and traditional way of life. As a child, I saw my grandparents nearly every day and for several years, as they grew older, I practically lived with them, sleeping at their house nearly every night. But they rarely spoke Navajo to me and only told me stories when I asked, which was not very frequent. As a result, I never considered becoming a shepherd. I never considered moving back to the Reservation. I thought I was to take the path that led deep into this 'new world' that lay before me. I graduated from Rehoboth Christian high school and enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). And I have to admit, upon leaving for college I had no plans of ever returning for anything more than a brief visit.

But nearly 12 years later (about 5 years ago), I moved with my family from where we were living in Denver, CO back to the Navajo Nation. Ever since I left for college and especially as I began raising a family I began to realize how important it was to understand who I was and where I came from. I wanted to understand and speak the Navajo language and to become familiar with our culture and traditional way of life. The world is becoming more and more integrated and assimilated; television, radio, the internet and the Global Marketplace are bringing people together in ways that were never imagined even 25 years ago. Unfortunately, as we are being drawn ‘together’ we are also being stripped of many of the things that make us different and unique; things such as language, cultural traditions and dress. Kids on the Navajo reservation are sitting in our trailers and hogans watching TV and surfing the internet and being bombarded with the same ‘ideal’ images for body, clothing, careers and life styles as the kids in Beverly Hills, Manhattan and Miami. Our Navajo children look around and see the unemployment and depressed economy of the reservation and quickly realize that learning to herd sheep, speaking Navajo and knowing their clans will be of little value in this new global economy. So they learn the same thing my grandfather was told, that things which make us distinctive and unique are supposed to be shed and tossed aside in an effort to 'fit in' and succeed.

This is exactly what happened to me, and after I realized it I was incredibly grateful that I still had a chance to reverse my course and offer my children something different. So my family and I moved back to the Navajo reservation and were given an opportunity to live in a one room hogan out on a sheep camp located on a dirt road six miles off of the nearest paved road. For three years we lived there with no running water or electricity. We had a dirt floor and an outhouse about 50 yards away. Sheep, cows and horses frequently grazed right outside our door, and we lived alongside and at the mercy of the elements (wind, cold, heat, rain, snow and mud).

Since graduating from college I have been trained and began working as a computer programmer and data analyst doing technical support, database design and web programming. And while living in Denver I started doing contract work for companies remotely, outside of the Denver area. Most of the time, I would telecommute over the internet and occasionally would travel to visit my clients on site. Prior to our move back to the Navajo Nation, I tested and discovered that I could receive a digital cellular signal at our hogan. This meant I would be able to keep working for my clients; by connecting my cell phone to my laptop I could use it as a modem and get on the internet at DSL speeds (I call myself the Verizon Wireless poster child). Once I was on the internet, I could perform all of my assigned duties for the clients I was working for, or at least in 3-4 hour segments, which was the battery life of my laptop and cell phone. But I was also able to charge them in our car if a longer work session was necessary. I found this arrangement worked out extremely well and was delighted that I could give my children the experience of growing up in a very traditional Navajo setting while still demonstrating to them that we could also actively participate in the Global Marketplace. I especially remember one afternoon, I was returning from herding sheep. It was the first time I took them out by myself, and it felt like a graduation of sorts. I recently had completed a computer contract, and we were beginning to wonder where my next project would come from. I had my cell phone with me and as we came up over the hill, I saw that I had received a voicemail. A previous client of mine had called to let me know they had some additional work for me and were wondering if I could begin working for them again soon. Some of the work would require travel, but much of it could be done from our hogan. I remember at that moment feeling a surge of pride, hope and purpose. What a wonderful privilege it was to be able to raise my children in such a culturally traditional and rural environment and yet still have the opportunity to work in such a technically advanced and competitive field.

About a year and a half later my family and I moved from our hogan to Fort Defiance. Our current house is still located on a dirt road, but now we do have electricity and running water. I am still doing contract work and have clients around the country that I consult for on a continual basis. My oldest son attends Dine Bi'olta, the Navajo Immersion school here in Fort Defiance. At his school, Navajo is the primary language of instruction, and he is learning daily about the culture and traditions of our people as well as math, science and reading skills. We regularly travel back to our hogan and occasionally pull him out of school so he can participate in activities with family on the sheep camp and around the community. I see all of this as a valuable part of his education and understanding of his identity. He knows and sees that daddy works on his computer and often has meetings with people around the country and even the world. He also knows that at times I need to travel to do my work, but frequently I am able to do it from our house in Fort Defiance or even from our hogan out at the sheep camp. And this is exactly what I want him to learn. I want my son to know that he can live on our reservation, participate in a traditional way of life and spend time talking with and learning from the elders of our community while at the same time also participating, competing and succeeding in the new Global Marketplace.

I miss my grandparents and often wish they could have lived long enough to see the full circle I have traveled. I know my grandfather would be proud of where we live and how we are raising our children. And I think he would agree with me when I say that I am convinced that the future leaders of our Navajo people, our country and the world, will not just be those who have successfully navigated and mastered the academic and economic paths laid before them. But they will also have a deep understanding of their own identity and a strong connection to the communities they come from. These leaders will know who they are both within, as well as separate from, the Global Marketplace. They will know how to navigate through it, but will not allow it to define them. And their children will have the opportunity to say "When I grow up. I want to be a shepherd."