Andi Murphy: Native View

Busy, busy

2012-02-24T15:57:00.001-08:00

I haven’t written a blog in about a month. I don’t think I had one bored moment in that time though. Shall I take you through a typical day in the life of a writer?

I wake up around 7:30 a.m. If I am out of my room and the bathroom by 8:25 a.m. than that means that I’m doing good time and I can have breakfast. I never leave the house without breakfast anyways. This morning Dave warmed up a hot plate of leftover enchiladas for us.

Dave is my boyfriend by the way.

By 9 a.m. I’m out the door and at the office by 9:05 a.m. From there I make my way to my cubicle in the back of the newsroom where the coldest corner is. I pick up a copy of the Sun-News and read as much as I can. I check my email and get on Facebook and the Sun-News website and fill my head with current events and news from all over the world. Facebook is not banned from my workplace, it's encouraged.

I don’t like my cubicle walls. I have decorated them with an ugly black and white checkerboard paper and photos of a sheep, my Kitty, a roadrunner, a photo of a painting that I have made no connections with and another photo of my Kitty. It looks kind of childish. I wish I could find new art for that, otherwise the cubicle is gray. The only things I do like are the two thank you cards I got from readers that are hanging on those walls.

Throughout the day I talk to people. I visit with them and they tell me all about their businesses, where they learned how to cook and why they started that particular restaurant. I talk to people who take care of injured turtles, I talk to people who make business of colorful popcorn, I talk to cigar connoisseurs, I talk to people who give babies massages, I talk to people who have defeated the odds and keep fighting the good fight against diabetes, I talk to 4-year-old mountain climbers, I talk to musicians, I talk to citizens of this awesome city and I write their stories.
All of these stories are so fulfilling -- some more than others, I say. Normally I'm shy and I keep to myself most of the time. But this job allows me to meet so many people, hundreds of people. They tell me so many things about themselves, I love to hear it. Don't get me wrong though, there are some stories I would rather pass by, but they have to be done.

Deadline day is on Wednesday. All stories, each 20-inches long, or longer, have to be done and their photos sent in by the photographer or me sometimes. Often, Wednesday has been extremely busy and a little stressful. But darn it, I have been getting things in and on time.

Sometimes I have deadlines on Tuesday and Friday for other sections of the newspaper too. These, depending on the Wednesday load, make it busier or a little more stressful.

Usually around 6 p.m. I’m done – sort of – with what I needed to do and I have a definite plan of what I need to do the next day. I leave for home.

At home I change into my gym clothes and Dave and I head off to the gym. I walk a half mile on the treadmill and get on the elliptical thing for about 10 minutes. Afterwards I can bench about 75 pounds and do other weightlifting things. Then we play volleyball in one of the racquetball rooms for a good 30 minutes to an hour. Dave is getting better and I feel like I’m a much better ball handler than I was when I played in high school.

Then it’s home for some culinary genius – sort of. I make my own dough for pizzas. We make soup from scratch. I make some tasty Middle Eastern dish we simply call “shola.” We make giant lasagnas. We make salads. We make green chile “encharritos,” a cross between a burrito and an enchilada. I make stirfry. I make alfredo. We grill salmon…

By the time dinner is ready it’s probably 8:30 p.m. By 9 p.m. it’s to the couch for rest, digestion and TV time. One hour to sit and hurry up and find a good program to watch. Sometimes we even have time for a movie.

By 10 p.m. it’s time for bed – sort of. Most times I’m still watching TV and am in bed by 11 p.m.

As I have grown up and I have a grown up person’s job I have learned that lunch breaks and my time at home is precious for me. Weekends are a blessing.

It’s the weekend now and I’m going to Albuquerque with my sister and Dave to see my mom and dad. We’ll probably do some shopping, do some eating and have a whole lotta laughs. Enjoy your weekend.

Red Paint

2012-01-24T15:58:00.000-08:00

The 8^th Annual Red Paint Powwow was held in Silver City at the Western New Mexico University intramural gym Jan. 20 to 22. I went on the 21^st.

The gourd dance was happening right when I got there. It’s a dance to honor the veterans. These veterans usually wear a type of shawl that is blue and red and they all have rattles and step to the same beat. I was surprised to see so many of them there, even a bunch of women were honored as warriors.

The grand entry brought out all the dancers in all the categories:

The traditional dancers stepped slowly. The women’s shawls whipped back and forth to the drum. The men stomped around the floor. The traditional dancers wore a more traditional outfit, no flashy bead designs and no outrageous colors.

The fancy men dancers stomped and twirled around while nodding their heads. These guys wear the large fan of feathers on their upper and lower backs. They are flashy, colorful and take up a lot of room. The fancy women are equally as flashy with leather, beaded moccasins up to their knees and intricate and colorful shawls across their shoulders.

The jingle dress dancers added another sound to the drums and singers.

The grass dance men are somewhere between the fancy men and the traditional men, their outfit is usually decorated with hundreds of strands of string, yarn or thin material.

The chicken dancers stood a little taller than most dancers because they usually have two long feathers coming from their heads.

The tots, fancy and jingle, got most of the attention. They have just as many feathers as their large counterparts, but are 10 times cuter. Some of them already have some nice steps.

Somewhere in the middle of the powwow, the Apache Devil Dancers, or Crown Dancers came out and performed. These guys are sort of scary. They have black hoods all the way around their heads, covering their eyes and faces completely with a large white crown on their head decorated with colored symbols. On the bottom they have a belt made of loud bells holding up the leather wrapped around their waists. They are painted white with black smears.

This is Apache land and that was a protection dance.

All day the dancers danced hard. I thought it was over around 5 p.m. but they were taking a break for dinner and would start up again that night and again on Sunday morning.

It was a good experience. I saw a lot of familiar brown faces and a Hopi from Gallup who jokingly put up her fists to fight my sister and I when she found out we were Navajo and we found out she was Hopi. “Aye!”

There are four dancers representing the four directions and one in the middle representing life

Apache Devil Dancers (at the Gallup Inter-Tribal Ceremonial)

For real? Tribal membership and blood quantum

2012-01-13T16:07:00.001-08:00

I have a Certificate of Indian Blood (CIB). And it says that my Indian blood quantum is 4/4 and I am a member of the Navajo tribe. This entitles me to free health care and a whole bunch of exclusive scholarships and programs. In some cases, rich (casino) tribes issue monthly checks and “per-cap” checks to all their members. In some cases, tribes pay for utilities, homes and education.

My Certificate of Indian Blood (CIB)

You can see how non-Natives would be enticed to register with a federally recognized tribe to get all these benefits. And you can see how tribal leaders might become greedy and cut their membership down by a few thousand members to increase their own pay out.

That part of the issue seems to rear its ugly head most often. It’s awful to hear about tribes cutting their membership, especially small tribes. It’s an abuse of tribal power for money, I say.

Tribal officials will turn around and say that they are cutting out the people who are not qualified, or have less than adequate Indian blood quantum, and they are taking advantage of the tribe — these things that are rightfully owed to Natives.

I’m torn.

The tribe is right to clear out those who do not have the correct amount of Indian blood, especially when their financial resources are limited.

I can’t imagine being “cut” from the tribe. In fact, I never gave much thought to this issue. It never affected my family because we’re all full-blood Navajo. We’ve never had to explain that way back in our lineage we had a Native American grandmother.

The truth: each tribe has the right to determine who is part of the tribe or not. The U.S. government has no say in this matter because tribes are sovereign governments. Having the power to decide who and who is not part of the group is all part of being a sovereign nation.

I think this power is sometimes abused when tribes decide to lower their Indian-blood quantum and suddenly kick out hundreds or thousands of members ... “members.”

Then again, the tribe may not be able to support everyone so cutting those with less Indian blood makes sense. Cut the halves or cut the sixteenths? Sometimes they have no choice. Sorry to Mr. Blonde Hair-Blue Eyes.

I’m going to say it like I think it is: Sometimes full-blood Natives do not take “mix bloods” too seriously, especially when they look totally Caucasian, or they never lived on their land before or they don’t know anything about their own culture or language.

There is an attitude there and I sometimes have it. Being Native doesn’t mean saying you’re Native. It’s living like one, knowing something about your land, people, culture and history.

Sometimes it is just a number or piece of paper, but if you have a number or paper, be happy that you do. This country has tried hard to get rid of you, but they failed. You’re living proof.

It’s pretty sad to think about this issue because it looks like the Native population could decline in the next few generations. Take me for example: If I had children right now, they would only be half Navajo. Whose to say my son or daughter will have a non-Native partner too? My grandchildren will be a fourth Navajo and my great-grandchildren will be an eighth Navajo, which, technically, isn’t Navajo.

Update Jan. 26 — Statistics state that 2.3 million of 5.2 million people, almost half, who claim to have Native heritage, also claim another race. That's up from just 1.6 million in 2000, according to recent U.S. census data. Read the story here.

Read a column about the same issue here.

“How did tribal membership/blood quantum come about?” you ask.

During the General Allotment Act 1887 the government gave each individual Native a piece of land; a brilliant plan on the U.S.’s part because this Act allowed them to legally steal more Indian land. They rounded the tribes up and gave them enrollment cards. Sometimes they brought in scientists to measure their features and faces. Thousands of Natives were not given enrollment cards or tribal identification.

On top of that they put Indian land in trust for only 25 years. When 25 years was up, the Natives had to pay regular taxes and fees on their land, which they could not afford. Many Natives sold their land or had it “legally” taken away.

They thought this would help the Natives by forcing them to live like Americans; a piece of land, a house and a farm. But the Natives have been nomads since their origins; living off the land and moving around with the seasons. This Act threw the Natives further into poverty.

In your own county, state and country

2012-01-03T17:00:00.000-08:00

I always did wonder why people take off to Africa or Mexico to help the starving population or the illiterate kids there. It’s some righteous mission from God to help those less fortunate in other countries because other countries are the “third world.” People in other countries live in poverty, they have no electricity, no clean water and they just can’t seem to help themselves because of their governments and lack of funds and productivity.

Maybe these righteous missionaries didn’t grow up where I come from.

At anytime, my tiny house is filled with 15 people; my grandparents, my parents, my aunt, my uncles, my siblings and my cousins. I share a bedroom with four of my cousins and sometimes during the summer, we sleep in the bed of my uncle’s truck.

My neighbors never have electricity and we thought it was just for fun that they always used candles and ceresin lamps. My other neighbors haul water three times a week to bath and cook.

Disease ravages the people too. Many legs have been lost and many eyes have been rendered useless. The mortality rate where I come from is easily higher than those who live in the United States. The crime, suicide, poverty and other rates are higher too.

Our government is very one-sided too, and that side is usually their own. Many officials are greedy and uneducated and don’t know how to do what’s best for 600 to 300,000 people.

Invisible borderlines and boundaries keep American businesses away from our foreign land. There are no stores. There is no fun. From the inside, our government and land systems are a mess. Nothing gets done and no one can ever say, “I have a business.”

Where I’m from you need a passport to live there but you don’t need anything to get out. I live in every one of the United States. My foreign land is surrounded by America and Americans. I’m American.

Maybe it’s because we have “American” attached to our name. “American” makes it sound like we live a good life full of HD TV’s, nice clothes, good health and full refrigerators. It makes it sound like we don’t need help because we live in this great country.

We need lots of help and ideas.

And my thinking is: we should help the people in our own country, especially those who had everything stolen from them, before we go off across the globe on some righteous mission to feed and educate the world. Take a look at your neighbors, take a look at the tribes and find out what you can do.

Meeting the Presidential Couple, Especially Michelle

2011-12-22T12:11:00.000-08:00

I always do say good women come out of Crownpoint.

One of them is my aunt Lynda Lovejoy. I’m not going to jot down her resume or tell you everything that she’s has done — just that she is a long-time New Mexico senator and ran for Navajo Nation President twice.

I just want to tell you about her recent trip up to Washington D.C. for the annual White House Holiday Reception.

“Thanks, it sounds very great, but, no thanks,” she said when she was invited by the senate majority leader.

She doesn’t like D.C. because airlines are chaotic, security is everywhere and travelers and tourists crowd every corner of the capital. I wouldn’t like that either. Plus it’s cold up there.

A few days later, she was invited again and she said ‘yes.’ The plan was for four New Mexico politicians to go to the dinner; two Hispanics, one Native American and a white guy to represent the diversity of our wonderful state.

The reception took place at the East Wing of the White House where there are numerous rooms and places to put Christmas trees and decorations. There were symphony bands and choirs and paintings of past occupants hung on the walls.

There were about 300 other guests. “Business people, educators — they were from all walks of life,” she said.

She was the only Native there, or at least as far as she could see after she met everyone. She was wearing a red velvet suit, Navajo style, and decked out in Navajo jewelry.

The food was awesome: prime rib, roast beef, seafood and “just a variety of food.” The White House is known to have the best chef and this dinner was an example.

“The desserts were so tasty,” she said.

The reception was very organized. Everyone was given a number and a time to get food and visit the first couple.

When she got close to the couple, security took everything from her; phone and purse. Since there were a few hundred people all wanting to visit the president and first lady, each guest was only given a short amount of time to shake the Obamas’ hands and tell them who they were — with a photo.

When she got there she shook the president’s hand and told him she was a senator from New Mexico.

“‘We love New Mexico, we want to go back and visit,’” he said to her.

Then she came to Michelle Obama.

“I think I spent more time shaking her hand than the president’s,” she said. “… especially mentioning New Mexico, I think the first lady was very overpowered.”

There was a connection between my aunt and the first lady. Obama wouldn’t let go, and Lovejoy wouldn’t let go. They stood there for a few moments looking at each other and shaking hands. The security guard kept telling Lovejoy, ‘Ok, you have to move on.”

She thinks it was the fact that she was a Native American woman in office — what with the dress and heavy jewelry everywhere. “I’m sure she was very overwhelmed by just seeing the diverse people.”

I’m 5’8’’, my aunt is a little taller, but Michelle is taller. So is Barack, she said.

“It was nice someone was taller than me,” she said. “I was just overwhelmed to see them in person.”

What is in a tradition?

2011-12-07T10:25:00.001-08:00

Some Native American ceremonies and traditions that are practiced today are not really traditions because it didn’t originate from that tribe. I see this mostly with southwest tribes taking traditions from the northern, Plains Natives, and practicing them as their own. Some people obviously embrace it and carry it on while others keep away from it and stay truly traditional.

Let me provide some examples from my tribe, the Navajo:

The Sun Dance

I can say little about the Sun Dance, but I can tell you where it came from. The Plains.

Wikipedia says it’s a ceremony with songs, prayer and sometimes piercing the chest or arm skin.

My uncle, aunt, dad and grandpa were talking about stuff like this on Thanksgiving ‘Eve.’ My uncle said the Sun Dance is a growing ‘tradition’ on our reservation and a lot of people do it. He made a look of disgust when he was talking about the piercing.

From our family gathering I learned that Navajo ceremonies traditionally have a patient; someone who is sick, or living in a bad way and needs a ceremony and prayers done. We have the Squaw Dance (we can use the word ‘squaw’ this way, but you can’t because it’s offensive to use it any other way), Yeibichai and sand painting.

Teepee and Native American Church

We do not live in teepees nor is the teepee a traditional housing structure for the Navajo. But every now and then, you will see a teepee constructed on someone’s land or backyard on the reservation.

The Plains Natives used teepees and it became a traditional structure for the Native American Church (NAC), which practices peyote. Peyote also isn’t traditional to Navajo culture and ceremony — it came from Mexico and the Natives there.

The Mexican hallucinogen and the teepee from the Plains met in Oklahoma during the time when many tribes were forced to “Indian Country” — i.e. Oklahoma. The combination produced the NAC which has it’s own songs and customs.

The NAC still has a very strong following on all reservations, including ours. There are certified medicine men who can purchase peyote and perform the ceremonies, which, I heard, costs somewhere between a couple hundred dollars to a couple thousand.

Powwow

Powwow is a national phenomenon. It came from the Plains Natives too. From Powwows.com, it says the powwow originated from the war dances from the Plains and Ponca tribes. Or it originated from white people making Natives dress up and dance for them (I hope it wasn’t this). The Natives were lined up and made to parade through town before they danced and sang, which was the birth of the grand entry. Either way powwow is awesome and a lot of Navajos do it, sing it and travel across the country to attend powwows — not to mention the cost of dresses, feathers, leather and skins.

I have been to two powwows; the largest powwow in the world, The Gathering of Nations, and the North American Indian Days Celebration in Browning, Mont. on the Blackfeet reservation. They were both awesome.

It’s not just dresses put together, each feather or skin means something. The beads and colors mean something too. Some dancers wear a family design or a tribe design. I once talked to an Ojibwe at The Gathering and asked about a skin he wore on his chest. He said it was otter skin and he wanted to wear otter skin because otters are clean, they’re always cleaning themselves and rinsing their food and being happy. He wanted to be like the otter.

There are different dances too: fancy dance, grass dance, traditional dance, jingle dance and others. Everyone, from all tribes knows the different songs, dances and all the rules.

Sweat Lodge

The sweat lodge is not traditional to Navajo culture either. It came from the Blackfeet. Many Navajos ‘do a sweat’ to cleanse the body or purify themselves. Like the teepee, you see these every now and then or hear people talking about it.

That’s all I have to say about this one.

These are all traditions from the northern tribes that have influenced what we call and embrace as ‘tradition.’

I really don’t know how these came down to my tribe but I know that a reservation is not a prison. We travel all over the place and there is at lease one Navajo on every reservation (enter laugh here). And we have been traveling since we all have been forced from our land and moved around. The way I see it, we are the same. We all believe in a Creator, Mother Earth and living a good life without waste or bad energy. So we have made connections and embraced each other’s traditions and called them our own — powwow and frybread is a good example of this — while keeping our true traditions alive.

I wonder though, have the northern tribes taken any ceremonies, traditions or songs from us?

Just For Home

2011-11-20T12:46:00.000-08:00

I go to restaurants all the time here. Sometimes it’s even my job to go to them and sometimes I go because I’m too tired to cook or I want something I can’t cook. I love being in restaurants.

I feel jealous of people who own restaurants, especially those who are not even from this state and country. It must have been easy for them, with their money and loans and easy access to buildings and land here.

I want to build a restaurant so bad. I need to win the lottery.

Not in Las Cruces, in Crownpoint, N.M. which is on the Navajo reservation and where I’m from. The ideal place would be right in the middle of town; near the big intersection, between those two gas stations, across from the elementary school and down the street from the flea market. Or on top of the town were that one gas station closed down, where that one auto repair place closed down, near the high school and across from the police station.

It's likely that I would run into problems with land; technicalities over government, tribal or personal land. This is the reason why there is nothing in Crownpoint. BIA and the Navajo tribe make it incredibly difficult for anyone to build anything. It would be easier to get direct permission from the President of the United States than to go through the tribal land department, chapters and BIA office assistants. The second reason why there is nothing in Crownpoint is because no one has the money for it– that’s why I need the lottery.
(Here is a very informative article about why reservations have nothing on them including businesses and wealth. It explains what I said in the previous paragraph. Wow.)

There are two tribal colleges, one grocery store, a hospital, two elementary schools and one high school. Crownpoint is also a major hub for dozens of tribal offices and assistance programs. Crownpoint is also globally known for their monthly Navajo rug auctions where every month dozens or hundreds of tourists go there for the rugs or Chaco Canyon, a national park nearby. The 3,000, or so, residents and the hundreds of tourists don’t have one single restaurant to eat at or a hotel room to stay in within 60 miles. There’s no entertainment there either. That is why my restaurant is going to work.

· I will employ all local people, of course, especially those who come from the tribal colleges – they have a killer culinary arts program but they all end up working at Applebee’s 60 miles away.

· My menu will be diverse; American faire; a few Mexican plates because I love Mexican food; and some traditional items.

· My menu will be somewhat healthier. No frybread and no greasy mutton -- only on weekends. I want it this way because I don’t want to compete with those who sell these favorites everyday and make a living that way; and because I don’t want to contribute to our tribe’s obesity problem. There will be wheat buns, sweet potato fries and about a dozen different sandwiches for lunch. There will be no white bread, but there will be a salad bar and smoothies. I would also like to have a diabetic menu available too; a coupling of healthier, low-carb choices that will still fill you up.

· For dinner the steaks will come out with the Mexican foods, barbecue chicken, pizza, pork chops, soup and stir fry. I will most likely start out with a small menu and introduce new items through special events such as:

· Special date night. Cheé and Shima (grandma and grandpa) and the young couples can come and have a three course meal: fried squash, raw veggies or chips and salsa for starters, Navajo tacos or a mutton platter for the main course, and a pie, cake or sweet Navajo tea/cake for dessert. Everything will be homemade and catered to our tastes. Or for date night we can also have Asian food, Italian food or sea food. The lights will be low, the kids will have to be tamed and the music will be soft.

· I will have an extra ballroom of sorts. It will be big enough to host my dad’s country band and a few dozen dancing Navajos. There are ‘rez bands’ all over and I will give them a place to play every Friday and Saturday. This room could also be used during weekdays for step classes, aerobics, bingo and movie nights or rented out for special occasions like graduation and wedding receptions.

· I will take it cooperate – not in that greedy sort of way. I want to then open a few locations just on the reservation: Window Rock, Ganado, Shiprock and Chinle.

Sometimes the visions in my head are so real I can smell the beans for the Navajo tacos and feel the warm air when I come in through the wooden door. I can see my teary eyes on the front page of the Navajo Times when they write a story about our grand opening.

A Sack of Clothes

2011-11-11T22:16:00.001-08:00

It’s about that time of the year when all the good little Native boys and girls on the reservations are getting gifts. Not from Santa, from the BIA.

Plastic bags full of clothes; a puffy jacket for the coming blizzards, a pair of jeans with hideous sparkles sewed on the leg, a few socks – or two and half pairs, a shirt or two, some underwear that are most likely too small and some shoes to match the sparkly jeans that don’t match anything else you have.

I remember getting a bag of clothes like that when I was in elementary school. When I was younger it was awesome. All the shoes lit up when you stepped in them and the jackets were filled with goose feathers and were very warm. It was like Christmas!

When I was older: for the most part it was embarrassing because it made us all feel poor, cheap, as we were the age when free clothes was for poor kids and none of us were poor.

I don’t know much about this tribal clothing program but I’m only guessing that it’s another effort to assimilate Natives and give us urban clothes or to provide many of us poor kids with new clothes because our parents can’t. My bet is on the latter estimate. I know so many of my peers, and Native kids now, don’t have the resources for such necessities. I guess this is my thanks to the BIA for free clothes, even if they were sort of ugly and weren’t all the right sizes.

Do all low income, poverty and homeless kids get clothes? Probably not. They should get tribal clothes too.

Non-Native kids are always in need of clothes, for winter especially. I recently wrote a few stories for My Las Cruces about how these local shelters and aid foundations are stepping up their charity game this fall and winter to collect jackets and clothes for kids and adults who cannot afford these.

I don’t know where this blog is going but I think I have some extra cash to purchase a small, fashionable, jacket for a needy kid.

Scary Season: Dark Highways

2011-10-30T20:55:00.000-07:00

Painted Man

From Gallup you must take former U.S. Highway 666 to get to Crownpoint

He had a lot of stuff to do in Gallup one night and was on his way home to Crownpoint at around 3 a.m. That’s about an hour’s drive and one route, Navajo Route 9 — intersecting U.S. Highway 666 — is a lonely and dark highway with an occasional house and two tiny communities. There are no gas stations and no street lights. On this particular night, the stars shine extra bright through the crisp cold air.

His diesel truck is speeding along at about 70 miles an hour on the 55-mile highway. He needs to make it to a bathroom – and fast.

It’s dark and deserted around so he decides to make a stop on the side of the road. He pulls over and makes sure all the lights on his truck are extra bright because he’s kind of afraid of this kind of intense black.

His truck rumbles on but it seems the quiet pushes in on him. He turns the radio on and quickly does his business on the passenger side.

On his way back around the truck he hears faint footsteps – slow at first and then they accelerate towards him. He looks to the back of the truck and in the red taillights is a man, painted white, running towards him. He runs, bent forward, with his hands and arms stiff to his sides.

He scrambles as fast as humanly possible back into his truck. While he gets the truck going, fear builds and builds because all that time he’s thinking that the painted man will reach his window and knock on it. He shifts gears so quick and he’s doing 80 in about 10 seconds.

Devil’s Canyon

I think it’s kind of ominous when you have to drive through Devil’s Canyon and Dead Man’s Curve to get to Crownpoint (no joke, that’s what those landmarks are called). Maybe this is why they call it that:

On a very snowy night she’s is at the edge of her seat squinting into the blizzard through her windshield. The road signs pass by slower than they usually would. It seems like she’s the only one on the road that thought maybe the weather guys were lying.

The road wines and rises. At the peak is the top of Devil’s Canyon. Once you get through Devil’s Canyon you’ve made it. She takes a deep breath and readies herself for the ominous road down the canyon.

“What?” she says.

Automatically she slows down to pick up an elderly lady who is walking on the side of the road. She’s wearing skirts, a hair scarf and a sweater. Some of her gray hair blows around in the snow and her billowing skirts reveal a pair of skinny and weak ankles.

As she pulls over to give the old lady a ride she tries to get a look at her hitchhiker’s face but the snow and hair hide every feature.

“Hey grandma! Let me give you a ride, I’m going to Crownpoint,” she yelled out the window.

The old woman stops. The driver gets out of her car and opens the door for the old woman.

Once they’re both inside she starts driving into Devil’s Canyon. From what she could see from her peripheral, the old woman was brushing her hair from her face and straitening her skirts. The driver was about 95 percent focused on the white road and 5 percent concerned about this old woman on the road in the middle of a blizzard.

“Where are you going? Why were you walking? Are you in trouble?”

The old woman didn’t answer because she was gone. Disappeared. Vanished.

Scary Season: Mesa Monster

2011-10-27T16:23:00.000-07:00

There is a whole different genre of evil on the reservation. Growing up on the Navajo reservation left me with an extreme fear of the dark. Sometimes when I have to get something outside at night I often do it very quick and just when I’m almost back in the house I feel that overwhelming surge of fear that has me hopping and scrambling through the door. I’m not scared of the dark while in the city or in a different town, I’m scared of the dark when I’m on the reservation. There are far scarier things out there than demons, ghosts and goblins — those are tinker toys. I’m talking about skinwalkers, witches and a monster my sister and I call the “mesa monster.”

•••

My aunt, Nat, was home for the Labor Day weekend. I wasn’t there, but news about this spread fast. My mom texted me and my grandma called to say that Nat and my uncle Rob heard something in the mesas.

Now, she’s not one to believe in the supernatural, but after she heard that howl, she could not describe or explain it.

It wasn’t an animal and it wasn’t a man. But the sound was like a low pitched and raspy growl that ended like a grown man yelling, Nat said. She also says she will never forget that sound.

They heard something like this.

It wasn’t just my family that heard it; there were neighbors from all over telling the same story and trying to describe the same sound.

There have been several sightings of a creature like “bigfoot” seen around the reservation. When people tell their stories they always say that the creature has a very bad smell, it’s hairy with long, ugly hair and the dogs bark and behave wildly when it’s near.

See, Crownpoint is like this:

There are mesas all over. The north part of town is raised some feet above the rest and one long stretch brings you down into the middle community. To the west and south are mesas with the east opened up to rolling hills. There are pockets of neighborhoods where there are no hills and mesas. My grandma’s neighborhood is at the edge where the mesas are her back yard.

Somewhere in those mesas is the cemetery and a road flanked by several churches. It’s ironic that I think this part of town is the most creepy. That is where the howl came from.

As word got out about this, the Navajo Times newspaper wrote a story about the eerie noise. Official sources said they didn’t hear anything and are not going to do anything more about it.

Read the story here.

Just recently, in the last two weeks, my mom called and said that a Navajo Police Officer and his wife heard the noise too. I guess there is your official source.

I wish I was there to hear the howl. Then again, I’m such a scardy cat. There is never any or enough evidence for stuff like this, but I guess if you hear rumors coming from your own family you start to believe and become unbearably curious.

Our Health

2011-10-20T19:51:00.000-07:00

I hear people complain about the Indian Health care system. The waits are too long and the doctors are no good. I hear even more about how unfriendly the staff are and how people would rather stay home and die. That’s a joke but there’s truth in it.

I want to say two things about the health care systems; both Native and non-Native health care.

Native Health Care.

First, we complain about the free health care we get. I don’t think we should complain about this because it’s free. My family and all my relatives have never had to pay for giving birth to any of us at a hospital, they never paid for a single broken bone or a single dose of insulin. Sure we have to wait for a long time in a tacky waiting room, and sure the service can be terrible, but it’s free. There is a place far, far away where they have to pay for their doctor’s visits and medications and fill out loads of paperwork for every visit and purchase. I think we should be thankful that we don’t have any idea what an emergency room visit costs.

Second, we complain about the health care not being up to par. That is true. In Crownpoint, you never see the same doctor twice because they are all young interns from Georgia or Maine who are forced to stick it out at Indian health center for a year and then they high-tail it out of there. No doctor wants to stay in Crownpoint because there are no businesses and entertainment around. There are no specialists either for those same reasons. We always have to travel to the nearest city for specialty treatment.

There is a need to dedicate more funds to Indian health care.

Non-Native health care.

I have gotten free health care all my life. A few years after I moved away from the reservation I was lucky to not need any doctor’s visits or medications. Between semesters in college I got regular eye and teeth check-ups at home where it’s free.

And then two months ago I punched a machine really hard and threw out my back – I should clarify that it was a punching machine.

Things are unbelievable out there.

I had to go to the emergency room here in Las Cruces because I was in so much pain. An emergency crew was called and they told me a ride in their emergency unit would be about $200. That’s about $100 per mile. I turned it down and my boyfriend drove me to the emergency room. It was a painful hell to get in his Jeep.

I was taken care of. They made me pay $50 before I left. They pumped me full of morphine and vicoden. Then the pharmacy visit cost me about $20 for painkillers that I only needed for two and a half days. They don’t give you painkillers at an Indian Health Service hospital – not even when I nearly broke my ankle in high school – and I think that’s where they cut some of the costs.

That happened two months ago and now they’re trying to bill me for it: all $1,000 worth of sitting in the emergency room because certain pieces of paperwork got lost in the shuffle. Hopefully paperwork gets to where it needs to be. This process is so confusing and it makes no sense to me.

I think it sucks that non-Natives have to pay for health care. I think it sucks that my health is all based on technicalities and paperwork. I think it sucks that I went around worrying about where I can and can’t go to be seen for strep throat. It sucks to immediately get my bill in the mail – which usually says $0 because my tribe pays for it – and then weeks later get my test results.

Can’t everyone visit an Indian Health Service hospital where you can book your eye appointment, dental appointment and Pap test all in one building and then get your meds across the hall and not pay for any of it?

For any Native students off the reservation reading this, I learned the process when I made my visit. I wish I would have did a little research before I got sick. Though I’m no expert, here are some tips:

· Talk to your parents and see if they have some kind of health insurance through your tribe. You wouldn’t want to get in an accident and then be billed.

· See if you qualify for a very cheap or free insurance, just in case.

· Once you find out that you are covered by your tribe in some way, call up the insurance company and ask them where you can visit and find out what kinds of rates do apply if you have to make a medical visit anywhere.

· Be prepared. Ask questions even though you are not sick. Make sure you have some kind of proof of insurance when you visit, especially the first time.

· You don’t have to drive all the way home to visit a doctor. Get yourself familiar with the system.

In The Name of "Discovery"

2011-10-10T13:59:00.000-07:00

… I, the president of the United States, sign this day, the second Monday in October, to be Christopher Columbus Day. Let all my ignorant constituents hail the man who did genocide and slavery the right way. He raped and plundered like no other. He and his men carried the most potent diseases. They had good teamwork and ran the sex trade like champs. They raped Native women and children like gladiators and still had the stamina for a good ole’ beheading when the day was done. He was some terrorist. He’s our country’s hero.

Hip-Hip-Horay!

I hope school-age kids are reading this.

I didn’t know this when I was in boarding school. I attended Crownpoint Community School where the Native student population was about 99.5 percent — and then onto Crownpoint High School where the Native student population was about 98 percent. As a kid I remember fighting other kids for the “Peach” Crayon in the Crayon box so I can get the right shade of pale for his face. We colored pictures of Columbus and his Spanish ships and proudly displayed them in the hallway with other celebratory Columbus Day stuff.

We never really used the brown Crayon for holiday/historical pictures in school. Historical figures didn’t look like us. Even our Santa and Easter bunnies were white.

It’s like the ultimate betrayal to be taught that Christopher Columbus was a great person. I didn’t learn about the real monster until I was a teenager, probably in my first semester of college. I felt betrayed and angry.

Why do we still celebrate this awful man?

It’s the American way to hide certain facts in history because it would otherwise put a giant bloodstain on the flag — in this case a couple of flags. Why can’t we accept that our past is not as great as we are told? Because so much was unacceptable and unimaginable.

The Taino people go the worst of it because they were living on some gold. They were America’s first slaves who were worked to death for gold, killed for sport, raped, sold, bought as dog food and infected. They were not human because Columbus’s men refused to baptize them or teach them God’s good ways — because if they did, they wouldn’t have the right to rape and murder.

Read the facts here.

How can men do such things in the name of a country and in the name of God? Surely everything that happened in the 1490’s was financed by some church or priest.

I can’t imagine. It’s unacceptable. Let’s hide it and pretend it never happened.

It’s unacceptable to have Columbus recognized for anything he did. It’s unacceptable to teach kids about him because it hurts to know the truth later. It hurts even worst to see these kids grow up and refuse to acknowledge the truth and then come up with patriotically charged arguments to defend him.

This morning the first thing I heard, literally, when I turned on the radio was “it’s Columbus Day!” It immediately made me angry and offended. I felt I had to hop on Facebook and leave a message on the station’s wall. I wrote, “Columbus made Hitler look like a prank caller. He was a master at genocide.” They responded with: “Of course he did. No one cares about the truth.” That last statement is killing this country.

Read another blog here.

A song about the truth.

Hank Would Cry ... Again

2011-10-06T21:56:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me would know that I hate new country music. I hate these blonde ninnies with bleached teeth and squinty-eyed jacks with torn jeans and fragrances in the bank. They ruined country music and turned it into raggedy pop nonsense.

Is it fitting I’m posting this while Las Cruces is going crazy for Chris Young right now? (Oct. 6)

I like the old guys, here’s proof, I have a Waylon Jennings sticker on my car. I like how their tours across the country didn’t come with t-shirts, cups, stickers and over priced albums and concert tickets. I like how they performed anywhere they were wanted instead of the most lucrative locations. Of course I have an old soul and sadly I grow up in this time when beer is $8 at the concert and I can only afford to sit in the nosebleed section.

Conway Twitty came to Crownpoint, where I am from on the Navajo reservation. He rocked the roof off the Crownpoint (tribal) college cafeteria. Twitty kissed my grandma and made my grandpa mad for a while. Those were the good ole days – and I have more stories about Crownpoint’s good ole days that unfortunately I wasn’t witness to either. I bet tickets were $1, if any admission price.

Don’t you notice old country songs frequently had references to Native Americans? Waylon sang “America” where “the red man is right to expect a little from you, promise and then follow through, America.” I heard he was into the American Indian Movement around the early 1970’s. Even Elton John wrote a song about us. That’s gone now.

"America" by Waylon Jennings

Johnny Cash came to Crownpoint too. He loved my hometown so much he wrote a song, called “Navajo.” In that song he says he watched an artist painting. That painter was Jimmy Abeyta, a neighbor of another famous painter, Willie Murphy, who is my grandpa – but I like to think he was singing about my grandpa.

"Navajo" by Johnny Cash

Cash also made an album, “Bitter Tears” all about Natives: injustice, hardships and pride. He includes himself as a Native and sings, “in our losing we found proudness, in your winning you found shame.” Where is that album? Have you heard of it? I certainly never heard about it until I was thinking about this blog. Maybe the big music people heard the lyrics and thought they would hide it and never include any of those songs about Natives in any of Cash’s ‘Greatest Hits’ albums. They decided to do the same thing with U.S. history text books, but that’s another blog – that will tie into my next blog about the famous terrorist, Christopher Columbus.

"A Native American Tribute" by Johnny Cash about forced assimilation and bording schools. From "Bitter Tears."

You know who also came from Crownpoint and sometimes plays in Crownpoint? Tim Murphy and The Outlaws! These guys play all the old country hits. And if you didn’t make the connection, Tim Murphy is my dad and I did grow up on a good supply of real country because of him – though in my teens I rebelled and said "no to country" for a while. There are a lot of these ‘rez bands’ on the reservation and they do covers of a lot of the old stuff. I’m going to be biased and say my dad’s band is the best – why do you think NMSU would invite them here twice to a packed house? Unfortunately a lot of people have a bad taste in music and these bands are now trying to cover the new crud.

Take it how you will. Please come back for my future blog about the man who Hitler was inspired by, due on Columbus Day.

The Dogs

2011-09-29T15:45:00.000-07:00

There was a non-Native guy who started asking questions about the Native group of NMSU that was hosting a car wash. Group members gave him info and told him they were raising money for their annual American Indian Week.

He was familiar with the event and said he loved Tatonka Means’ comedy performance from last year. He especially loved the part about the “rez puppies or the rez dogs.”

“I travel a lot for work and sometimes I drive past the reservation,” he said. “We have been thinking of getting a dog. Where can I get a ‘rez dog?’”

“Just go to the rez and pick one up,” was someone’s response.

Group members were totally confused and tickled by this question and when I heard about this, I thought it was complete comedy. I don’t know whether this guy thought a ‘rez dog’ was a special breed of canine, or he felt sorry for their situation and wanted to rescue one.

'Rez dogs' in Crownpoint, N.M. Navajo reservation.

‘Rez dogs’ are mix breed dogs that are most times unfortunate enough to be born on a Native reservation. They are of the Bad and Mean Behavior Clan, born for the Starving and Skinny Clan, their maternal grandparents are the Warrior’s Friends Clan and their paternal grandparents are of the Protector Clan (not actual clans).

I wrote a story a few years ago about the ‘rez dog’ situation (unfortunately the archive is gone, but one website picked it up, here) I wrote about two women who save dogs and puppies from the reservation and take them to no-kill shelters out of the reservation and even out of state. Then I went on to say that animal control euthanizes 80 percent of the animals they catch — most of which are dogs. My original lede was cut, but it read something like, “A big black dogs lies, bloated and inanimate near a busy intersection where an outdoor flea market meets an elementary school.”

Every year someone writes a story about the ‘rez dog’ situation. A recent one that I read said that the Navajo Nation once again cut funding for animal control and now they don’t have enough money to perform euthanasia, allegedly. That means they cut animal control staff from 6 to 5 for the whole Navajo reservation, which is about 27,000 square miles.

Dogs pretty much run wild on our reservation and when they die, no one comes to claim the bodies on the side of the road because other starving dogs get to them first. Some people make their dogs really mean and have 6 or 10 of them in their yard. Strays roam about the grocery store and flea market picking up scraps.

My dog Kobie was a very good dog, and there are a lot of those and good owners on the reservation too but there are just so many dogs, we can’t take care of them all.

Kiko is our other dog. We found her when she was a stray puppy. She was muddy and stinky and we just couldn't turn the other cheek.

Kiko and Kobie are standing at the top of a mesa overlooking Crownpoint.

Kobie was a very good dog.

Kobie came from our neighbor who got rid of the other puppies. Spaying and neutering is not very common — though it certainly is very cheap and sometimes free — and there are a lot of people who ‘get rid’ of unwanted puppies and kittens.

This frustrates me too. In the Navajo way, every living and nonliving thing on Mother Earth is to be respected. Most of that was lost during assimilation. I have no idea where the dog got it’s bad rap. They are expected to protect our property but are not considered to be pets and are not allowed in the house.

I don’t see how this kind of abuse and neglect can be as big a problem as it is now and they still cut funding. What are they using now, bullets and boot heels? Or nothing at all?

That is why I always say and advise, "don't get a $500 purebred, get a 'rez dog.'"

Zoey is new to the family. She was a stray 'rez puppy' and now she's our 'rez puppy.'

Also, this is our cat Kitty.

Kill them Redskins! Yeah! High-five!

2011-09-21T18:35:00.000-07:00

It seems like this subject came up a few times just this week. Native mascots in sports. Read one story here.

In that story a Native activist, David Narcomey, explains why these mascots, or minstrel shows, are an offensive gesture to Natives. He says they promote low self-esteem and low self-image among the Native population while promoting racism, cultural discrimination and religious discrimination.

He says some tribes endorse the use of their images and names in sports teams, and Natives in general don’t mind the reference because; there is a lot of money involved; they choose to simply stay out of the controversy; there is no awareness; or they really don’t care at all.

“Cool your heels,” says a person who wrote a response to Narcomey and this story. This writer says that Native mascots should stay because they are a strong tribute to Native history, culture and image. These mascots show how proud and strong Natives were in a respectful manner. By having them on the field they are helping keep the historic culture alive. It also puts Natives in a mystical spotlight and keeps their memory alive.

Apparently he gives himself the authority to speak on such issues and uses “us” in his letter because he is 1/64 Cherokee.

He may need reminding from the football field that he “is” Native and there are still Natives in this country. But I don’t. I am 4/4 Navajo and so are all my family members as far as my memory is concerned.

Mascots like these only make me feel like I am dead and we were totally defeated; like they can use our image, our feathers, our weapons, our dances and our tradition any way they please.

Sure, I was a Warrior in elementary school, but 99.5 percent of the school population was Navajo, and our mascot had the right image with the correct Navajo symbols of protection and bravery. We didn’t dress some fool up to parade around the court or field in mock attire. We were real Warriors with 100 percent of our ancestry running through our veins. Our Warrior was nothing like these cliché mascots with their fluorescent feathers, fake deer skin and hatchet. I’m sure the eastern tribes don’t like that one bit. I sure don’t.

I agree fully with Narcomey. I’m glad 60-something percent of Native mascots were removed from high schools and some colleges, but they all need to go.

Boy, you just wait until Halloween comes around and I see white chicks wearing raunchy Indian costumes.

For Indians, By Indians

2011-09-20T19:19:00.000-07:00

My good professor, Dr. Pepion, the one I earned my American Indian Studies minor from at NMSU, is heading a research study. The research will identify sources of strength that Native students use to get them through college. Read the story here.

Seeing as how I was one of the older, and probably the only former student at the first meeting on Monday, I’m a special case, he said. I’m taking part in the study and it makes me feel good.

We’re trying to figure out how universities can keep Native American students enrolled. And to all of our knowledge, this is the first ever study of its kind that will be shared with other universities when it’s ready in a few months.

Most of the researchers are Native and all of the “subjects” are Native. Maybe this will actually make a change in the system because all other studies that were done have made no particular impact because they can only tell us is what’s wrong so people can throw more money at some program or other. We are trying to figure out what we’re doing, or did, right.

Each student will share their college experience through a series of questions and meetings. Mine happened like this:

My family had a medicine man do a protection ceremony for me. Then I started my freshman year at New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas. I cried pretty hard when my parents dropped me off at my dormitory and left. I knew I was the only one along with one friend from Crownpoint.
Coming from the reservation where 99 percent of my peers are Navajo made Las Vegas very strange and cold. It wasn’t my home and it wasn’t comfortable. Everyone was so different, like the TV came to life and swallowed me.
The Native American Club saved us. There, we could visit other Natives, build relationships with each other and find so much comedy in all the little things we did together. We even went to the San Felipe Casino for a Navajo comedy show by James and Ernie and the Gathering of Nations in Albuquerque together.
I later found journalism through the American Indian Journalism Institute – and it was a life changer. I transferred to NMSU for the journalism major and my sister’s network of Native friends and peers became mine. The American Indian Program will never be as friendly and laid back as the Native American Club in Las Vegas though – there was such an awesome family feel in Las Vegas that NMSU can’t grasp behind all the bureaucracy.
I started to see New Mexico as my home, not just the reservation anymore. I’ve been to so many places and talked to so many people as a journalist and it has changed my mind about the world.
I also had a very strong personal drive to finish college and be the first in my family to graduate from college. I’ve always wanted to make my parents proud and be a good representative for my tribe whenever I found myself being the “only Native,” which is often. I don’t know what my parents did right – I asked them and they don’t know what they did right either, but they did a good job.
Now I am the first Native writer on the Sun-News staff in 25 years, according to Judy, the HR person. And here is my blog (I will try to post a new blog every week if not more).

So it looks like my sources of strength are first my family, my parents. Second; wanting to set a good example for my tribe and be a good representative, especially after receiving scholarships, it made me want to make their money worth it. Third; finding a Native community at my schools and eventually branching out. Then there are friends and the experiences of living life independently and how much better it can be once I achieve my goals.
Then there are so many reasons why Natives don’t finish school and get their diplomas and that is what we talked about during our first meeting of this project. Through four years as a college student I have seen my Native peers drop out because they became pregnant, too involved in the party scene, their school work became too much, they missed home or ran out of money.

Well, like I said, I’m happy to be a part of this research study because I want to see another research study done someday on why 99 percent of Native students are finishing college.

This weekend we remember...

2011-09-10T20:59:00.000-07:00

My Facebook status says "Andi Murphy read a story saying 9/11 was the worst attack on U.S. soil. It's not. Remember the Indian Wars? Whole villages, towns and tribes were massacred and my last name is Murphy. All ordered by the U.S. government. Yet, Andrew Jackson's face is on the $20 bill -- like putting Hitler on our currency. Remember ALL people this weekend who were victims of terror."

It received several likes.

Something in the back of my mind told me to be just a little afraid for posting something like this because people are very patriotic especially since it has been an entire decade. About every hour this week I heard and saw something about the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

It was a terrible time. Thousands died and we are still at war. We remember that day by hosting remembrance events, bike runs, fundraisers and mass prayers.

I remember that day when I was in boarding school -- Bureau of Indian Affairs school -- and I was in the 7th grade. They took us, single file to the dormitories where we watched the towers fall in New York on a big screen TV. I was shocked and sad. I wish I could remember my view on the war back then.

Terrorists. War. Iraq. Afghanistan. Death count. Sounds familiar.

Just that one story I read on the Internet struck a cord in me: "9/11 was the worst attack on U.S. soil." What about The Long Walk of the Navajo where half of all the members of my tribe were killed. The Trail of Tears were half, even more, of the Cherokee were forced from their homes to walk impossible miles. Wounded Knee? Government issued genocide? What about the California Natives? Gold makes people crazy and makes people die. What about the death of my culture? We didn't want to be Christians in the first place and the melting pot was the worst thing that happened to this country.

And, true to my status, President Andrew Jackson was a known Indian hater and pushed such atrocities on Natives. His proud face is on our $20 bill (I think Natives should direct their efforts of getting Indian mascots out of sports to getting Jackson off our money - it's like putting Bin Laden or Hitler on the $5, very offensive).

It's not just Native Americans. What about slavery? Color oppression? Child soldiers? Human trafficking? Drug cartels? Ect.

This weekend, I am going to remember all victims of terror. We shouldn't be selfish with our sympathy and memories. Shed a tear for, and remember, all those who died shedding tears of fear and are currently living in fear all over the world.

Vampire Reservations

2011-08-04T10:26:00.000-07:00

So I watched “Priest” with my sister a few days ago and we couldn’t help but react when “reservations” were mentioned with cynical remarks.

The vampires in the movie were a menace to society, especially to the church, and were defeated by a couple of super-ninja priests. They were forced on reservations far away from the city where they could harm no one.

We laughed because those are what reservations really are and this is one of the few times we’ve seen such a statement as members of the masses. Now that I think about it, I don’t know why we laughed. Whether we were hiding indignation or we felt that we were the only two who made that connection in the dollar theater that night.

Reservations were essentially a prison to keep Natives out of American — i.e. white — society because early Americans were very racist and would go to certain terrible lengths to keep colors out of “their” space even if the tribes tried their hardest, like the Cherokee, to blend into American society and stay on their homelands. These lands also originated from treaties, agreements to give up certain territories, but everyone knows these were never honored. For a time, it was actually illegal for Natives to venture off the rez.

Reservations are not at all considered prisons these days. We can come and go as we please and we embrace and take pride of the land we come from and are lucky to have.

I don’t remember anyone who was not brown-skinned like me when I was growing up — and I grew up on the Navajo reservation. Only the teachers and doctors and everyone on TV were white. They seemed like a rarity and drew much attention and fake politeness when they were in my town.

For 18 years I never had a white, black or Hispanic friend and when they talked to me, it was a different experience that I mostly shied away from. At 19 I had to man up, quick, for college where I was the only Native out of couple hundred other people. I still shied away from other people and mostly stayed with my Native friends from the Native American Club — thank goodness for them.

I think after a few years of watching other people, and learning how they can be just as friendly as the Natives I grew up with, I’m not as reserved as I used to be. But after years of telling myself to be more social, I also learned that I’m naturally a little shy anyways.

So maybe it’s because my sister and I saw these rare vampires as images of us, but I just found that reference worthy of a blog entry.

Black Cloud? Come on...

2011-07-25T16:48:00.000-07:00

Oh, the problems a Native can have — and one of them is starring in movies that are just not that good.

“Black Cloud (2004)” is a movie about a young Navajo man fighting his way through life with his fists — because he’s a boxer — and by finding himself through a number of deaths and events that lead him down the bottle, into the sweat lodge and back into his girlfriend’s arms. It was filmed in the Gallup area, near my hometown of Crownpiont, and had a huge opening at the local theaters there. No doubt, the people in the theater seats were also disappointed, but got a good laugh out of it like I did.

Maybe it’s because I live on the edge of the Navajo Nation — on the New Mexico side, but come on, Natives do drive and own vehicles that were made in 2011 and some of our roads are paved. Movies like these only solidify stereotypes and hide the real and current culture by opening the movie with a powwow dream or having the lead character posses a special connection with a coveted wild stallion the elders tell stories about.

One of Black Cloud’s greatest dilemmas was coming to terms with his mixed blood. Apparently his great-grandfather was a respected white man and he nearly kills himself over it and joins a drunken gang of other mix-blood rejects. Maybe the writer forgot that in the Navajo way, if you belong to a clan and you know who your family is, than you’re Navajo. I have certainly never seen or heard of a mix-blood group.

The plot was good and had so much possibility but it was smothered in cliché, unrealistic dialogue and bad acting. The conflict was too quickly resolved and could be more conflicting because being a mixed-blood is not that bad, especially for a guy like Black Cloud, a grown man with an obvious Native name who already loves a half-white child and has very strong ties to the elders and his culture.

I want a good Native movie without the cliché and stone faced Natives with long, strait, black hair. I’d rather see a drama about tribal government crimes against the people — a high-risk lawyer story like “Philadelphia.” An action movie — possibly in 3-D — about a super ghost warrior coming back from the dead to defend his people against a ravaging, late-1800s U.S. Army. A comedy about a group of Natives at a big city conference finding their way back to the U.S. after boarder control mistakenly picks them up — ala Hangover. And a satire about a group of young Natives coming back from the city to set up a healthy vegan sandwich shop on the rez only to go broke and resolve the issue by finding other, morbid means of nutrition (this piece is already half written by yours truly, so don’t copy).

In the mean time, I will continue to write my play, and wish other — future — Native movies would be better. But, you know, kudos for the attempt. It’s always a very nice surprise to see a movie with some familiar Native culture and people.

It hits close to home

2011-07-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

I’m not talking about one man was singled out in a dark alley of a huge city in the dead of night. I’m talking about a Native family beaten on a busy Nevada interstate — en route to Reno — in broad daylight by a couple of punk skinheads (read the story here).

No, John Quiñones didn’t pop out of the bushes on May 24 with his camera crew and ask passers by, “why didn’t you stop to help?”

There were bloody wounds, broken bones, a public that turned the other cheek and there seems to be police negligence/cruelty. The Native man who was severely beaten was taken to jail and left there for six days with no medical treatment and charged with battery with a deadly weapon. After many worried phone calls, police curtly told family to get his “Indian doctor,” who were then denied access to the man. The 1920s anybody? Silly me, this is 2011 — and the punks bragged about the incident on Facebook and weren’t charged a thing.

Now, I’m not from the Reno Sparks Indian Colony nor have been a victim of such brutality — thank goodness — but this hits close to home. I know Jen, a good friend and a Shoshone-Paiute raised in a town 20 miles away from where the beatings took place. Her Facebook status said she was scared and others replied with sympathy, sympathetic hate, frustration, shock and sadness.

The mentally disabled Navajo man who had a swastika branded into his skin and shaved on his head by a couple of guys in Farmington could have well been my cousin — most likely via our clan (Ké) system.

Native Americans represent less than 1 percent of the total U.S. population so you can bet we know each other. I’ve met cousins at the Gathering of Nations in Albuquerque, I know a Seneca from New York City, a Crowe from Montana, a Minnehaha from North Dakota, a Cheyenne from Wyoming, a “real” Cherokee from South Dakota, Eskimo, Chippewa, Blackfeet, Ponca, Nez Perce, Hopi, Pueblo, Tohono O’odham… you get the point. Besides the Navajo and Cherokee, other Native tribes are very small — from just a few dozen to a few hundred — and we’re a close-knit family. And you know how it is with families; when your brother gets hurt, you hurt too.

It makes me feel afraid sometimes. I feel the cuts on my throat, the bruises on my back, the burning tears and anger.

Hate needs to stop.

History is bitter sweet

2011-07-11T13:41:00.000-07:00

A settlement of more than $3.4 billion for the government’s “alleged” mismanagement and literal theft of trust funds for around 500,000 individual Indians was approved June 20. It is the largest settlement to be approved against the U.S. (Read the story here)

Those thousands of Indians, or their heirs, will receive about $1,000 for the resources harvested and utilized on their land, payments they should’ve received since they were given an Individual Indian Monies account.

The settlement is a result of the 15-year lawsuit, Cobell v. Salazar, brought about by Elouise Cobell, a modern-day hero in the Native community and a Blackfeet.

My mother is an heiress. We own some land on the outskirts of Crownpoint, N.M. She, nor I, never knew about the Cobell case until I had to do research on it for one of my American Indian Studies classes — yes, even Native Americans have to take classes to learn about Native Americans.

Frankly, I don’t think she cares. It’s really only pocket change compared to what is really owed to Natives, and pocket change won’t make a lifetime of poverty feel better or worth it. The most I can get out of my mom is an “oh” and a “hmm.”

For many Natives, it’s just another promise by the government and who’s to say the Bureau of Indian Affairs won’t mismanage and literally steal what’s promised to individuals this time around? Let’s just see how long it takes for my mom to get a $1,000 check in the mail.

That’s one viewpoint.

I for one am excited. This case will be included in a chapter in future history books — under trust land, resources and Cobell in the index. I am witness to the government owning up to it’s mistakes, admitting they were wrong, they are sorry and are giving back to Natives what’s rightfully theirs. I am witness to a better government-tribal relationship.

What is an individual Indian money account (IMA) you ask? This is not where we store our riches to build our casinos. No. IMAs came about during the allotment era (late 1800’s up to the 1930’s) in American Indian history. Indian trust land was split up between individual Indians. As soon as word got out that some land was loaded with lucrative resources but blocked by the big “Trust” sign, the BIA assigned IMAs to legally lease out that trust land while collecting money they would disburst to their individual landowners’ IMAs. Obviously that didn’t work so well and the system was plagued by theft, negligence and mismanagement.
What is the allotment era you ask? 1871 to 1928. This is the time when Natives lost most of the land they were assigned — allotted, and it was all legal. As said before, land was assigned to individual Indians which was guaranteed trust status, meaning no one can tax/buy/sell it, for about 25 years. No one sent out a memo to Indians about their own land business and if they did, they made it very difficult to understand. You have to think back to when Indians didn’t all speak English, let alone understand the legal jargon in fine print. They were also a people who didn’t believe Mother Earth should be owned, bought or sold. Suddenly landowners, who didn’t have jobs and were in a desperate state of poverty, were getting bills in the mail — taxes — when the 25 years were up. They couldn’t pay and lost their land in auctions where their land was sold for mere pennies. Or, they couldn’t afford food for their family and were forced to sell their land.

Cool things to do

2011-07-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

Three years ago, I switched by major and transferred to NMSU, 300 miles from home, because being a journalist seemed like the cool thing to do. Little did I know journalism always makes the top 20 lists of useless jobs and career paths, right up there with art and theater.

After I graduated in the winter of 2010 I was unemployed, which also seemed like the popular thing for kids to do after they graduated.

Unemployed with a seemingly useless degree was my occupation for five months. Rent and bills in the mailbox scared me more than anything. There was a whole lot of sitting in the dark and baking going on in a small conventional oven smaller than my first Easy Bake.

I freelanced for everyone I could: the Las Cruces Sun-News, Navajo Times and reznetnews.org — the latter two being Native American-owned and -operated news publications.

I’m Navajo by the way. Not a drop of Irish blood in me — though that’s a different story come St. Patrick’s Day. I’m from a small town on the reservation called Crownpoint, N.M., which is internationally known for is monthly rug auctions and total lack of aesthetics.

But back to my spiel about how I got here.

While freelancing for the Sun-News, I heard about a job opening as an editor’s assistant and I jumped at the chance. They hired me even before I could fill out an application.

Now that I’m here, it seems like the cool thing to do is write a blog. I rolled the thought around in my head and thought about things I was passionate about, a topic on which I had a lot to say, and, that could be interesting, entertaining and edifying.

What’s more awesome than writing about your own people? I embrace my heritage and I try to keep myself in the know about recent issues and happenings.

I’m doing pretty cool things these days. I hope my blog about Native American people and issues turns out to be… well, cool.