Navajo scholars developing 'first of its kind' Diné textbook

About a decade ago, Kara Roanhorse applied for the Navajo Nation’s Chief Manuelito Scholarship, which aims to recognize high-achieving students with thousands of dollars per year for their undergraduate studies.

As part of that program, she said she had to take a Navajo government course, a class that disappointed her because of its lack of complexity and historical basis.

“Currently, there’s no concentrated text or deeper considerations in existence for young people to discuss issues of sovereignty and self determination,” Roanhorse, now a University of New Mexico doctoral degree candidate, told the Journal this week.

Filling the types of gaps Roanhorse found in her schooling is why a team of UNM professors and other researchers, editors and contributors are developing a textbook on the history of Navajo government, an effort they tout as the first of its kind.

“The gap that we’re filling is to create something that is current and relevant to the needs of young Diné people and other Native people who have the lived experiences of these issues, of these events, and the policies that impact their lives,” said Roanhorse, a contributor on the project.

Geared toward high schoolers taking Navajo government and social studies classes, the textbook will be published in three parts — one in English, one in Diné and another digital, English form, professor and Department of American Studies chair Jennifer Denetdale said.

She added that authors hope to submit their first draft of the textbook in March and have a near-complete manuscript ready for publication within two years.

“It really actually is historic, because it’ll be the first one,” said Denetdale, a co-editor of the textbook.

Denetdale’s inspiration for the project came from her grandson, she said. Years ago, while helping him take an online Navajo government class, she found herself surprised by how outdated and irrelevant his textbook was.

“I said, ‘I’m really shocked that this is what you have to work with,’ and, ‘It’s a very Western perspective of the development of Navajo government,’ ” Denetdale said. “So I told my grandson, I said, ‘We’re going to write a new textbook.’ ”

Project backers, Denetdale said, were also partially inspired by the landmark Yazzie-Martinez lawsuit, which in 2018 yielded a decision from a judge that New Mexico wasn’t fulfilling its duty to provide a sufficient education system, particularly for English learners, students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students and Native American pupils.

Specifically, that decision found the latter of those students benefit from “rigorous and well-designed curriculum that is culturally relevant,” and advocates of Native American education have long pushed for more funding, programs and autonomy to accomplish that.

This textbook appears to fall into that.

“We can’t over-stress the importance of this curriculum that’s being developed by Diné people themselves,” Roanhorse said.

In its comprehensive budget, the Navajo Nation Council set aside roughly $173,000 to develop the textbook.

That budget provision was pushed by council Delegate Andy Nez, who echoed the need for a “first of its kind” educational resource about Navajo government.

“Oftentimes, there are not a lot of resources about Navajo written by Navajo,” he told the Journal. “... I think it’s really important to know that this textbook is being funded and supported by Navajo Nation, for Navajo Nation students, written by Navajo scholars.”