Ramah Chapter

I grew up in the Ramah Navajo community in western New Mexico. Many people don’t realize there are three Navajo bands outside of the main Navajo Nation reservation, Ramah Navajo, Alamo Navajo, and To’hajiilee. We’re still Navajo, but our communities have their own history and identity.

Looking back, I know I had a different experience than a lot of kids growing up in my community. Both of my parents valued education and earned their master’s degrees, so I was raised in a home where learning was important. We weren’t rich, and I remember when I was little we didn’t have things like running water or electricity, but my parents worked hard and made sure we had what we needed. It wasn’t until I came back home and worked in the community that I truly realized how many families were facing challenges that I had never experienced myself.

I was raised in a traditional Navajo home by parents, grandparents, and relatives who taught me our way of life. Some of my best memories are of herding sheep, shearing sheep, chopping wood, and taking part in ceremonies. Those experiences taught me responsibility, respect, and the importance of family. Like many people, I’ve drifted away from those teachings at different times in my life, but they’ve always brought me back. Those values continue to guide me today.

After high school, I attended SIPI in Albuquerque and earned my associate degree before transferring to Haskell Indian Nations University. Football gave me the opportunity to continue my education, and I eventually earned my bachelor’s degree in American Indian Studies. College wasn’t easy. I had barely graduated from high school and quickly realized how much I needed to catch up academically. I had to take developmental classes and work harder than I ever had before. Looking back, that experience taught me that success isn’t about where you start. It’s about whether you’re willing to keep moving forward.

After college, I returned home and worked at the wellness center in Pine Hill. That’s when I began seeing my community from a different perspective. I wasn’t just someone who grew up there anymore, I was someone trying to help.

One of the biggest challenges I saw was the lack of opportunity. Jobs are limited, and the nearest towns with employment are about an hour away. For many families, transportation, childcare, and even gas money become barriers before they ever have a chance to build a better future. When those challenges continue for generations, it’s easy to understand why people can feel stuck.

Working with young people changed the way I looked at things. I spent a lot of time encouraging students to think about life after high school. I told them they didn’t have to follow just one path. College is one option, but so are skilled trades, healthcare, or any career that gives them the opportunity to build the life they want.

Sometimes the hardest part wasn’t helping them find opportunities. It was helping them believe those opportunities were possible.

Many students were afraid to leave home. Others believed they couldn’t afford college or that they weren’t capable of succeeding. I understood those fears because I had my own struggles in school. I always tried to remind them that where you begin doesn’t have to determine where you end up.

I also realized that supporting youth means supporting families. Many children I met were being raised by grandparents, older siblings, or a single parent. Parents often worked long hours or struggled just to provide the basics. During the summer, we tried to create activities that gave kids a safe place to spend their time. Sometimes they simply needed somewhere they could have fun, eat a meal, and feel like someone cared about them.

Over the years, I’ve also seen how mental health continues to affect our communities. Too many people avoid asking for help because they’re afraid of being judged. On the reservation, everyone knows everyone. People worry about what others might say if they walk into a clinic or ask for counseling. That stigma keeps many people from getting the support they need.

I always encouraged people to take care of themselves, whether it was managing diabetes, checking their blood sugar, or talking to someone when life became overwhelming. Asking for help isn’t weakness. It’s one of the strongest things a person can do.

Today’s generation faces challenges that my generation didn’t. Social media constantly shows young people lives that seem perfect, making it easy to compare themselves to people they’ve never met. I think that creates a different kind of pressure than we experienced growing up. More than ever, young people need positive role models who remind them that their value isn’t measured by what they own or what they see online.

Being raised in a traditional Navajo home gave me a strong sense of who I am. My grandparents taught me our way of life through everyday experiences, and those lessons have stayed with me. Over the years, I’ve seen disagreements between people who follow the traditional way and those who attend different churches. Sometimes those differences create division within the community and even within families. I don’t believe it has to be that way. I respect everyone’s beliefs, and I hope we can continue finding ways to support one another while making sure our traditional teachings are passed on to the next generation.

Today, my daughter carries both parts of her family’s traditions. Watching her continue her education and begin graduate school has been one of the proudest moments of my life. It reminds me that every generation has the chance to go a little farther than the one before.

Although I now live in Albuquerque, Ramah Navajo will always be home. I left because I wanted greater opportunities, but I never left behind the lessons my family and community gave me. Everything I learned from my grandparents, from my parents, from football, from college, and from serving my own people continues to shape the person I am today.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that change doesn’t happen all at once. It starts with giving people hope, creating opportunities, and reminding our young people that they are capable of building a future they can be proud of without ever forgetting where they come from.

R.H., Ramah Chapter, July 23, 2026

Tse Dáá K’áán

I never imagined my family would go through something like this.

It started with my brother not feeling well. At first, we all thought it was just a cold. We told him to get some rest and figured he’d be back on his feet in a few days.

Instead, each day he became weaker.

His stomach started hurting. His legs began swelling. Soon his whole body ached, and before long he couldn’t even get out of bed.

Like many Diné men, he didn’t want to go to the hospital. He kept telling us he’d be alright and that he could get through it on his own.

After about a week, we knew something wasn’t right anymore. We called an ambulance.

That was the beginning of one of the hardest weeks our family has ever lived through.

At the hospital, doctors found what they believed was a black mass in his pelvic area. They told us it was likely cancer. The next day he was flown to Grand Junction, Colorado, to see cancer specialists.

Our world stopped.

One week earlier my brother had been walking around like anyone else. Now our family was hearing words like “Stage 4,” “metastatic bladder cancer,” and “it has spread to his lungs.”

No one could clearly explain what was happening, but those words were enough.

Fear took over.

We drove back and forth between New Mexico and Colorado, trying to stay by his side while also trying to understand what the doctors were telling us.

Then they handed us letters recommending that we have our home tested for radon and our community tested for uranium, arsenic, and benzene exposure.

That’s when everything became bigger than my brother.

We started asking ourselves questions that no family wants to ask.

If he was exposed… were we all exposed?

What about our children?

What about our neighbors?

A dark cloud settled over our family.

We were grieving someone who was still alive.

About a week later, the doctors came back with different news.

The black spots they believed were cancer weren’t cancer at all.

They were a severe infection.

Something that could be treated with antibiotics.

My brother had been misdiagnosed.

The doctors apologized, but by then our family had already lived through panic, grief, confusion, fear, and sleepless nights. Even though my brother was going to live, the emotional weight we carried didn’t disappear overnight.

That experience changed the way I see healthcare.

I realized that healing isn’t only about medicine. It’s also about communication. The words spoken by a doctor don’t stop with the patient, they travel through an entire family.

Sometimes those words stay with you long after the diagnosis has changed.

Joey Tsosie – Tse Dáá K’áán, July 2026

Shiprock Chapter, NM

Growing up, my life was filled with instability, overcrowding, and emotional pain. I lived with my grandmother because both of my parents struggled with alcoholism and were not consistently present in my life. My grandmother’s small three-bedroom house was packed with family members trying to survive under one roof. Some slept in bedrooms, others in the living room. My sisters and I shared a room with my grandmother because there was nowhere else for us to go.

Even though my grandmother gave us a place to stay, life was hard. I constantly felt poor and overlooked. Most of my clothes were hand-me-downs from cousins or cheap clothes from flea markets. Even when schools offered free clothes or supplies, I felt embarrassed accepting them because I already felt different from everyone else.

Alcohol was everywhere around me growing up. There were arguments, police visits, chaos, and emotional pain inside the home. As a child, I never really felt safe or emotionally supported. Looking back now, I realize love felt missing from much of my childhood. I carried loneliness and trauma for years but kept it hidden because I was afraid of being judged.

School became more of an escape than a place of support. Spending time with friends, going to parties, and being away from home gave me moments where I could forget what I was feeling inside.

Because addiction was normalized around me, I eventually turned to alcohol and drugs myself. At the time, substances felt like a way to numb everything I had been carrying since childhood. For a while, it gave me temporary comfort and escape, but deep down I was struggling with abandonment, hurt, and emptiness.

As an adult, my addiction became more severe and eventually reached a breaking point. While living in Phoenix, I stayed in terrible living conditions while trying to detox. I remember cockroaches falling from the ceiling, children crying constantly, and feeling physically sick, emotionally exhausted, and completely hopeless.

I started calling treatment centers begging for help. Through tears, I told people I was suicidal and afraid I would die if nobody helped me. But everywhere I called, I was turned away. Some places told me the waiting list was over a year long. Others said they were full.

That was one of the lowest moments of my life.

Eventually, after being kicked out and feeling completely lost, I reached out to my father. Through him, I was connected with Dennis Banks, who was organizing a spiritual walk from Alcatraz to Washington, D.C. Meeting him changed my life.

For the first time in a long time, someone saw me as more than my addiction.

He spoke to me with compassion and understanding. He taught me about Native identity, healing, history, and reconnecting with culture. Instead of making me feel broken, he reminded me I still had value and purpose.

I joined the spiritual journey beginning in Bernalillo and walked all the way to Washington, D.C. During that time, I disconnected myself from the people and environments tied to my addiction. I even turned off my phone so I could focus completely on healing.

Through prayer, ceremony, walking, and community, I slowly began rebuilding myself emotionally and spiritually.

Since 2016, I have remained sober.

Coming home was not easy because people from my past tried pulling me back into old habits. Friends reached out wanting me to drink and use again, but I knew I could not go back. I had worked too hard to heal.

Today, I believe culture can play a major role in healing Native communities. Sweat lodges, prayer, elders, singing, dancing, beadwork, and drum-making all help reconnect people to who they are. Addiction makes people lose their identity, their purpose, and their sense of belonging. Culture helps restore that.

It also makes me sad seeing how disconnected many younger Native people are from traditions and ceremonies. Many were never taught these teachings growing up, and because of that, they struggle to feel connected to who they are as Native people.

Even within my own family, teaching my children about ceremonies and traditions has not always been easy, but I continue trying because I believe culture is powerful medicine.

My story is one of pain, survival, resilience, and healing. It reflects the lasting effects of trauma, poverty, addiction, and lack of support, but also the strength that can come through compassion, community, and reconnecting with culture.

Through sobriety and spiritual healing, I transformed my life. And now, I carry that hope forward for the next generation.

 

Shayla D., Shiprock Chapter , June 2026

Tsayatoh Chapter, NM

I grew up in Pretty Rock, a small community near Gallup. Most of my childhood was spent living with my grandmother on the Navajo reservation. Even though I lived on the reservation, I went to school in Gallup, spending years riding the bus back and forth between home and town. That became part of everyday life.

After graduating high school in 2006, I continued my education and earned a welding certification. Over the years, I worked different jobs, including refinery work, law enforcement, and telecommunications. No matter where I worked though, my goal was always the same, to build a stable life and home for my family back on the reservation.

A couple years ago, my wife and I bought a mobile home with plans to place it on our homesite in Black Hat. At first, we thought it would be a simple process. Instead, it became one of the most stressful experiences our family has gone through.

I quickly learned how difficult and confusing the homesite lease process can be. At chapter meetings, I heard people say they had already been waiting five to eight years and were still trying to get approved. Hearing that discouraged us. There were times my wife and I wondered if we would ever truly be able to move into our home.

The process involved endless paperwork, phone calls, meetings, and trying to understand requirements that often were not clearly explained. A lot of the responsibility fell on me to keep checking in, following up, and making sure our application did not get forgotten. I realized that if you stop pushing, things can easily sit there for months or years.

After staying persistent and continuing to ask questions, I was finally able to receive my homesite lease within nine months, which was much faster than what many others experience. But even after that, the challenges did not stop.

Getting water and electricity connected became another long process involving different offices, agencies, and utility companies. At times it felt like we were being pushed aside or forgotten. Trying to manage all of that while balancing work and family responsibilities became emotionally exhausting.

Then, just before Christmas, we finally got running water.

I still remember how emotional that moment felt for my family. Something as basic as turning on a faucet became a symbol of relief, stability, and progress after years of uncertainty. Soon after, our electricity was connected too.

A lot of people outside the reservation take those things for granted. But for many Navajo families, access to water and electricity is still a struggle.

When I think about the future, I hope my children and future generations will not have to go through the same hardships my family experienced just to build a home. I want to see a Navajo Nation where families can access homesites, utilities, and infrastructure without spending years fighting through difficult systems.

I believe our communities have the potential to grow and improve, but it will take stronger systems, better leadership, and continued support for families trying to create a better future.

My story is really about perseverance.

No matter how frustrating the process became, I kept pushing forward because all I wanted was to build a stable home and life for my children.

Brad, Tsayatoh Chapter, June 2026

Shiprock, NM

Our language is who we are. It is powerful. It is medicine for our Diné people.

For more than two years, I’ve been doing radio talks about land stewardship, our culture, our laws, and our language. One thing I continue to believe is this: we cannot keep trying to build our future only through someone else’s worldview. Too often, we negotiate schools, healthcare, government, and even our identity through English and Western ways of thinking first. Then we turn around and try to fit our people into systems that were never built from our teachings.

That weakens our ability to advocate for ourselves as Diné people.

Everything must begin from our own foundation our language, our culture, and our understanding of the world.

Our Creator instructed us (Diné) to move into this area. We are not immigrants to this land. We belong within these four sacred mountains. That understanding came long before the Navajo government, before English, before outside systems. Those things are secondary. Our language and teachings are primary.

Sometimes I think we have forgotten that.

It’s admirable that young people leave to get degrees and educations, but literacy in the outside world is not the same as understanding who you are as Diné. Too many young people come back and see their grandparents as “uneducated” because they only speak Navajo. But linguists say Navajo is one of the most difficult and complex languages in the world. Our elders carry knowledge, memory, teachings, and ways of thinking that cannot fully be translated into English.

A lot of my understanding came from my cheii, who was a medicine man. His songs and stories were part of his medicine, passed down long before 1868 through generations of ancestors. But when he passed, much of that ended too. At the time, we thought we were too modern, too educated, too advanced for those ways. Looking back now, I think he probably saw us as people slowly losing who we were.

That is why protecting our language matters.

Language is not just words. It is governance. It is clan relations. It is how we understand responsibility, wellness, land, and one another. If we lose the language, we lose the roots that hold everything together.

And if we want a strong future as Diné people, we have to retrace those roots and remember what guided us before everything else.

Tom Chee, Shiprock Chapter

June 2026