Indigenous She Wrote
Yá'át'ééh. Shí éí Bít’ahnii nishłį́. Naakaii Dine’é éí bashishchiin. Biih Bítoo’nii éí dashicheii. Tódích’íí’nii éí dashinalí. Shí éí Shine Salt yinishye.
Hello, I am of the Folded Arm Clan born for the Mexican Clan. My maternal grandfather is the Deer Spring Clan and my paternal grandmother is the Bitter Water Clan. My name is Shine Salt.
In the Navajo culture, it is taught to us as children to say our clans first for introduction to another person. Our clan system is very essential to the Navajo tribe. It defines where we come from and allows us to meet extended family from the same clan.
Most of my family are traditional believers of Diné way of life, which means they still visit medicine men and women as healers. I grew up playing the Navajo cultural games such as the shoe game and learning string games during the wintertime. I slept in my grandmother’s spring and summer Hogan where our only light at night was the kerosene lamp or the fire pit. I was a reservation kid who had fun playing in the dirt and helped butcher sheep.
My family helped mold me into the person I am and that is someone who wants to accomplish my goals. My grandfather was taken from his home and forced into boarding school. By 16 years of age, he was only in seventh grade and when he was drafted into the military to serve in World War II. My grandmother didn’t go to school, so she’s illiterate to English and her primary language is Navajo.
When I think about it, education in my family just began two generations ago. My parents saw how education is important and what difference it can make. My mother has an associates and my father a bachelor’s degree. Having parents who went through the obstacle to pursue their academics helped my siblings and I do the same.
I received my bachelor’s degree in Fall 2014 for Journalism and a minor in American Indian Studies at Arizona State University. Within my time at ASU and after, I have worked with various news outlets: Navajo Times, Arcadia Newspaper, KPHO.com with CBS, and the Cronkite Journal. I was accepted into programs like the Native American Journalism Association (NAJA) and the Washington Internship for Native Students (WINS).
Being able to participate with WINS and NAJA has helped me to work under pressure and to be in a different comfort zone. I interned in the main headquarters of the Social Security Administration in the Field Office Network Enterprise department at Boston, MA during the winter of 2014. During my internship I created a quarterly newsletter that would be nationally distributed to other governmental branches. I was also able to meet and discuss with the President for the National Congress of American Indian (NCAI), Brian Cladoosby, on issues dealing with Native American sovereignty. During this time, the Keystone XL Pipeline was undergoing protest at the White House where I was able to volunteer my time and help the committee set up.
While reporting for the news outlets, I learned about community topics like cultural issues, community development and statistics. I interviewed Arizonan tribal youths who attended the 2015 Legislative Day in Phoenix. The youths explained what their community issues are and the top three were: Drugs and Alcohol, college dropout and gangs. I did a story about a sacred site, Bears Ears Butte in Utah that’s under the Bureau of Land Management, to be considered a preservation area for Navajos. Because Navajos were put on reservations, much of them could not go back to their original homes that were slightly off the reservation boundaries, such as this particular site.
Without any of these experiences, I don’t think I would be as ambitious as I am today to report on Native issues. I grew and matured with what I wanted for my community and myself by listening to tribal leaders, the community, the state and government. These kinds of conflicts can be sticky, especially reporting and not being bias on tribal issues.
My minor in American Indian Studies at ASU has guided me to understand Native laws at federal and tribal level. Learning about this field showed me issues happening on Native lands that involve the federal and state government. Laws that were intact to tribal nations in the 1700s that affect us today – reporting on it makes it more surreal. Because I wanted to expand more on tribal and federal government-to-government laws, I have received my bachelors for Applied Indigenous Studies at Northern Arizona University. Here I have done extensive research pertaining to various types of laws and I mainly focused on public lands — considering Bears Ears Butte is undergoing a conservation act for Native tribes, how will co-management better the protection of sacred sites? This project was a final capstone piece for my senior project where I had to obtain interviews, research and data.