To My Cheii (Grandfather) - Jade Final

My grandparents after their wedding. 

A couple months before coming to Stanford, I was faced with a dilemma about my identity. I am Navajo, Hunkpapa Lakota, Sissaton Wahpeton Dakota, and Danish.  Living in what is called the capital of the Navajo Nation, I was constantly looked down upon for not being full-blood Navajo. However, the biggest factor for why I was always in this light was due to me being part white. My maternal grandfather is Danish and grew up in a small-town in Kansas. My dilemma begins with the fact that my Danish grandfather is actually one of my main connections to my Navajo identity and culture.

My maternal grandparents met at the Indian Cultural Center in Gallup, New Mexico where my grandfather was working one summer. As he tells the story, “The one day that I didn’t look my best and at the time when was hauling out trash, your grandmother decided to walk in. From that moment on, I knew I wanted to stay here.” Shortly after inter-racial marriage was legalized in Arizona, my grandparents were finally able to marry. Since then, my grandfather was set on fully immersing himself into the Navajo culture, as well as learning to speak the language fluently. In later years, my grandparents would go on to help start the Navajo Immersion School for language revitalization, help run the schools in Rock Point, Arizona, and even got the Fulbright Fellowship to learn more about language revitalization in New Zealand.   

Unfortunately, I was not able to be around my grandmother that long before she passed away when I was five. With that said, I spent, and continue to spend, most of my time with my grandfather. In elementary school, he would come over to help me with math and science, as well teaching me to speak and write in Navajo. After elementary school, he was diagnosed as being “legally” blind and deaf. That did not stop him, however, from pushing me and my sister to learn all that we can about our Navajo culture. He encouraged us to compete in as many Navajo Song and Dance competitions as we could in high school. He was front and center at our coming of age ceremonies, helping with the fire and trying his best to participate in the running portion with us.

The irony in having been taught a large portion of what I know about my Navajo identity from a “white man” is something I never contemplated. I never thought of him as being white. It just slipped my mind until the day I took him to the hospital and was filling out his paperwork when I came to the question regarding ethnicity and had to pause. For some reason, checking off the “Caucasian/White” box was so odd to me.

My grandfather is a big reason for where I am at today. He continues to play a major role in my involvement in my Navajo culture and community. During my graduation speech, I wanted to acknowledge him in some way. I did so by how he taught me how. A majority of my speech was in Navajo. When he heard it, he smiled and cried. My grandfather is my best friend and my everything, and I cannot thank him enough for all that he has done.