The record, read closely · issue articles
Starting to leave us
≈ 5 min read · or listen, or skim the bold lines
D · Draft — not verified Every quote is verbatim from a candidate’s own turn, and is their claim, not this site’s finding. Statements about the Code cite the section read. How we verify →
What Cal asked. Some interviews open in Diné bizaad. Andrew Curley notes he will take questions in Navajo, adding that it is “no longer a requirement that a candidate should speak Navajo” — a small line that turns out to be the whole subject.
The count. Youth, language, and culture reach substantive discussion in 35 of the 42 interviews.
Companion pages: education, the record read closely → · where candidates stand →
Jamie Henio says it in the plainest words anyone uses, and they are not a policy: “How can we sustain our language for many generations? Today, people say it’s starting to leave us.” Everything else on this page is a disagreement about what to do with that sentence.
Everyone agrees the language matters. They do not agree on how.
The clearest split in the whole record is here, and it is a good-faith one.
On one side, language as the center. Mikhail Ganadonegro would let it steer governance itself: “Our language and culture are our strength, and I believe they should guide our decisions, including how we protect our land.” Donovan Begay would put traditional teaching in the classroom directly — “to push for traditional teachings in the classrooms all throughout the state.”
On the other side, language as necessary but not sufficient. Greg Bigman, invoking the history of who decides, argues for a wider frame: “I feel that language is an important issue, but it’s not the only thing. It’s also about understanding the culture and the people.” Melinda Arviso-Ciocco ties it to opportunity, wanting Diné College and NTU built up into graduate programs so that culture and credential are not a choice.
This is not a fight between people who care and people who do not. It is a real question — whether the language is saved by being taught as a subject, lived as a medium, or protected as the frame around everything else — and the candidates land in genuinely different places on it.
The honest complication
Marsha Greyeyes says the thing most likely to be left out of a campaign, and says it about herself: “I can speak Navajo. You see, it’s not my first thing that I gravitate towards when I’m answering, because it’s quicker for me to answer in English. But I do comprehend Navajo.” Her first three years, she adds, her babysitter was her great-grandmother.
That is the actual condition of the language for a great many Diné of working age — understood, loved, and not reached for first — and a candidate willing to name it in public is describing the problem more precisely than any pledge to “preserve” it.
The law that already says so
There is a statute here, and unlike most Titles this site discusses, its text is known. As the education article documents, 10 N.N.C. § 111 provides that Navajo language instruction shall be made available at all grade levels in all schools serving the Navajo Nation. The promise is already law. What no candidate supplies is whether it is happening — in how many schools, at how many grade levels, with how many qualified teachers.
Keeping them, and bringing them back
The other half of “youth” is not language but leaving. Several candidates describe an economy that educates young people to go — the same worry that runs through the enterprises and economy articles — and a few frame their whole platform as building a Nation worth staying in. Christopher Curley grounds it in service across generations: working with “our youth, our elderly, our community leaders.” The through-line is that language, culture, and jobs are not three issues here. They are one question asked three ways: what makes a young Diné person able to stay.
FINDING
Youth, language, and culture are discussed in 35 of 42 interviews, and 10 N.N.C. § 111 already requires Navajo-language instruction in all schools serving the Nation — yet no candidate states how many schools currently provide it, or how many certified Diné-language teachers exist. This is the rare case where the law is not hidden and the number still is. The gap is not the statute. It is whether anyone is measuring compliance with it.
What nobody said
No candidate cited a figure for how many young Diné speak the language fluently, or how many schools meet the § 111 requirement, or how many students leave the Nation and do not return. The feeling that the language is “starting to leave us” is stated with conviction across the record; the measurement that would tell a leader whether it is true, and whether any program is turning it around, is stated nowhere.
Silence here is not evidence about any person. Nearly every candidate spoke to this with feeling. What went missing is the count — and in this one case, not because the law is unpublished, but because no one appears to be keeping it.
TAKE ACTION
Ask the candidate on your ballot three questions.
Is your school meeting the § 111 requirement to teach Diné bizaad — and how would you know? · Should the language be a subject, the medium of instruction, or the frame around everything — and which will you fund? · What specifically would make a young person from here able to stay?
A note on the law here. Section numbers are cited to the Navajo Nation Code. The most widely used published edition (Westlaw) is current only through February 11, 2014, so a citation may not reflect the very latest amendment; a signed change is also not the same as one in effect. How we handle the law →