Before an expanse of grassland and pueblo ruins in northern Arizona was declared a national monument, it was home to hundreds of Navajos whose ancestors returned to settle the area after a forced march to an eastern New Mexico internment camp.
Slowly, the Navajo families left Wupatki National Monument too, either voluntarily or under pressure by the National Park Service, which sought to eliminate private use of the public land it managed. Only one Navajo woman remains.
When 89-year-old Stella Peshlakai Smith dies, her residency permit dies with her, ending forever the Navajo presence at Wupatki. The Peshlakais have vowed to fight for the land where their sheep once grazed freely. Support for the family is mounting among state and tribal officials, but it’s up to Congress to decide whether they can stay.
“This family has had a homestead there for generations and generations, years, and we want that to be made right,” Navajo Nation lawmaker Walter Phelps said. One 1970 letter on display is from the Park Service to a former U.S. senator from Arizona. It says: “At no time have the Navajos who grazed within the monument had any title in the land. ... In the absence of appropriate legislation, these lands could not be surrendered to the Peshlakai family. We believe such legislation would not be in the public interest.”
It’s the same position that monument Superintendent Kayci Cook Collins takes today...
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Another example of what a National Monument designation can do to local people and their culture.
1 comment:
I am embarrassed to be a Park Service brat. This makes me sick. I went to jr, sr high and college in this area. The Navajo are part of my psyche, my friends. What can I do to help? The Dept. of Interior is controlled by career bureaucrats who are looking to their secure retirements.
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