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Email: ksh2140@columbia.edu

My thesis project is a narrative analysis focusing on the post-graduation journey of three Diné college graduates. Studying these post-graduation journeys is important because it demonstrates that ‘returning to the rez’ with the expectation to ‘give back’ as a Diné college graduate is complicated, it's not a direct path, it takes time, and it requires a maintenance of relations to land, people, and nationhood. In my own community, I have been told to leave the rez, get a college degree, but COME BACK. I was interested in how other Diné scholars felt about this expectation and designed a research method to listen to Diné college graduates in whether or not their post-graduation journey aligned with this sentiment of ‘returning to the rez’ to ‘give back’.

By focusing on the narratives of three Diné college graduates, this study examines how Diné scholars (re)create notions of home as they are away; the individual (but also collective) reckoning with the so-called expectation to “return to the rez” and “give back” to the community; and articulating the Navajo college experience through the lens of hózhó and chaos. I study the post-graduation journeys of Diné college graduates to produce knowledge in relation with each of these scholars. From my conversations, the participants reveal that there are multiple registers of how Diné college graduates can “give back” to their community whether their post-graduation journeys place them within or beyond the Four Sacred Mountains. The expectation to “return to the rez” can be a useful pathway to guide Navajo scholars in their pursuit of a college education, but it should not be understood as a strict and defined pathway. This is key to articulate the Native and Indigenous experience in the 21st century. From this study, it seems that there needs to be more knowledge gathering to expand the notion of ‘giving back’ and ‘standing with’ one’s community that is applicable to various Native communities, to various backgrounds, to various education pathways, and to various career industries.

The first theme “home” is based on the notion that Diné college graduates learn to find ways to create a sense of community and belonging at college, while also maintaining connections with their idea of “home”. Jourdan explained that one’s sense of home can be impacted by the Navajo practice of burying the umbilical cord and placenta at a significant place for the family - tethering that person to a specific location within the Four Sacred Mountains. Asa’s story articulates that some Navajo families’ connection to home is disrupted by land struggles, like with the coal mine - displacing some families into other areas of the reservation. In this way, the individual may find other ways to craft a sense of home that can’t necessarily rely on a physical space being “home”. Jourdan and Charlie both articulated the point that within the idea of home is the acknowledgement and honoring of land. In Jourdan’s interview, she retells a recent story where she learns that Native peoples should remember that what is known as North America has always been and always will be Indigenous territory. In Charlie’s interview, they mention that acknowledging land expands one’s sense of home by relating to the sky, the clouds, the animals, the trees, the dirt, and other elements of life on earth. Jourdan and Charlie’s response reveal that wherever Diné go in North America they are on traditional Indigenous territory and it is their responsibility to develop a relationship with the land. These Diné college graduates explain a few ways in which young Diné scholars can make sense of their life experiences whether it is within or beyond the Four Sacred Mountains.

The second theme “return to the rez” is based on my reflections on the sentiment I heard growing up. It doesn’t matter who was saying it, but folks were communicating “to leave the rez, go get a college degree, but COME BACK.” The second set of questions aimed to unravel some of the sentiment’s assumptions by producing knowledge in relation with Jourdan, Asa, and Charlie. The interviews centered the Diné college graduates’ responses - how they learned and internalized the sentiment, but more importantly how their post-graduation journey aligns or doesn’t quite align with the expectation to “return to the rez” and “give back”. The questions asked Jourdan, Asa, and Charlie to share responses related to some of their life experiences, their decisions, and how they learned to live with those decisions. My questions were created out of my own curiosity and my own eagerness to gain advice about my next steps post-graduation from Columbia University. All three participants confirmed that they recall hearing that sentiment growing up. I followed up with the question asking what the sentiment meant to them. Asa took a second to respond but he explained how he didn’t see how his passions fit within the sentiment, as if the sentiment was crafted in a way that didn’t include theater artists like him; rather the sentiment functions to encourage Diné scholars to pursue industries like engineering, law, medicine, and education. Asa points out that his work requires him to work away from the rez in order to make a living and enjoy the work that he does. For Asa’s situation, it makes more sense for him to create a life in NYC than on the rez. For Jourdan’s story, it’s revealed that she is the only one of my participants to return to the rez.. After undergrad, she worked near home in Farmington, NM. After her Master’s program, she moved back home to work at her former high school as a teacher. There is something to be said about how Jourdan made two return journeys but yet still talks about the lack of opportunities available to Diné college graduates, and also mentions that she has a few friends who were viewed as ‘overqualified’ for Navajo Nation jobs. I think that the issue of overqualified applicants and not enough job opportunities on the rez leads to other studies to focus on the economic aspect of Diné college graduates’ post-graduation journey. It’s important to conduct another study focusing on job availability and wages on the Navajo Nation and determine how that then affects the possibility of Diné college graduates returning to the rez. Charlie’s perspective occupied the space of critiquing the expectation to return to the rez, especially how Navajo Nation officials and leaders continue to promote that journey for young Diné scholars. It seems that Charlie would argue it’s not that they don’t want Diné scholars to not attend college, but rather we all should be developing a critical consciousness that first centers Diné ways of being, knowing, and doing, as well as seek to disrupt western institutions and logics. Diné scholars have the right to higher education, but there are multiple institutions and people that must be held accountable to protect and care for all students’ minds and bodies. Higher education institutions need to reckon with how their policies are inclusive of their Native student community. However, our own communities within Dinébikéyah and across North America need to reflect greater on how they are maintaining relationships with the Diné and Indigenous scholars and how they are welcoming them back into the community. Jourdan mentioned how sometimes our own people are the worst in shaming our own. There should be greater awareness of not shaming Diné scholars for learning to code switch in different spaces.

From my conversations with the three Diné college graduates, I gathered that there are multiple registers of returning to the rez and giving back to the community. Asa’s story seems to function similar to what Dr. Kim Tallbear explains as the work standing with the community. It is an approach that articulates how sometimes Native scholars are pursuing work or research that doesn’t necessarily give back to the community, but the individual still stands with their community in other capacities. Jourdan’s story demonstrates that one can return to the rez but can also decide to leave the rez again for a career opportunity - and that is ok! Sometimes the rez can’t provide a specific professional development opportunity so it’s fine to leave once again for a greater experience. In Charlie’s interview, they provide a set of questions that Diné scholars should be posing to themselves like whether or not their interests operate for the benefit and the health of the people, the nation, or the land. As they say, it is disrespectful to go to college, become educated and then weaponize the college degree to your own people. Delving into the process of self-interrogation is wrestling with that sense of chaos (i.e., the sense of uncomfortableness and unfamiliarity) and restoring balance so that one continually reflects on their intentions and whether they are aligned with ideas of Native excellence, tribal nation building and capacity building for native peoples.

The third theme “hozho + chaos” required each participant to acknowledge their own conception of hózhó and chaos in the Navajo way of life and determine if their personal understandings applied to their life experiences since graduating from college. It is based in traditional Navajo knowledge and thought in viewing the territory among the Four Sacred Mountains as the state for hózhó and assuming that Diné life beyond is in a not in hózhó - as I argue, it’s in a state of chaos. It was ambitious to ask each person to reflect in this way as it appeared that I referred to each of their post-graduation journeys as chaotic. Howeve