Trying To Walk In Beauty

As a Diné asdzaan (woman), a Native American woman, I had to learn how to walk between two worlds, that of my Diné culture and that of the western world. Often times, my worlds intertwine seamlessly, other times, weaving the assimilated cloth effortlessly is not so easy. You see, my two worlds at a certain point in time tried to annihilate the other. My two worlds at times don’t understand one another. Doing one thing in the western culture is frowned upon and is sometimes forbidden in my Diné culture. My Diné language was at one time, forbidden to be spoken by my ancestors. My ancestors were driven off our homeland at gunpoint and encamped far from home for four long years. Children were taken, kidnapped from their families and sent off to boarding schools for the purpose of educating and assimilating and the “Kill the Indian, Save the Man,” mentality to erase the Indian in us, not particularly in this order, but there they are. Not to mention the fact that my two worlds contradicts one another at almost every turn on mostly every particular topic. I later figured out that if I wanted to be successful, I had to travel the path of the western way with a western mindset. For example, to be rich in my Diné culture means to have many children and in the western world, to be rich means to have lots of money. However, this didn’t keep me from retreating back into my Diné culture and tradition when things get a little bit hard on that side. For that, I will always be grateful and to be sure to keep my corn pollen bag, my prayers and songs and my (gish) medicine bag close by.