Herb Yazzie, chief justice of the Navajo Nation Supreme Court, spoke at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law last Thursday. His lecture was called “What Makes a Nation?” and I assumed it would be a discussion of tribal sovereignty.
So I was somewhat surprised when he began by quoting President Barack Obama. It quickly became clear that he was speaking not only as a Navajo, but also as an American.
Listening to the State of the Union address last week, Yazzie was struck by the president’s description of our country as an “American family.” He liked the metaphor. But as a Native American, Yazzie couldn’t help wondering how he fit into that family.
His explanation would be familiar to many humanities majors. He spoke of cowboys and Indians — of conquest and war endorsed by law. He cited U.S. Supreme Court cases like Johnson v. M’Intosh, which delegitimized native property rights and allowed European-Americans to buy and sell Indian lands as though unoccupied. To first year law students around the nation, M’Intosh is a historical oddity, the embarrassing remnant of a less enlightened time. But to Yazzie, it’s the enduring foundation of injustice he still feels today.
What non-natives call “history,” Yazzie knows as “historical trauma.” I can’t imagine how to better explain the two perspectives.
History is that thing we did before; it happened in the past, and we left it there. But trauma stays with us. Like a scar, it reminds us of our suffering and becomes part of who we are.
So for Yazzie, those history book tragedies hold great significance. And reminders abound.
Like so many Native Americans, Yazzie served in the U.S. military. He still remembers how he looked in the Army’s blue dress uniform. That uniform, of course, is a descendant of the old U.S. Cavalry uniform, in which American soldiers waged brutal wars on natives of the western territories.
As a judge, he wears a black robe that means, in Navajo culture, precisely nothing. Of course, as clothing, the robe may be a small annoyance. But as a symbol, it reminds him that the system he serves is not a system of his people.
From the bench, Yazzie sees the way people behave within systems that don’t belong to them. Emphasizing the healing, cooperative nature of traditional Navajo peacemaking sessions, he explained how uncomfortably foreign their new westernized judicial system can feel.
Native youth, sensing profound tension between the value systems of their grandparents and those of their contemporaries, question both.
Our recent misadventures in global democracy building show how little Americans have learned from much older, North American experiments. Ironically, self-determination occupies a sacred role in our own narrative.
American society is very much a work in progress. There are great people, even great peoples, that still don’t feel as a part of our family.
Among so many thoughtful points, Yazzie’s speech was a reminder that our process is ongoing. Great social conflicts don’t go away just because one side stops thinking about them.
Reach John at john.a.gaylord@asu.edu
