Word: navajos
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Hermila Sanchez wanted a house that she could find in the dark. Muted pastels were the predominant colors in her hometown of South Gate, 10 miles south of Los Angeles, where the dusty heat further blanches the stucco residences to uniformity. But Home Depot's Navajo White and Swiss Coffee were not for Sanchez. And so, for her very first home, the accountant chose blue. Not a dainty cornflower or staid navy but the kind of blue that makes your eyes sting on a bright...
Today the Navajo Nation is but one of many tribes in which some members believe they can exploit their natural resources with minimal risk while others don't want to take any chances. In Alaska spruce forests that served as traditional hunting grounds have been clear-cut by Tlingit loggers. Florida's Miccosukee Indians are attempting to build housing within Everglades National Park, while Utah's Goshute are actively seeking a nuclear-waste dump. And last year Arizona's White Mountain Apaches, protecting their logging and cattle interests, declared that federal agents would be forbidden to enforce the Endangered Species...
...Crownpoint the uranium issue has sharply divided the Navajo. At the tribe's chapter house (where the local governing body sits), a recent motion to oppose the mine sparked such furious debate that the issue was permanently tabled. "Anyone who wants to get re-elected can't touch this," says Rosemary Silversmith, the chapter-house treasurer...
...issue has split not only the tribe but also individual families. For example, Capitan, the grass-roots opposition leader, is the nephew of Arviso, the employee of Hydro Resources. And there is a generational clash as well: some younger Navajo accuse the landowners, many of them tribal elders, of selling out. "The older people always say human life is more important than material things," says LaJuanna Daye, a health-care worker, "but here they have the chance to prove it, and all we see is greed...
With the land in question a checkerboard ownership of Navajo, other private landholders and the U.S. government, the ultimate fate of the mine may depend on who wins jurisdiction in court. Regardless, the Navajo syllables To eii be iina at e (Water is life) have become fighting words in Crownpoint...