50 Years Ago | A ‘sense of togetherness’

The entire Window Rock community has joined together to help out a young Navajo battling a mystery disease.

His name is Troy Erwin, son of W. H. and Caroline Erwin. He would spend part of February in New York, where some of the nation’s top neurological doctors were trying to figure out why the 18-month-old has had neurological problems since his birth.

He has spent much of his life as a patient at the Albert Einstein Medical Center, where he has been given numerous tests to find out what was causing his illness.

So far, all of the tests have been negative, but doctors have not given up hope that they will figure out his problem and how to deal with it.

His treatment, which is fast approaching $50,000, is being paid for by the Indian Health Service, but the family has been asking for help to defray the cost of his mother and brother to stay in New York to watch over Troy while his father continues working as a social studies teacher at Window Rock High.

His plight has struck the hearts of many people living in Window Rock and Fort Defiance, who have started what they call “Project Troy” to help raise funds to help out the family. The project was originally started by the Window Rock High Boosters Club, and the sophomore class at the high school accepted the challenge to raise as much money as possible.

The Navajo Times and local radio stations then got involved and asked for donations, and no amount was too small. The Great Western Bank in Window Rock agreed to accept donations to Project Troy and soon found people coming in to donate to the project.

Many of the donations were between $2 and $10, but more than 300 people came on during the first week and donated a total of $1,058.31.

The booster club held bake sales outside the bank and the Fort Defiance IHS Hospital, raising another $255. The sophomore class need its bake sale and raised another $285.77.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Window Rock, the Dineh Little Theater Group, the Navajo Youth Capital Baseball League, and the Window Rock-Fort Defiance Lion’s Club each donated $100.

“There is a sense of togetherness in the community that perhaps was not there before,” said the Navajo Times.

A gathering place

Navajo families shopping in Flagstaff will have a new place to meet with the opening of the Flagstaff Indian Center on West Birch.

For the past few years, the city was criticized for treating Indians who came there to shop. While this criticism was nowhere near what Gallup and Farmington were receiving, it triggered a movement to open an Indian center that would serve Navajo and Hopi shoppers on weekends.

Funding for the project came from Native Americans for Community Action, and volunteers would run it. The center will only be open on Fridays and Saturdays, and it will not provide overnight housing.

The center will offer recreational facilities and a place where Indian families can take a break during their visit to Flagstaff. It will also serve as a gathering place for Indian families.
Plans are to expand when the money becomes available to offer food, childcare, and job placement services.

Ongoing war

This week’s headline in the Navajo Times was a lot more incendiary than the actual story.

“Hopis on warpath over boundary” would seem to be an update on the latest confrontation between Hopis and Navajo ranchers over the Hopi livestock impoundment program, which Navajo officials were worried could result in violent confrontations between the two groups.

But the article wasn’t about that. Instead, a short article noted that the Colorado River Indian Tribal Council had passed a resolution the week before supporting the Hopis in their fight with the Navajos in the century-old land dispute.

This was part of a Hopi strategy to get as much support as they could from outside Indian groups to show Congress members that they had overwhelming support for their side.

They didn’t need it because they had the total support of U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, who decided that the Hopis had full rights to half the land, and he wouldn’t listen to anything from Navajo leaders to soften his position.

Goldwater’s support was a significant factor in molding opinion within the Senate. As the senior senator from Arizona, members of Congress, who knew little about the dispute and showed no willingness to change it, would instead rely on the wisdom of Goldwater in dealing with land dispute issues.

This is why the Navajos were trying to develop short videos of about 10 minutes in length to educate members of Congress on the Navajo side of the land dispute.

Using minor celebrities, Navajo officials were hoping to get enough members of Congress to view the video.

And while the tribe would spend a lot of money on the campaign, there was no indication that it changed the minds of any member of Congress.

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