Culture

Kyle Jim normally grows corn, beans, squash, and other rooted vegetables at his three-acre farm in Shiprock along the San Juan River.

It’s hard to imagine a more scrutinized, more written-about people than the Diné.

The Navajo Cultural Arts Program has grown in size and reputation since its inception in 2015. So much so, established and award-winning rug weavers like Zefren-M, whose given name is Ephraim Anderson, and Sue Begay, became students of the program.

Author and filmmaker Brian Younghas invented a new genre, the “contemporary Navajo hero story,” to describe his book. He had to invent it, because when he was growing up, he looked for it and it wasn’t there.