Tongue-tied

Several laborers from the Farmington area told the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission last week they've been asked not to speak Diné bizaad on the job.

An electrical technician for Arizona Public Service and four men who work for San Juan County Park and Facility Maintenance all said their supervisors had asked them not to speak Navajo at the workplace because it makes non-Navajo co-workers feel left out of the conversation.

But the men, who asked not to be identified in the newspaper for fear of retaliation, said the request feels like a violation of their rights and evokes the days when BIA boarding school students had their mouths washed out with soap for speaking their Native tongues.

"When I was told not to speak my language, I felt sad, then angry," said one of the San Juan County employees. "My mind has been wandering all over the place."

The commission met Thursday, April 16, in Nenahnezad, N.M., and Friday, April 17, in Farmington to take discrimination complaints from the public.

The language complaint drew strong support from the commission.

"It's absolutely shameful, ludicrous and absurd to be told, in this day and age, that you can't speak your native language," said Commissioner Steve Darden.

Darden, a former district judge in Flagstaff, told the men that employees at a drive-in in Page, Ariz., had successfully sued their employer over a similar situation two years ago, and urged them to take legal action if necessary.

Commissioner Irving Gleason said the language issue has always been a sore spot with him, since he grew up speaking Navajo and struggled to express himself in English when he went to college.

"When we give up our language, we give up our Navajo thought process," he said. "I attended college in a foreign language."

To add insult to injury, he said, students at his university could study Navajo - the indigenous language of the area - for "foreign language" credits.

Another man attending the hearing said it had always bothered him that the Navajo Nation's elected officials take their oaths of office in English.

Gleason agreed, calling the oath "part of the colonization process."

"Our government was given to us by the BIA," he said. "In those days, they were pledging allegiance as much to the U.S. government as to the Navajo Nation."

San Juan County spokesperson Beth Utley was out of the office Monday and Tuesday and did not return a phone call by press time.

APS: Use common language

APS's response to the allegations came from a surprising source: former Navajo Nation vice president Marshall Plummer. Plummer is now human resources director at the Four Corners Power Plant.

In a telephone interview, Plummer said the directive in question actually instructed employees on a crew to speak to each other in their "common language."

"For an all-Navajo crew, that could be Navajo," he said. "If there's even one non-Navajo-speaking person in the group, that would be English."

He added that nobody is going to be written up for making non-work-related small talk over lunch in Diné bizaad.

"The primary concern here is safety," he said. "If people are talking about conditions at the plant, and somebody misses something, it could lead to an incident."

As a Diné, "I understand very clearly the importance of our language," Plummer said. But "there should be some courtesy" extended to people who don't understand it.

Also coming before the commission was Lawrence Bekise, who said he was transferred from full-time to on-call by his employer, Phelco Fence Construction of Aztec, N.M., after he confronted his boss over a racial remark he had overheard on the company's two-way radio.

Bekise said another employee had called Phelco owner Ernie Phelps on the radio to ask him where to park a construction trailer. According to Bekise, Phelps replied, "Somewhere where the Indians won't find it. You know how they are."

Bekise said he got on the radio and protested, "Hey! Ease up on that!" after which the radio went quiet. Determined to pursue the matter, Bekise said he confronted Phelps about the remark the next morning.

According to Bekise, Phelps apologized for the remark, but a week later Bekise was inexplicably moved from a full-time to an on-call position.

In a phone call to Phelco, Phelps denied making the racist statement.

"That's a damn lie," he said.

Phelps said he put Bekise on call because he repeatedly neglected to follow the company's safety procedures.

Other complaints presented to the commission concerned rough handling by the Farmington police, although one Navajo man said he had had a bad experience at the hands of a Navajo Nation police officer.

Several people testified that when Farmington police pull over a Native person, the first question they ask is, "Have you been drinking?"

An 18-year-old woman told the commission she was harshly interrogated by police because she matched the description of someone who was seen burglarizing houses.

Sgt. Phil Goodwin of the Farmington Police Department's Internal Affairs Division said in a telephone interview the department has a policy against racial profiling.

"Most of the time, we don't even know who we're pulling over," he said. "It's dark, or the car has tinted windows, or the vehicle is going too fast for us to get a good look at the driver."

He said officers are not trained to routinely ask "Have you had anything to drink?" but "if the car is swerving all over the road or hitting a curb, that might be one of the questions an officer would ask, yes. It doesn't matter what color you are."

Goodwin encouraged anyone who feels he or she has been mistreated by Farmington police to contact his division.

"Our stops are recorded and videotaped, and if someone feels they have been unfairly treated we will investigate," he said.

Also appearing at the meeting was an Anglo Farmington resident and businesswoman, Diane Ayers. Ayers said she had started a citizens' initiative to deal with the problem of homeless alcoholics in the city.

Ayers said she decided to mobilize the business community to take action after a police officer friend told her several street inebriates die in Farmington each year either as a result of exposure or violence.

"It isn't a racial issue for me," she said. "I don't want to live in a city where people die alone and cold."

Ayers said she had circulated a petition and brought a multi-pronged approach to the Farmington City Council, including establishing a treatment center in Farmington and longer jail stays for public intoxication so the offender could be matched with a mentor in recovery.

One thing the initiative has already accomplished is to ban the sale of fortified beer and wine in the city.

The commission urged Ayers to work with the Navajo Nation Department of Behavioral Health Services and the street people themselves when suggesting policy.

"It will not work if only one horse is pulling the wagon," said Commissioner Clarence Chee.

Darden and Gleason both objected to longer jail stays for offenders.

"Incarcerating alcoholics for having an illness sort of befuddles me," Gleason said.

Ayers explained that the usual 72-hour lockup is not enough time for an offender to "dry out" and seek treatment.

"Studies show that the longer you can hang on to people, the better the chances of getting them into some kind of treatment," she said, adding that she would also like to explore ways of "giving people options" so they would not feel hopeless and resort to alcohol.

"I hope this isn't just an effort of the business committee to clear the streets of inebriates," Darden said after Ayers had left.

People interested in the issue can e-mail Ayers at [email protected].