After 16 years of delays, the fight for Sonny Jim becomes a battle against the system
Special to the Times | Donovan Quintero
Sonlatsa “Sunshine” Jim holds a portrait of her late father, Sonny Jim, at the Dean C. Jackson Memorial Arena at the Navajo Nation Fairgrounds on Oct. 28. Sixteen years after his death, she continues to seek justice while honoring his legacy as a Modoc cowboy and beloved figure in the Navajo rodeo community.
WINDOW ROCK
When he made his entrance into an arena, rodeo powerhouse Sonny Jim – Harlem Globetrotters road warrior and backup strummer for Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings – blazed out as a fiery, cigar-chewing competitor.
His daughter, Sonlatsa “Sunshine” Jim, remembers the crowd coming to life when the announcer’s booming voice called his name.
“Everyone knew him,” she said. “They’d say, ‘Sonny Jim!’ and the crowd would just scream for him. He was known all around – not just here, but across Indian Country.”
Sixteen years after his brutal murder in Grants, New Mexico, Sunshine is still fighting for justice. But her battle has grown beyond her father’s case. It has become a movement, a call for Indigenous victim advocates in state courts, stronger tribal support for families of mixed heritage and a reckoning with what she calls “a system that continues to fail Native people.”
To read the full article, please see the Oct. 30, 2025, edition of the Navajo Times.
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Highway 264,
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