Family carries on battle for land, water
Navajo Times | Paul Natonabah Two young ladies with their child stand among protest signs outside the Diné Education Center Tuesday in Window Rock.
Navajo Times | Paul Natonabah Two young ladies with their child stand among protest signs outside the Diné Education Center Tuesday in Window Rock.
WINDOW ROCK
Nadine Narindrankura has been an activist since she was 10.
“Even though I was 10 years old, I knew at that age this was wrong and just being scared of what the future will look like,” said Narindrankura, one of the lead organizers from Tó Nizhóní Ání (“Sacred Water Speaks”).
She had called for an emergency rally Monday against the lease renewal for the Navajo Generating Station that was being debated by the Navajo Nation Council. Narindrankura, 28, said the organization, comprised mostly of her relatives, came to show opposition to the lease renewal because of the way coal mining to fuel the power plant has affected their land. Narindrankura and her family have sheep that graze the land and this year they planted around 10 acres of crops in their community of Black Mesa, Arizona.
Narindrankura is Chi?shi? Dine’e? (Chiracahua Apache) born for B??h bitoodnii (Deer Springs clan). She is originally from Big Mountain, Arizona. “Me, as a young person, wanting to stay on the land that I was raised on, living the way that I live, with the planting and the ceremonies, there is no way that it is compatible with the way that our government is choosing to make its money,” Narindrankura said.
To read the full article, pick up your copy of the Navajo Times at your nearest newsstand Thursday mornings!
Are you a digital subscriber? Read the most recent three weeks of stories by logging in to your online account.
Highway 264,
I-40, WB @ Winslow