‘I wanted a home’
Diné woman’s struggle to return home highlights concerns ahead of Navajo presidential election
WINDOW ROCK
Joanne Beeks spent two years trying to move home.
From 2019 to 2021, the 68-year-old relocatee attended chapter meetings in Sanders, Arizona, and asked about homesite leases. Each year, she said, she was told the chapter wasn’t taking new applications or would take only 10.
She moved into her late sister’s hogan instead. There was no running water, so she hauled containers from her niece’s house next door. The hogan had one electrical outlet.
Then she gave up and left for her daughter’s home in Norfolk, Virginia, about 2,000 miles from the land her family was forced off in the 1970s.
“Because I wanted a home,” Beeks said, explaining why she tried to return. “I wanted to make it my own. I wanted a garden. I wanted a bathroom.”
To read the full article, please see the Oct. 15, 2026, edition of the Navajo Times.
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