Humble beginnings lead to big dream

WINDOW ROCK

Buu Nygren says he can relate.

He was raised in a single-parent household, didn’t have running water and electricity, and lived six miles from the nearest paved road in a 10-foot travel trailer.

And when they were running low on fuel, he said his late mother, Charlotte Slim Toney, would tell him to take some of the jewelry she made, or a DVD, and go into one of the busy Farmington restaurants to sell.

It wasn’t a matter of earning extra income. It was a matter of getting some gas.

The experience of seeing 10 bucks as a hundred bucks, the experience of hearing families saying “no” to him as he went table to table trying to make a few bucks, humbled him, he said.

Nygren stood at the podium with his wife, Arizona State Rep. Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren, in front of about 50 people – mostly over 50 – at his announcement of candidacy for president.

He said he understood the struggles Diné are dealing with at home.

He recalled when he was afraid of school because reading was hard for him and how he flunked twice before graduating from Red Mesa High in 2006 as class valedictorian.

He also remembered as a kid the feeling of rejection as families in restaurants spoke or nodded at him when he asked if they were interested in buying jewelry.

“And you’re going to get a lot of noes – that’s the nature of that,” he said. “You’re going to get a lot of noes, and I think that really made me who I am today.”

On the podium

He told supporters he lost his mother in December, later revealing she died of alcohol-related causes.

“Recently, (I lost) my mom to alcoholism, which is a really tough situation,” he said. “A lot of families across Navajo have.

“Every year, Navajo people are taken because of alcohol,” he said. “And that’s one thing I’m really passionate about, (and) that’s one I’m going to take on to try to help out.”

On Monday at Veterans Memorial Park, Nygren, 35, from Red Mesa, Arizona, announced his run for Navajo Nation president.

Nygren is Táchii’nii, born for Vietnamese. His maternal grandfather is Tódích’íi’nii, and his paternal grandfather is Vietnamese.

He said as president, he would aim to attract young and professional Navajos to work in his administration.

He said one of the tribe’s problems is reenergizing the economy, which he can fix by opening the Navajo Nation for business.

“My ultimate goal is to attract Navajos home to start businesses here where they can employ themselves and other Navajos,” he said on Monday.

Another passion Nygren spoke about was revitalizing the language, which he said he unabashedly asks Navajo elders to help him keep the Diné culture and language alive.

Referencing the 2021 census, Nygren noted there are 48,000 Navajo youth, 16 years of age and younger.

“I was always told to ask your grandfathers and grandmothers for help,” Nygren said. “When you ask, you make work easier. That’s how I plan to work with my people.

“I don’t have all the answers,” he said. “But I’ll ask through k’é. I’ll ask my grandfathers, my grandmothers, ‘Help me, and I’ll help you in return. How can we work together?’

“I’ll be out there asking you for help,” he said.

Nygren speaks in Diné and in English, he said, because of a promise he made to his late mother and grandmother.

Language dynamics

“When I was a young kid, I’d always hear from my relatives, my grandma, my mom: ‘If you have an ambitious goal to be a leader of the Navajo Nation, make sure you honor us, you honor the elders, some of us have never gone to school, some of us don’t speak any English,”’ Nygren explained.

“And then the reason why I spoke English today,” he said, “there is a lot of our young people who don’t speak Navajo, but they’re Navajo, they’re Diné, so this is a way for me to communicate to them.”

Former President Joe Shirley Jr., who called Nygren his grandson by clan, said he thought his former vice-presidential candidate did well in his hourlong announcement speech.

“I think Buu is very excited,” Shirley said. “There’s a lot of excitement in it and good experience, good memories, and certainly there’s a lot of hard work attached to it.

“It takes a lot of money, resources, people,” Shirley said. “I hope the people come around as he goes out amongst the people on the land. It takes a lot of people.”

Shirley recalled his feelings when he first ran for office, during which the Navajo Times asked him to share his thoughts.

“I remember back in the day when I first announced, I was very excited,” he said. “I was young, I was very excited and really looking forward to it. Of course, I had a lot of encouragement from some of my elders, like my dad, Dr. Guy Gorman Sr.”

The former president added Nygren would have to use his Navajo fluency to connect with not just elders but with constituents who did not have command of the English language.

“To be related to the people living way out there behind the mountains, on top of the mountains – a lot of our people are third-grade educated, eighth-grade educated, high school,” Shirley said. “Those are the people that he would need to relate to with his Navajo. He does good – he understands it and speaks it very well.”

Nygren concluded by saying history was asking the Diné to remake themselves once again.
“And we are there,” Nygren said. “Tʼą́ą́ʼ ndeestʼį́į́ʼo naat’áanii danilį́née baa nitsídeikeeso hádą́ą́shį́į́ yaa nitsídadeezkééz. ‘Shǫǫh heii, doo áájio diikaidah giiátʼé,’ dadaniizį́į́ʼ. ‘Kojóo dah dadidiikah, héí,’ daanį́į́ łeh.

“Nihí akótʼáo dadidiikah nihxaaontséskees shikáʼoojééʼgo Diné kéédahatʼínígíí bikáʼadiijah,” he said. “ʼÁáshxǫǫhdéii shikáʼadoojah dóó August 2nd góoneʼé, Tuesday primaries shá adadiyoohnił, éí bee dooleeł.”

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