We sat at her desk mulling over the words in the Navajo Times, a weekly publication of the Navajo Nation. The article detailed the recent tension in the long-standing racial strife between Anglo-Mormon Kirtland and Kirtland’s Navajo population. The recent tension has unfolded in regards to the place of Navajo cultural curriculum in schools, and whether or not it’s unfair to the Anglo student population. My friend, whose daughter is one of the Navajo students in the district and grateful for the tribe’s efforts to preserve the culture of their people, said in reflecting on the scope of Anglo-Native American relations in this country, “They can’t wish us away.” Immediately, I was grateful for these words and their simple, yet absolute truth. We can’t wish one another away. Instead of feeling threatened by one another, we should recognize our differences as the presence of beauty and start seeing each other for exactly who we are, what worth that holds and how we inevitably need each other.
These words also struck a deeper chord, as I reflected on how it feels to be a member of a marginalized group of people. Through the hospitality of my friends on the Rez, I was able to, as an Anglo-outsider who had never stepped foot on a reservation before, get near enough to get a taste of what life is like today for Native America. My time on the Rez also held my own reckoning with my sexuality. As I lived among a marginalized group of people, who were generous enough to let someone from the dominant culture of this country become family, I also came to realize my identity as a gay person, an identity that also made me a member of a marginalized group across many cultures.
I was only out to two of my Navajo friends on the Rez- the wise woman behind the words discussed above included. It’s not that there’s not homosexuality on theRez, of course there is, but more because the influence of Christianity on the Rez has created a more conservative climate towards the issue. I sensed this because it was not unfamiliar to my experiences in some rural churches in North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. I was also told to be wary of letting the news get out. It wouldn’t have been acceptable to the church community there or other leaders related to the ministry that the Anglo-woman missionary serving among them is gay. So my journey as a gay person on the Rez was more of an introspective one. However, I received many gifts from the Navajo worldview in sharing my sexual identity with two of my friends and had the reality of what it is to glean strength and understanding from the stories of others reinforced.
“You know, among some tribes you are revered as two-spirited.”
My friends shared with me that their Navajo medicine men have known for ages that each person holds both that which is masculine and feminine within them all at once and yet, in varying degrees, how it is thus natural that there would be varying sexual inclinations in regards to people of the same sex. It is recognized among many Native tribes that people who are gay hold more of a balance of the two gender constructions of masculinity and femininity within them. “This is part of who you are and makes you whole.” With these words, the Navajo affirmation of the worth of each being is clear, as well as the great importance of balance and wholeness within their worldview. I felt anything but wished away in their response to who I am; that to deny a part of me is to deny myself wholeness and balance and thus the means by which to walk in beauty in this life. We should remind each other of this more often – that each one of us in just being adds beauty and that we should set ourselves to being attentive to this, especially when we find ourselves wishing a group of people away.
