Journal of American Indian EducationVolume 31 Number 2
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MAINTAINING CULTURAL IDENTITY: NAVAJO AND UTE SCHOOL LEAVERS (see Note 1) Donna Dehyle
As I entered the trading post in a small border reservation community I passed two Navajo youth leaning against the wall, one leg propped behind them for support. They wore black tee-shirts, one declaring “Indian Pride on the Rise,” the other showing a heavy metal rock group “Twisted Sister.” Both wore high topped basketball shoes and hair free flowing to their shoulders. One spoke to me. “Hey, are you the lady who is talking to dropouts? You should talk to me. I'm a professional dropout.” I did. And to many others. Their stories spoke of racial discrimination and rejection by teachers. “The way I see it seems like the whites don't want to get involved with the Indians. They think we're bad. We drink. Our families drink. Dirty. Ugly. And the teachers don't want to help us. They say, 'Oh, no, there is Another Indian asking a question' because they don't understand. So we stopped asking questions.” Their stories spoke of the importance and power of families and the Navajo culture. “I go crazy worrying about my parents. They need me so us Navajo stick together. I feel kinda proud to be a Navajo.” And their stories spoke of academic and social marginalization in their classes and schools. “It was just like they wanted to put us aside, us Indians. They didn't tell us nothing about careers or things to do after high school. They didn't encourage us to go to college. They just took care of the White students. They just wanted to get rid of the Indians.” This article is about these Navajo and Ute youth who leave high school. In mainstream research the phenomenon of “dropping out” is commonly defined as an issue of individual failure (see Note 2). Youth “fail,” either academically or socially, to make it through school. The problem exists not because of deficiencies in the schools but rather because of deficiencies in individuals and families. Youth who leave school are described as deviant, dysfunctional, or deficient because of individual, family, or community characteristics. Solutions reside on remediating or changing youth and families to better “fit in.” After all, most youth do succeed in school, suggesting evidence of the school as an effective institution. This body of research ignores the barriers institutions themselves create for youth. Another line of research on dropouts has turned a critical eye towards the role the school and structural barriers play in creating the problem (see Note 3). The research reported in this article follows this line of inquiry. A critical examination of the “place” of Navajo and Ute youth in their school and community reveals other reasons than just individual failure for “dropping out.” Structural factors restricting opportunities, in effect, “fail” youth. The decision to leave school can then be seen, in part, as a rational response to irrelevant schooling, racism, restricted political, social and economic opportunities, and the desire to maintain a culturally distinct identity. There are many similarities between Indian and other kinds of dropouts. In most cases, the reasons for leaving school are alike. For example, nearly all dropouts say school is boring, teachers don't care, and school will not help them with what they want to do in life (LeCompte, 1987). Many come from substance abusing families. There are, however, differences between other dropouts and these Navajo and Ute school leavers that only become clear when examining the cultural context surrounding these youth. Cultural and structural factors that might be easy to overlook if only examining “student characteristics” are important in understanding why many Navajo and Ute youth leave school. Specific to this cultural framework are 1) racial and economic relations in the community and school, 2) home child-rearing patterns of non-interference and early adulthood and, 3) cultural integrity and resistance.
These results were produced from four data sets: 1) a master data base from school records; 2) ethnographic field notes and collected documents; 3) interviews with a convenience sample of school leavers, and; 4) a questionnaire. In trying to determine an accurate picture of the attrition rates in this district, a data base was established to track all of the Navajo and Ute students by name who had attended Border High School (BHS) and Navajo High School (NHS) from 1980-81 to the 1988-89 school year. This master list contained attendance data, grade point averages, standardized test scores, dropout and graduation rates, community locations, current employment situations, post high school training, and type of diploma received for 1,489 youth. This list has been verified by official district records, local Navajo and Ute community members, school officials, and the youth themselves. The graduation and dropout rate in this community was determined by following “cohorts” of youth throughout their school careers. A total of 629 students forming six different cohorts, from the class of 1984 to the class of 1989, from each of the two high schools are represented with complete four year high school records. Students who took either additional years and/or completed alternative high school degrees are included in the total graduation figures. The questionnaire was developed by Coladarci (1983) and his project staff for a study of Indian dropouts in Montana. The questionnaire contained 27 open-ended statements, expanding to 78 variables with probe questions, which began with “You left school because. . . .” The statements covered issues such as distance from school, alcohol and/or drug problems, pregnancy, home problems (with specific probes such as abuse, sibling rivalry, or crowded homes), reading difficulties, school troubles, teacher attitudes, and the lack of Indian teachers and curriculum content. Since this part of my study was a replication of Coladarci's study, data analysis of the questionnaire was identical to his (see Coladarci, 1983 for the questionnaire, and a detailed description of research methods, techniques and analysis). A total of 168 people who had left school were interviewed and completed the questionnaire. Forty-seven percent of the interviewed population were from a small community, Border, on the edge of the Navajo reservation. The remaining half of the population was equally divided between the most additional Navajo community in the district on the Navajo reservation, Navajo Mesa, and a nearby Ute reservation. The ages of the people interviewed fell evenly into three groups, 27% were 22-26 years old, 30% were younger than 21 (the youngest being 14), and 32% were 27 years or older. The current study presents data from one specific group of Navajo and Ute. Caution is needed when making generalizations from both these studies. However, the similarity of the results from these two studies across different tribes suggests common experiences with schools. In understanding Navajo and Ute relations to schools I have found essential the complementary employment of Ogbu's (1978) concept of caste-like minorities and Cummins's (1986) view of cultural integrity. According to Ogbu, a caste-like status of some minority groups has resulted in a rejection and distrust of schooling. He ascribes caste-like group failure to economic and social discrimination combined with the internalization of the inferior status given to them by the dominant group. Cummins suggests that school failure is less likely among minority groups that have a strong, culturally intact identity. The Navajo and Ute represent minorities that have historically experienced social, political, and economic discrimination which, in turn, has resulted in a caste-like position for them in the larger society. As will be illustrated in this paper, although both the Navajo and Ute were in caste-like positions in the community, there were differences in their rates of success. Most of the Navajo have responded with a culture that, although changed over time, remained strong. The Ute, and some of the Navajo, however, faced their marginalized position from a fragmented and weak cultural foundation. Although a Ute population was represented in the questionnaires, most of my ethnographic research was done among the Navajo. I use the Ute as illustrative of the severity of some Indian youths' conflicts with school. The Navajo youth who lived off the reservation and attended BHS with the Ute also expressed extreme discomfort and distrust toward school. The Navajo who attended NHS on the reservation, however, were more successful and expressed less conflict in school.
American Indian youth have fared worse than any other minority group in their engagements with formalized schooling. As reported in the High School and Beyond study, which tracked 30,000 high school sophomores across six years, American Indians drop out more often (22.7%) than Hispanics (18.7%), who dropout more often than African-American (16.8%), who drop out more often than Whites (12.2%), who drop out more often than Asians (4.8%) (Rumberger, 1983). The Navajo Nation dropout study, “Navajo Students at Risk” (Platero et al., 1986) calculated a 3 1 % dropout rate for Navajo youth. An analysis of the master list of Indian youth, on Chart 1, revealed a significancy higher dropout rate from that reported for the total population in either this state, the Navajo Nation, or on the national level. Combining the data from both schools that represent complete high school careers for these six groups of youth, 59% graduated through either traditional or non-traditional means, 34% left school, and 7% remained “unknown.” The graduate rate of 59% is lowered to 49% when reporting only students who graduated on time in the traditional high school program. However, these combined figures gloss over a clear pattern determined by examining the record year by year and the schools separately. As many as 18% of these Indian youth were physically in school for 12 years and still did not graduate. Over half, 55%, of the youth that dropped out did so during the twelfth grade, indicating a persistence towards getting a high school degree, and a significant number of the graduates, 10%, managed to graduate only through additional years or alternative programs. The two schools, NHS located on the reservation with a 99% Indian student population and BHS located in a small town with a 47% Indian student population, revealed different success rates. NHS graduated 63% of its cohorts, 28% left school, and 9% were unknown. BHS graduated only 55% of its cohorts, 40% left school, and 5% were unknown. Only one school, NHS, asked students to explain why they were leaving. From 1982 to 1986, 122 students left with “official” reasons. These reasons were assigned code numbers and filed in the students' records. Their reasons reflected difficulty with schooling and the importance of family responsibilities. Over onethird (37%) were either required to leave because of “behavioral difficulties” or left because they felt, “an active dislike of the school experience.” A third (34%) left school because their parents needed them to work at home or at an outside job to support them or other dependents. One-fourth of the students left school with the simple code, “Reason unknown.” None of the records indicated students withdrew due to academic problems, marriage, pregnancy, or poor staff or peer relations. This data must be read with caution. Young women, who did leave school to have children, admitted a reluctance to provide this information to school officials. Others told me they left because no one cared about Indians. There was no official code for this. And still others said they had no need to explain their actions to a school they were happy to leave.
 The decision to leave school usually is a complex one. Three important factors emerged from the questionnaires in the Coladarci study: 1) student-teacher relationships, 2) content of schooling, and 3) parent support. Although my data supported Coladarci's major findings, additional factors such as the need to work, the distance from school, reading problems, and feelings of being “unwanted” emerged in this study, The data are summarized below in Charts 2 and 3. In the following sections I will examine the students' reasons for leaving school which were given on the questionnaire, on official school records, and in interviews. These different “voices” spoke of dissatisfaction with schools, feelings of mistrust, alienation, academic difficulties, and the importance of family responsibilities. Most youth who left school did so with concrete and stable reasons when these decisions are framed by the larger socio-cultural structures surrounding them.
The relationship between students and their teachers was important for retaining youth in school. When youth experienced minimal individual attention or personal contact with their teachers, they translated this into an image of teacher dislike and rejection. Over a third of the dropouts from Montana and almost half of the Navajo and Ute school leavers felt their teachers did not care about them. Students also complained that teachers did not help them enough with school work. The Utes complained bitterly that their teachers did not care about them or help them in school. The population from the traditional area at Navajo Mesa, however, felt their teachers both cared about them and helped them enough with their school work. With the high correlation between these two variables (r=.85 for the Montana and r=.65 for my study), I agree with Coladarci that the lack of assistance was foremost in the perception of students that teachers did not care. However, the students' perception that teachers did not care was also correlated with (r=.57 for the Montana and r=.39 for my study) the feeling that school was not related to American Indian cultures. Therefore, it could be that the school leaver perceived a cultural insensitivity or indifference on the part of teachers. Disagreements with teachers, a related factor, was important in both studies. There was a significant correlation (r=.55) between disagreements with teachers and trouble at school. The kind of trouble was evenly divided between problems with teachers, other students, and the administration. A majority of the individuals in all communities except Navajo Mesa said they had been in trouble at school. It is interesting to note a generational difference here. Twice as many of the younger Navajo and Ute (under 26) reported trouble with teachers, students, and the administration, which contributed to their leaving school.
 The issue of a teacher “caring” was very important to many of the Indian youth. When asked about good teachers, students consistently explained a good teacher was one who “cares.” The subject the teacher taught was rarely connected to what made a teacher good or not. The issue was a demonstration that the teacher “cared.” And the form of this demonstration was direct help on work in class. Three Navajo girls described teachers as, “Some are forgetful, some absent minded, some great. Like________, she is real neat. She cares about us and helps us with our work.” In hearing about teachers who are “not good,” one gets a picture of teachers who attended little to individual Indian students. “Some of them are all right, but they have prejudice against Indians. Like they look at us when we ask questions like, 'Oh, I'm tired of trying to help you.' They care about the students who don't need help,” and “She is a bad teacher. She never lets us know what we do that is right. Only what we do wrong.” Mistrust of teachers was often justified. A past superintendent explained the “cultural problem” to me, “Some of our older teachers hold traditional views of Indians,” and “wiping the slate clean” of these teachers would help the Indian students. “Our Indian students learn which teachers don't like them and avoid them. Just ask the principal, he can even supply you with their names.” I did not need to ask their names. These teachers openly revealed their feelings towards Indian students. One student commented on a subject she enjoyed, science, but complained about the teacher. I observed this particular class. The teacher was trying to encourage his Indian students to perform well in class. From the perspective of his Indian students, his encouragement was seen as a put down of the Navajo in general: He is prejudiced. He talks about Navajos and welfare. “You all listen, you aren't going to be on welfare like all the other Navajos.” He shouldn't talk like that! And then the white students say things like that to us. Like all Navajo are on welfare. I'm not like that. We work for what we have. He shouldn't say things like that. It makes us feel bad. Teacher discussions of Indians illustrated the conflict between groups. Utes, who were described as aggressive, were the least liked group, Border students were a bit too “defiant” and the most traditional Navajo from Navajo Mesa were described as “real” Navajo. Some teachers at Border High School expressed sorrow at the departure of the more traditional Navajo students from Navajo Mesa, who now had their own school. I don't know what it is, but these students from Border are, well, it's their attitude. They are defiant. They walk around with their heads in the air. They just don't care. They have no respect. The other Navajo students were real nice and quiet in class. They did their work and what you told them to do in class. Some of the teachers expressed frustration at the passivity of the Navajo students in regard to their interactions with Anglo students. I wish they would fight back. We need to teach them to be assertive as a minority. I'd like to see a healthy battle between the Indian and Anglo! They need to feel pride and not be overwhelmed by the Anglos up here. One Anglo boy said, “I smell bad like an Indian” and they [Indian students] voted for him! I wish they would have said, “Hell no, we don't even like you!” It is clear that some of the teachers were happy to be teaching Indian youth and spoke out in support of their students, urging them to “stand up” for their rights. They were the ones who continually moved around their classrooms providing constant feedback to the students, and who talked about wanting to bring new and “meaningful” information into their classes. Many were excited with their jobs and expressed “liking” for Indian students but were frustrated with the minimal impact they had on student achievement. I shared in the frustration of a reading teacher who urged her Indian students to perform, You guys all speak two languages. Research shows that bilinguals are twice as smart. I only speak one language, you should be smarter than I am. Language is not your problem. It's your attitude. You have given up because Whites intimidate you. She asked her students, “Don't you want to be a top student?” “No!” the class responded loudly, “We don't care.” The Indian students who left school said in the questionnaires that teachers did not care about them and did not help them enough with their work. In some cases this perception was true. Indian students, many with reading difficulties requiring extra help from their teachers, were seen as an added burden by some of the teachers. In overcrowded classrooms teachers had little time to help individual students in need, and this often translated into the Indian students sitting quietly in the back of the classroom waiting for the class to end. Indian students didn't trust their teachers, even good teachers who deeply cared about their students. The teacher represented a member of the outside Anglo community, a community that has actively controlled the economic, religious, and political lives of the Navajo community. Tensions in the larger community were often mirrored inside classrooms. A look at the larger structural factors in the community gives light and credibility to students' feelings that they were unwanted in school.
The voices and patterns described in this section are not merely based on inherited traditions of racism, prejudice, or ignorance. Rather, they represent a constructed model of assimilation that has been used by Anglos to structure and maintain political and economic control in this community. The only path to “success” for Indians was to become “non-Indian.” It was a path many Indian youth rejected. This was part of the landscape confronting these youth. The Navajo have lived in their current location since the 1500s. The Anglo population in this county arrived in the 1880s as pioneers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), or, as they are commonly called, Mormons. The pioneers were sent to colonize the Navajo and Ute and to increase the land base and religious influence of the LDS church throughout the region. From the beginning, the Mormons dismissed Indians claims to political and cultural sovereignty. Descendants of the early pioneers wrote, Good Indians and bad Indians met the Whites when they first reached here. The bad Indians—young hot heads—if alive today might have been classed as nationalists. They resented being pushed on a reservation and deprived of their old hunting grounds. To their untutored minds, stealing from the Whites was comparable to Whites stealing their land” (Perkins, Nielson & Jones, 1968, p. 219). The Indians didn't “understand” it was the Anglo who had the right to the land. And today, they still refuse to accept this. The underlying philosophy of assimilation guided all early inter-actions with Indians. Anglos constructed institutions which represented Anglo values and beliefs. To be successful, Indians needed to conform to Anglo norms of behavior. This is still the case today. An Anglo, store owner said, “The only good Indian is a Mormon.” Schools, in particular, became a vehicle for cultural assimilation, and thereby a way to eliminate the “Indian problem.” In a very real sense, the schooling package that provided literacy for Indians also required becoming “White.” Navajos had to forget their own language, religion, values, and beliefs. This practice has changed very little in the past 100 years. A teacher told me, The Indian students need to learn English and basic skills to survive in the Anglo world. That bilingual and bicultural stuff is not important for them. The jobs are off the reservation so they need to learn how to work in the Anglo world. Indians who resisted assimilation by maintaining their culture and remaining on the reservation were described as failures by many Anglos. A counselor explained, “Most of the kids want to stay right here. On the reservation. It's kinda. like, we say, they have 'gone back to the blanket.' They will sit in their hogan [traditional round Navajo house] and do nothing.” If they chose to remain “Indian” they did not deserve the wealth of the land. Racism, therefore, became a rationale for institutional structures to develop that served to maintain Anglo power and control in the community. Over the last 100 years the Anglo population, predominantly LDS, expanded and prospered. The Navajo and Ute populations also expanded, comprising 47% of the county's population, but they remained poor, with marginal public voices compared to the dominant Anglo population. Nearly 90% of those in the county on public assistance were either Navajo or Ute. The unemployment rate of Navajo or Ute was 68%, three times the unemployment rate for Anglos. All public institutions in the county were controlled by individuals who were members of the LDS church. The school superintendent, all four high school principals, four out of five elementary school principals, and the administration of the local community college were all LDS. Almost half of the county's population was Navajo or Ute; however, Navajo accounted for only 15% of the teaching staff and more than half of those Navajo had converted to Mormonism. There was tension between the Indian and Anglo populations in this border reservation community. As one Navajo parent said, “We know that they don't like us. It would help if they would change their attitude towards us.” Many Anglos expressed their perceptions of Indians as lazy, unmotivated, undependable workers who had drinking problems and who were irresponsible and uncaring parents. A community health worker said, “It's a bloodbath down there [the Ute reservation]. Drinking, drugs. My God, they don't have any human values or dignity left!” One teacher who had taught in the district for 33 years explained it this way, “The Whites came here to be friends of the Indians and bring the gospel. They did a lousy job of both.” In explaining why Indian students did so poorly in school, an Anglo teacher stated, “It's the local attitudes of the Whites. They think, 'dumb Indians' and it has worn off on the Indians. Then they act like they are dumb, 'cause the Whites expect it.'” Another teacher, who had expressed a great deal of concern and empathy for her Indian students three years ago, recently told me, You are not going to like what I say about Indians now. I am a racist! I'm not kidding. Working with these Indian kids makes you a racist. They just sit there and do nothing. Many Anglo and Navajo spoke of friendships between groups and expressed genuine concern about each other's well being. Nor did all the Indian high school students see themselves as not supported and helpless in the racially mixed BHS. Students formed groups for support and used subtle counterattacks when put down by their non-Indian peers. In class one day two Anglo students were teasing a young Navajo, who was studying to be a medicine man, about his hair bun, lice, and the length of his hair: “Hey, how long did it take you to grow that?” The Navajo boy replied with a soft smile, “10 minutes.” Other confrontations were not so subtle. One young woman, whose last name was Cantsee, explained why she was no longer in math class. “When I came into class late that teacher said, 'Oh, here is another Indian who can't see how to get to class.' I told him to go to hell and left class.” In some cases, Navajo and Ute people resisted the discrimination experienced in the Anglo community by turning inward to the support and strength of their culture and life on the reservation. Some moved out of town, increasing the physical distance between themselves and the dominant Anglo community and widening the cultural rift between the Navajo and Anglo communities. The Navajo and Ute, however, were not silent when expressing their sense of racial discrimination, isolation, and of being “unwanted” by many in the Anglo community. Some Indian students openly spoke about “hating Whites”; others spoke about fearing the high school where stories, repeated by siblings, peers, parents, and relatives, told them they would experience discrimination from their teachers; and still others spoke about the richness of the multicultural experience in racially mixed schools. Although both sides assumed the prevalence of contempt and discrimination towards Indians, such attitudes were not universal. Just as most Indian students were not dropouts, most also did not feel overwhelmingly discriminated against. Although these students did not feel uncomfortable with Anglos and pointed out they had some Anglo friends, they acknowledged there were distinctions, “I don't get no different treatment. Whites are just Whites. And Indians are just Indians.” The community and school treatment they received was the same as their parents had experienced. Historically established patterns of discrimination created a sense of “the ways it has always been” for these Indian youth and adults. One Navajo parent said she should have told the vice principal, who had gone to school with her 20 years ago, You know what it is like for the high school kid. You used to do the same things the kids are doing now against Indians. You remember when you put the pins in my seat? All the things that you used to do to Indians. It is still going on here and now. You did it, and now your kids are doing it.
The racial issue in the county was made more complex by the relationship of the dominant religion, LDS, and non-Mormons. A majority of the Anglos in the county were Mormons. A majority of the Navajo were either traditionalists or members of the Native American Church. The LDS church teaches that “Lamanites” are the descendants of Laman, Lemuel, and others who, having emigrated to the Americas, rejected the gospel. Righteous groups remained White, while those who had rejected the covenants they had made with God received a “sore cursing,” even “a skin of blackness . . . that their seed might be distinguished from the seed of their brethren” (Book of Mormon, 2 Ne. 5:21; Alma 3:14). Converting back to the gospel resulted in the “scales of darkness” falling from Lamanite's eyes and a return to a “White and delightsome” being.
From an LDS perspective, Navajo people are among the “chosen” people and they must be brought “back” to the true church. Because of this philosophy, active proselytizing of local Navajo was part of the Mormon's “mission.” This proselytizing—which occurred in school, homes, sports teams, and the Boy and Girl Scouts—was resented by many Navajo parents. It exacerbated the conflict between these cultural groups. Although the Navajo often were members of several churches in order “to get the best of what is offered,” some resented the LDS Church's efforts to “change” the Navajo and worried about the pressure on their children to join the LDS Church. Historically, Navajo parents “lost” their children to federal schools. Currently some Navajo parents feared they were losing their children to a church that required them to reject their “Navajoness.” As one parent told me, “Hell, we aren't Lamanites! We are Indians!”
The Indian community vividly felt a sense of disempowerment. Political power was in the hands of Mormon Anglos. The few Navajo and Ute they saw in power had joined the LDS Church. Patterns of restricted political and economic opportunity colored the perceptions of school success paying off. For some youth leaving school was a statement of rejecting a system that had already rejected them. Over one-third of the youth that left NHS did so because of disagreements and fights with teachers and the administration and with the terse official dropout code which stated, “an active dislike of the schooling experience.”
The content of what was taught in school also emerged as an important issue in the decision to leave school. In the Montana study a little less than half of the school leavers stated that school was not important for what they wanted to do in life and roughly a quarter indicated that school was not important to them as American Indians. A little less than half of the Navajo and almost two-thirds of the Ute felt school was not important for what they wanted to do in life. One-third of the total group felt school did not teach what was important to them as Indians. It is interesting to note the age and community differences here. Almost half, 46%, of the older group indicated that school did not teach what was important to them as Indians, whereas only one-fourth of the younger group felt this. Half of the Ute, the most “dissatisfied" community, said school did not teach what was important to them as Indians, whereas in the most traditional Navajo community, Navajo Mesa, over 80% did not see this as an issue that lead to their leaving school. As will be discussed later, a culturally non-responsive school curriculum was a greater threat to those, such as the Ute, whose own cultural “identity” was more insecure. In both studies the school curriculum, perceived as not connected to life goals, was an important reason for leaving school. This did not mean that these youth left school because the content was not subject—specific enough to American Indian cultures, but rather because school simply was not an avenue to obtain the knowledge or skills they desired. Students resisted the emphasis on basic, remedial, and vocational tracking in the high schools, which they saw as limiting their opportunities, even with a high school degree. As one Navajo expressed, I didn't care to finish high school. It was not that important. You see, I was just learning the same thing over and over. Like the teachers didn't expect anything of you because you were an Indian. They put you in general education, basic classes, and vocation. They didn't encourage college bound classes. At BHS Indian students enrolled for, but often quickly dropped, advanced academic courses when they saw few Indian faces in their classrooms. A teacher explained, “I had one Navajo girl in my physics class. She said the Whites didn't want her in class so she gave up. If she had really cared about her education she would have stuck it out. The Indian students don't care about school.” This student explained, “I was the only Indian! So I moved back to basic math. I knew it all 'cause I had it before. But it was all Indian and I felt better. I was the top in that class.” Only six students were enrolled in advanced placement courses at BHS last year. Both schools encouraged students to emphasize vocational courses in their school careers. A principal explained, “We need to recognize the needs of the people in this local area. I'm not saying we should ignore the academic classes. But the vocational training is where the jobs are for the local Navajo people.”
It's pretty slim, if you want to stay around here. I haven't really seen any Navajo people working like in convenience stores or grocery stores; unless you figure out something else to do. Like shoveling snow or something. But the job outlook isn't really great. All the Navajo youth, from the high school classes of 1982 to 1989 in two different schools, were tracked over the past seven years to determine what happened to them after they had graduated or left school. Out of 1,030 youth, both graduates and non-graduates, 21% were employed, 29.5% were unemployed, 18.5% were current students, and 31% remained unknown as to their current status. Higher employment, lower unemployment, and more student status was revealed by examining the high school graduates separately. Out of 624 graduates, 31% were currently employed, 21% were unemployed, 28% were students, and 20% remained unknown as to their current status. The image was bleaker when looking at the youth who left school prior to graduation. Of these 404 youth, only 11% were currently employed, 38% were unemployed, 9% were students, and 42% remained unknown as to their current status. The current role of “student” is one that needs to be viewed cautiously. Over 80% of these young people were enrolled in the local community college. Many of these youth attended school on a part time basis, lived at home, were otherwise unemployed and often remained unemployed after leaving the community college. High school graduates were twice as likely to have jobs as those who did not finish school. On the surface this seemed like an incentive for youth to finish high school. Below the surface, however, there was little difference in the kinds of jobs held by graduates and non-graduates. With rare exception both groups of employed youth worked at the same kinds of service industry jobs: cooks, motel maids, school aides, bus drivers, tour guides, making or painting pottery, clerical workers, electrical assistants, janitors, waitresses, seamstresses, the military, uranium and oil workers, and in construction. Service industry jobs typically are characterized by low pay with little or no benefits, seasonal employment, and a highly transitional work force. Even with a high school diploma, if they remained in their home community as most did, they looked forward to a future of semi-skilled jobs, mirroring those of their parents. Looking at their peers who completed school, working beside them at the same job, many school leavers questioned the relevance of completing school. Less than one-half of 1% of the Navajo youth in this area will complete a four-year degree. And only 2% will finish two year degrees. The rhetoric of equality of opportunity, that formal education leads to higher social status, higher self-esteem, better employment opportunities, better jobs, and better salaries, was a hollow promise for most of these Indian youth. They faced not “unlimited” opportunities dependent only on individual achievement, but a set of political, economical, and social constraints that intertwined in schools and communities to limit the frames of their lives.
Anglo parents expressed concerns that Navajo parents did not “take care” of their children. “That seventh grader was away from home for five days, and his parents didn't care!” one said. The cultural and value differences between the Navajo and Anglo were evident when these two groups interacted over school-related issues. For Navajo, early autonomy of and non-interference with their children was desirable, whereas adult supervision over children and adolescents was a strong value among the Anglo. Two apparently opposing concepts function within Navajo culture. The autonomy of the individual regarding possessions and actions is strongly maintained while at the same time the consensus and cooperation of the group is desired (Lamphere, 1977; Kluckhohn & Leighton, 1946). Appropriate cooperative behavior is encouraged, but individualistic behavior is respected without overt punishment. As Lamphere pointed out, “the phrase t'a'abee bo'holni'ih [”it's up to him or her to decide, it's his or her business,” or “it's his or her area of concern”] combined Navajo emphasis on both autonomy and consensus, and it entailed egalitarian rather than hierarchical authority relations” (p. 41). Authority relations were egalitarian among Navajos as opposed to hierarchical among Anglos. This had serious implications for how Navajo parents interacted with their children. Unlike the Anglo, who experience a period of adolescence and dependence, the Navajo have little or no time “in-between” when the individual was neither a child nor an adult. Social and physical maturity occurred simultaneously. Young Navajo individuals, who were viewed in the school district and the larger Anglo society as immature adolescents or teenagers, were seen as adults by their parents. At the laundromat one Monday a Navajo friend explained her parents' trip to town, “They went to look for Jack (eighth grade son). He went to see “Rambo 1111” with friends on Thursday night. He never came home. If he was in trouble we would know. They need him to herd sheep tomorrow.” From the Navajo parents' perspective it was inappropriate to make decisions for their junior or high school age children, whom they considered to be adults and capable of making their own decisions. They guided their children, and made their opinions known, but non-interference of youth and individual autonomy was a strong traditional cultural value still practiced. For many Navajo parents this translated into “noninterference” for their children who chose to leave school. For many Anglo parents and school officials, this translated into “lack of support” or “neglect.” Another issue frequently mentioned by Anglos and Indians concerned the “pulling down” of youth who did well in school by peers and community members. Peer pressure was mentioned by almost one-third of the total group as a reason for leaving school. One of the teachers explained it graphically with a story about lobsters. You know what they say about lobsters? You can put them in water this high [motioning a depth of less than a foot with his hands] and they won't get out. As soon as one tries to climb out the others pull him back in. [Laughter] That's what it is like with the Indians. As soon as one of their kind tries to better himself the others pull him back in. Over the past years I have seen subtle and not so subtle teasing and pressure by Indians on Indian students who did well in school or who went away to school. A Navajo administrator said to me, “This is the biggest problem we face as Navajos. There is jealousy, instead of pride, when someone does well.” Teasing among Navajo was a traditional form of social control (Kluckhohn & Leighton, 1946). They teased the individual who thought himself or herself “better” than other Navajo, looked down on “Navajo stuff,” and had forgotten how to speak Navajo. Two young women, speaking about a friend who had gone away to a vocational training institution, said, “We saw her last weekend and she didn't even look at us. She must think she is too good for us now.” A Navajo woman explained that an uncle who was away at school received some strong teasing when he returned with his family for a vacation. “They teased him and said, 'Do you still remember how to speak Navajo words or have you forgotten now that you are so good in school? . . . Teasing was also used as a means to maintain a position of cultural solidarity. I took the six children of Navajo friends to the swimming hole one day. Soon after we started swimming, two pickup trucks arrived with distant relatives. One woman spoke to the youngest boy as she tried to pull my tire tube from him, “What ate you doing with that bilagaana [Navajo for White person]? Is she your wife? Do you love her? Why are you not with Navajos? Are you a White person?” He burst into tears as he ran and hid in my car. Many Anglo teachers used this “reality” to explain why Indians students failed in school. One teacher explained, “They would have it made (a high school degree) if it weren't for the pressure of their Navajo peers that pulled them down.” The irony of this logic was that it effectively ignored the concurrent rejection many of the Indian youth faced from their school experience. Some youth did experience negative pressure from individuals in the community, but at the same time they faced a school that expected them to do poorly because they were Indian. It was a double bind. For some of these youth, the result was the rejection of the importance of school. Youth who left school, as well as their families, were seen by school officials as having personal characteristics that were “deficient.” Parents were seen as not caring for their children or supporting the efforts of schools. Navajo families were judged by what they didn't have—money, middle-class Anglo values, higher education, and professional jobs, rather than by what they did have—extended families, permanent homes, strong Navajo values, and religious beliefs. These cultural differences intertwined in the school and community as Navajo asserted their commitment to their families and culture.
The peer and community pressure on some successful students was real and it did seem to work against successful school performance for some individuals. One view of this is that it was a means of expressing cultural integrity and the desire to maintain the group intact. In some ways this pressure was based on a fear that if one did better, he or she would leave, and the family or community would lose that individual to the “outside” world. This fear was based on the factual experiences of the past and the economic situation of the present. For youth who received advanced training, the prospects of returning to the reservation for job possibilities were limited. There were few jobs available in this area, even for well qualified Indians. The issue of having to leave school to work either at home or at a job was a salient factor for almost half of the total Navajo and Ute group. Historically, Navajo parents were often opposed to school, not because they did not want their children to “learn,” but because of the economic necessity of the additional worker at home. In some cases this was still true. With the death of a mother, a young Navajo girl's work became caring for younger siblings. Sometimes young children were kept home from school to help with herding the family flock of sheep. However, parents were aware of the need for their children to be in school. Some tried to hire outside sheep herders, but for some, adolescents had to assume adult responsibilities for economic survival. This was especially true in the most traditional area of the district, Navajo Mesa, where half of the cases said having to work was significant in their decision to leave school. When talking about the home problems of the school leavers it must be emphasized that most Navajo and Ute youth came from stable, although culturally different, homes. This “stability” did not obviate drug abuse. A family that drank could also be a stable one. And most Indian parents did want their children in school and doing well. However, problems in youths' homes clearly contributed to students' decisions to leave school. Two-thirds of the Navajo and 92% of the Ute said problems in the form of alcohol or drug abuse, crowded homes, fighting parents, and unemployment existed in their homes. The existence of home problems, however, often was over emphasized. Too often the “reservation” was characterized as only a place of child neglect, broken homes, drinking, and poverty. Teachers admitted they had not been to their students' homes and most parent-administration interactions were over “problem” youth, rather than youth who were doing well in school. There was a positive side to “life on the reservation,” a side that most Anglos did not see or experience. In particular, young Navajo women's lives were hidden and misunderstood by those in the Anglo community. Birth and women's “place” of security and power in the matriarchy of Navajo culture provides a different perspective on leaving school. Pregnancy and marriage are major causes for 44% of the female dropouts in the United States (Wehlage & Rutter, 1986). For almost half of the females in my study this was also the case. Pregnancy as a problem leading to dropping out of school was viewed as a biological inconvenience or mistake from the school's perspective in this community. A teacher explained, “The girls turned 14 and all they could think of was 'boy crazy.' The Navajo race is a pure one and survival is important. I'm a biologist and I speak from this angle. It is important for them to reproduce.” Within the Navajo community, however, there was joy and support for the young mother. It was not a biological “mistake.” Once a young woman became a mother, she changed into an “adult” role and her life moved beyond the immediate need for schooling. In some cases parents discouraged their daughter's return to school. One Navajo parent told me, “I told her, 'Daughter, you need to grow up now. You have a baby.'” Although there was sometimes temporary embarrassment from family members when a young girl became pregnant and left school, there was joy and acceptance over the new baby. The young mother was then seen as “successful” (creating new life) which overshadowed the importance of school. In interviews with four young women who left school during their pregnancy and returned briefly after their babies were born, all spoke of feeling “out of place.” One said, “The teachers, you know, they look at you differently. They know you have had a baby and they stay away from you. I didn't like the way they looked at me.” At the same time they spoke with pride at their accomplishments. “I really wanted a baby of my own. I would be really happy, then, at home with my baby. That's what us Navajo do.” A parent explained that not many Anglos knew what it was like to be Navajo living on the reservation. “I guess this is what being an Indian is all about. living in isolation. This is what it means to be a Navajo.” Anglos misunderstood this isolation and only saw a “cultural vacuum” rather than an active, supportive, social, and religious community on the reservation. The Enemy Way, a three day ceremony for the purpose of curing illness caused by a ghost, an alien, or an enemy, occurred frequently during the summer months. Birthdays were frequently celebrated by large clan gatherings. Additional ceremonial dances occurred in the area at least monthly and a strong Native American Church was active weekly on the reservation (Aberle, 1982). Young high school age girls still participated in Kinaalda', a four day celebration and ceremony for a first menstruation. The superintendent admitted he had never heard of this ceremony. In many of these ceremonies prayers were offered to restore “balance” and the good life to individuals (Lamphere, 1977; Aberle, 1982). In particular, the seeking of school success for children became the focal point of many ceremonies. This side of Indian students' lives, teachers and school officials rarely saw.
For the Navajo and Ute, multiracial experiences in their community and school had reinforced feelings of being unwanted in their school. Their repeated cries of “teachers don't care” spoke to these feelings. In some cases, the feelings of rejection by youth were soundly based on actual experience; for others stories of historic and current examples of discrimination were enough for them to “feel” the discrimination. This was clearly important for understanding why so many Indian youth rejected schooling. As Ogbu (1978) has pointed out, any comprehensive understanding of minority students' school failure must include the power and status relations between minority and majority groups. In general, caste minorities are not allowed to compete for the most desirable roles on the basis of their individual training and abilities. The least desirable roles they are forced to play are generally used to demonstrate that they are naturally suited for their low position in society. Thus their political subordination is reinforced by economic subordination (p. 23). Ogbu argued that because minorities perceive their future chances for jobs and other benefits of education as limited, they are not so strongly motivated as the dominant-group members to persevere in their school work. In turn, the dominant group maintains this adaptation by providing inferior education and then by channeling them mainly to inferior jobs after they finish high school. The Navajo and Ute saw the basic or vocational thrusts in schools as a mechanism to limit their future opportunities. And they resisted the explanations of their “failure” as being caused by their Navajo culture. Learning involves a trust relationship between learner and teacher. A teacher asks of a student to move into an “unknown” or new area, which involves risk. If the student does not trust the teacher, or has reason to fear humiliation, rejection, or being revealed as incompetent, the risk is too great. Living in the context of family and friends who had also experienced negative experiences left many Navajo and Ute students with little choice but to not trust schools and teachers. This issue is complex and involved “rejection” on both the part of the school and minority youth. As Erickson (1987) pointed out, It is also a matter of cultural invention as a medium of resistance in a situation of political conflict. As students grow older and experience repeated failure and repeated negative encounters with teachers, they develop oppositional cultural patterns as a symbol of their disaffiliation with what they experience (not necessarily within full reflective awareness) as an illegitimate and oppressive system. (p. 348) Although not neglecting issues such as lack of economic opportunities and academic problems, crucial to the “rejection” of school by many of these Navajo and Ute youth was the issue of cultural identity. A young Navajo woman explained it this way, I've always wanted to do things but it's like I couldn't because of school. That's what has held me back. I feel that. If I go to college I will get a job in the city and then I won't come back very often. When am I going to have time to spend with my grandmother learning about my culture? I feel that kind of resentment towards school. I feel cheated out of my own culture. There is a body of research which argues that the lack of positive cultural identity of students in relation to both the school and home cultures is important in understanding the school failure of some minority groups (Cummins, 1986). In summarizing this body of research Cummins stated, widespread school failure does not occur in minority groups that are positively oriented towards both their own and the dominant culture, that do not perceive themselves as inferior to the dominant group, and that are not alienated from their own cultural values. (1986, p. 22) The Navajo and Ute youth who left school saw and lived with an inferior status conferred on them by their Anglo neighbors and resented the discrimination; they struggled to retain and gain their own cultural traditions; and they challenged the “myth” that a high school education would result in a good job. They had seen evidence to the contrary. This was clearly illustrated by the differences between the Navajo and Ute school leavers. The most culturally secure group of youth were Navajo from Navajo Mesa, one of the most traditional areas of the Navajo reservation. They felt least as though school was irrelevant, expressed little “trouble” in school, and dropped out primarily because of pregnancy or work needs. In many ways the school was marginal to their lives as young Navajo. Teachers accepted these Navajo because, “They did what they were told and were quiet.” In the middle were the Navajo students living in Border community. They expressed feeling the “pull” of their community towards retaining an identity as “Navajo” as they tried to succeed in an Anglo society. Youth from the most disjointed and fractured culture, the Ute, were most likely to feel school to be either a threat to their identity or irrelevant to their lives. None of the Ute students spoke Ute. They had a 64% dropout rate from high school. Less than a handful had ever been to college. The unemployment on their reservation was over 80%. They were confrontational in their stance to school and many teachers expressed fear and discomfort with them in their classrooms. Facing a school that refused to acknowledge their “Uteness” in any positive contemporary light and coming from homes that transmitted little of “traditional” Ute culture, these youth clearly were living in the margin. An irony existed when the Ute were portrayed by teachers as “proud” Indians compared to the Navajo. This image originated with the historical picture of a plains tribe warrior with a long feathered headdress on horseback. However, the Ute student's defiance in classrooms came from the context of a fractured culture; a “glory” that no longer existed. This was in contrast to the Navajo youth who resisted passively, with the support of a largely intact cultural foundation, by maintaining silence in the classroom and moving through high school as a short “interruption” in their progression to lives as adult Navajo men and women. The differences between the two high schools is also illustrative of this issue. Located on the Navajo reservation, NHS was more “successful” in retaining and graduating Indian students. With few Anglo students the racial conflict was minimal and Indian youth moved through their school careers in a more secure and supportive peer and community context. At BHS, with an over 50% Anglo student population, Indian students experienced racial conflict daily in school and in the town. Struggling for an identity off the reservation seemed to increase the likelihood of the decision to leave school. It must be emphasized, however, that after high school all of these youth faced the same structural barriers because they were “Indian.” Navajo and Ute youth faced institutional racism that created a job ceiling in their community, whether or not they completed high school. This economic limitation was mirrored by their parents' experiences. The Navajo community knew intuitively what Cummins (1986) prescribed-they must give their children a good, solid, cultural identity as Navajo, or their children would not succeed at any level in either world. Rather than viewing pregnancy as failure, they celebrated and supported their young women's success at creating life. And both young women and men were admonished to remain Navajo. Given the current structure of schooling, with assimilation as its model, the Navajo community supported their youth, regardless of school success. Resistance against school and cultural assimilation can take different forms: classroom passivity, school non-attendance, verbal confrontations, and violence. Many of the Navajo and Ute youth who left school voiced the opinions they were either “pulled out” of school because of family and community pressure, or “pushed out” by an unaccepting Anglo society. For these youth, school remained a set of buildings representing a world to which they did not belong. A large mural on the local elementary school hallway pictured a Navajo family in traditional dress viewing a school building across the river. The hand painted sign read: “Go forward my children. Education is the ladder to success.” The river divided two cultures. For some of these school leavers school represented a bridge that fell before a successful crossing. Or, from other perspectives, it was a bridge that never existed.
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