More than 10,000 Navajo — including women and children — were forcibly marched out of their reservation in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, in 1864 in actions described by the Indian Country Grassroots Support as “brutal and destructive.” They would go on to suffer decades of social mistreatment and discrimination in their new lives beyond the reservation, according to NavajoPeople.org.
USC students, faculty and other visitors learned details of the “Long Walk of the Navajo” at an event Tuesday afternoon hosted by the Rossier School of Education. A book club meeting focused on the book “Little Woman Warrior Who Came Home,” by Evangeline Parsons Yazzie, which follows the stories of Navajo people during their expulsion from their land.
The event, which took place on December 3, came as an extension of November’s Native American Heritage Month — when the club read the book.
Dr. Buu Van Nygren, president of the Navajo Nation, as well as his wife Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren and Dean Pedro Noguera of USC Rossier attended the event, as did faculty of USC Rossier and book club committee members who joined a conversation on “Indigenous Innovations: Celebrating Our Creativity and Ingenuity.”
“Usually we do a monthly book club where all faculty and staff are invited to read a selected novel and then … hear from either the author or somebody related to the contents of the books,” said Eugenia Mora-Flores, a clinical faculty member and assistant dean of teacher education at USC Rossier.
“What brought us here was an opportunity to hear from them about their experiences related to the content of the text.”
During the discussion, attendees sat in respectful silence as Nygren read aloud passages from the book, which is in the Navajo language. Members of the audience were touched — “wows” and heavy sighs were heard throughout the classroom.
Dean Pedro Noguera spoke of the opportunity to host intercultural conversations like that with Nygren.
“The president of the Navajo Nation is actually one of our alumni,” he said. “We were very fortunate that he could come speak about not only the book, but about the Navajo people and that experience.”
Delia Racines, an Office of Professional Learning program administrator at USC Rossier, spoke of the readings from Nygren and his wife. “It’s an honor to have them both here and also that we were able to have their book [in] their native language here,” Racines said.
“I think it’s really important to acknowledge that he was a student here, but also that he’s come back to share all of his wisdom and his personal history with us, and it’s so important to infuse that into our programs and for our students.”
Dean Noguera noted that monthly book club meetings are open to faculty, staff and students who can attend in person or via Zoom.