Home

A place where water can be scarce, home

Home for me is the Navajo Reservation
My Dine people need water, everyone needs water
Water doesn’t run in all homes

A place with so much junk food, home

Home for me is the Navajo Reservation
My Dine people have access to so much junk food
Healthy food is expensive or not available

A place where roads aren’t drivable, home

Home for me is the Navajo Reservation
My Dine people drive on bumpy dirt roads
Cement roads are out of budget

A place where help is miles away, home

Home for me is the Navajo Reservation
My Dine people suffer injuries and accidents
First responders take hours to get there

The Navajo reservation is home to me

It’s home to thousands of dine people
The amount of basic need we can’t meet is insane
A place where people once thrived, then settlers came

The Navajo Reservation is the biggest Native American reservation in the United States.

It is also the biggest Native American tribe with around 400,000 enrolled members. With those

numbers the budget is tight on the reservation. Which leads to many problems without no

solutions being discussed. Here’s a few problems that I can name: accessibility to running

water, junk food being more available, very little cemented roads, and first responders arrival

times.

Water accessibility or running water in homes on the reservation isn't available to

everyone. Some households like mine and my grandma have to make outhouses and shower at

other places. Growing up I would shower at the school down the road or at my relatives house.

My parents eventually fixed our water situation, so now we have running water. My grandma

lives about a quarter of a mile from us and she still doesn't have running water. So she has to

get water hauled to her house everyday.

 The roads on the reservation are drivable on sunny, dry days. Some roads are paved

with cement but more than likely it’s just dirt. During monsoon season the roads are so bad that

it can’t be fixed until weeks later due to the amount of water and mud in the area. During that

time period people have to take routes that are more than an hour longer than usual, which

means more gas money. Even if roads are dry we have to deal with the pot holes, bumps, and

vehicle damages from the bad quality roads. After years of damages the cost of repairs

eventually adds up to thousands. Spending that much on vehicle repairs because of roads

shouldn’t be necessary.

The Navajo Nation covers about 27,000 sq miles of land in arizona, new mexico, utah,

and colorado. The ratio to first responders and land is not a good one. When people call first

responders for help it takes them about an hour at least to show up. There are only a few police

stations on the reservation and not a lot of cops which means longer wait times. It’s absurd that

people have to wait so long, because what if it’s a life or death situation.

These basic needs that are met in the city for most people aren't met for most navajos

on the reservation. We lack so much more than these. Humans shouldn’t be living in these

conditions, even in the present day.

 Writing Situation

My role while writing the piece is a young Navajo woman from the navajo nation

bringing awareness to the obstacles of living on the reservation. The audience I’m trying to reach

is for people who have an interest in the navajo reservation. My purpose of my writing piece is to

explain in my own words what the reservation is lacking. I want people to read from the view of

living on the reservation til age 18.