Second Generation Navajo Relocatees: Inheriting Intergenerational Losses Due to P.L. 93-531

Abstract

This study examines the impacts of the United States federal policy Public Law 93-531, the Navajo Hopi Land Settlement Act, which was passed by Congress in 1974. P.L. 93-531 forced many Navajo families and their children who had resided on their traditional homeland for generations to relocate elsewhere. Today, Navajo residents who were minors when they relocated with their parent(s) find themselves dispossessed of their cultural heritage. Basically, P.L. 93-531 dispossessed and displaced the Navajo minors (now adults) from their inherent traditional homelands, thus creating a second generation of Navajo relocatees. The relocation plan was not inclusive of second generation Navajo relocatees as stakeholders, leaving them in an indeterminate legal, economic, political, and social state. The primary questions addressed are these, 1) How has the relocation experience, due to Public Law 93-53, impacted the lives of second generation Navajo children, now adults, living in towns or cities off the Navajo Nation? What have been the perspectives and challenges of the participants after relocation? 2) What has the federal and Navajo government’s role been in the lives of Children of Relocation? The study utilizes a modified theoretical framework, Peoplehood Matrix, which encompasses the components of, language, ceremonial cycle, land, and sacred history, with the addition of livelihood. The components of the modified Peoplehood Matrix are interwoven and dependent upon one another which contribute to a group or individuals identity (Holm, Pearson and Chavis 2003). Qualitative and quantitative methodologies of collecting artifacts, a Q-method survey, and in-depth interview are used to study the second generation Navajo relocatees as adults living away from the Navajo Nation to document the challenges they experienced as a result of compulsory relocation. Although few studies address Navajo adult relocatees, there are no significant studies addressing second generation Navajos relocatees.