Miss Navajo - Crystal Frazier

I have so many thoughts about the Film Screening, I put together with NHMU and others last night. Billy Luther', Miss Navajo was a great film.  Even better was meeting and seeing and learning from Crystal Frazier. She is a phenomenal woman.  She has a BS in Aeronautic Engineering and said one day she hopes to return to the Rez to teach in her father's immersion school the AP Calculus and AP Science courses in Navajo. The world needs more woman like this.  Meeting Crystal was a highlight for the film festival this year.
A lowlight, Mormon influence on native culture.  I am repulsed by baptism of the dead but the loss of Native culture through missionary work is equally repulsive to me.  I remember Victoria from 3rd grade, Lorraine Begay and Jr. from elementary school. I remember feeling so sad for them. I think because I was equally as shy as Victoria.  I really remember feeling that poor Victoria was living with a Mormon family in our neighborhood and I was baffled - why? She had a family on the reservation why would she want to live here?  I remember she didn't fit in.  Lorraine and Jr. in 6th grade - it's odd I don't have the same memory of sadness for them. I think because 6th grade was such a traumatic year for me, I can't imagine what those 2 were dealing with. I remember Jr. was tiny like me and kind of cute and always getting into trouble. He had one arm that had been trampled by a horse.  The films I have seen over and over again this month  have really brought that disturbing action of ethnic cleansing of Native people to my eyes.  Taking young children off the reservation to be educated instead of taking high quality education to the reservation.