Dinétah

By Kacie Smith

Four Corners Extraction Site

September 24, 2015

I’ve been thinking a lot about our tour of the Navajo Nation. Between long stretches of stunning  natural landscape, we saw sites affected by the extraction of coal and uranium and recently constructed fracking stations. We could physically feel damage happening and shed many tears. This is a photo of our group with Diné activist Anna Rondon as we read a passage from Bitter Water, a collection of stories about the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute. The book was written by Malcolm Benally, a native to northern Arizona area and also a student at UNM. Malcolm has just led us through Peabody Coal’s Black Mesa mine.