Laura Tohe’s childhood was spent on the Diné, or Navajo, reservation, where she was surrounded by her Native culture. Now, these experiences inspire her as a writer.
Laura Tohe grew up in Crystal, New Mexico, on the Diné (meaning Navajo) reservation—which happened to be two hours from the nearest library. Despite the distance, Tohe made the trip semiregularly and spent her spare time reading; it didn’t take long for her to notice, however, that none of the books she read were written by Native authors or discussed her culture. Now a published author and poet, Tohe brings Diné oral traditions to life in her own works and, most recently, in an English Reading Series lecture at BYU.
The Legacies Around Us
Tohe grew up in a community bound together by an oral tradition, where stories connected family members to each other, their ancestors, and the natural world around them. Through the tales recited to her during her youth, she learned about the resilience of the Diné people—including the women in her life. Tohe grew up with three generations of women on her mom’s side who she described as “resilient women who were in charge of themselves.” Their strength led her to write a poem titled “There Is No Word for Feminism in My Language.”
She also learned a great deal from her paternal grandmother, who was a weaver and rancher: “She told me the story about water,” Tohe explained before reading an excerpt from her poem “Meeting the Spirit of Water.” This piece, which was written for her paternal grandmother, shows readers how to respect and meet the spirit of water by feeling it and welcoming its power. These women “were my role models,” she said, “so, I say I am dressed in my ancestors’ language and stories and poetry.”
Parts of a Whole
Life on Diné lands instilled in Tohe a love for her culture and language, but she learned that this admiration wasn’t universal when she enrolled at residential school. “My language was meant to be erased in these residential schools that I attended,” she recalled.
Tohe’s essay “I Am Dressed in My Language” describes her time in these classrooms and explains her teachers’ efforts to discredit the Navajo language. Throughout the piece, she contrasts the residential school’s stance of her language with what she knows: Navajo connects people to each other and helps “you see yourself as part of the bigger world, not an isolated individual.”
She saw evidence of this worldview in those closest to her, including her dad, who served as a code talker in World War II. He enlisted in the war at the age of 16 and used his Navajo language to protect people beyond the reservation, exemplifying the idea of community taught by her culture.
Despite the school’s efforts to eradicate her native language, Tohe chose to embrace Navajo and now uses a mixture of English and Navajo in many of her pieces. Her bilingual works allow her to remain true to her identity while demonstrating the resilience of her culture.
Stories of Tohe, Stories of the Diné
Each story Tohe shared contributes to her identity as a Diné woman, a member of her family, and a poet. “My life story came from my relatives, my language, my history, residential school, [and] traveling all over the world,” she said. By sharing these experiences, Tohe hopes to increase “understanding of what some of these residential schools did, how language was a part of that, how it was erased—and that [the Diné] are still a growing and thriving nation of people.”
Learn more about the upcoming English Reading Series lectures here.