I’m puzzled by the most recent hoo-ha over protecting Bears Ears country (“By renaming new Utah monument Shash Jaa, is Trump trying to divide Native American tribes?”). Here’s why:
Last year, before President Barack Obama’s proclamation, Angelo Baca, a Navajo, filmmaker and Ph.D. student at New York University, released an ethnographic film. In the context of a historical collaboration of five tribes “to save their homeland by making it a monument,” according to the film’s website, it gave voice to Navajos living on the reservation in Utah.
Baca is currently a cultural resources coordinator at Utah Diné Bikéyah.