Reseaching My Heritage: The Old Leupp Boarding School Historic Site and Navajo Survivance

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Nat’aah Nahane’ Bina’ji O’hoo’ah: Diné Archaeologists & Navajo Archaeology in the 21st Century" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

My research documents the history of the Old Leupp Boarding School (OLBS), a Navajo federal Indian boarding school in operation from 1909-1942, as it explores Diné (Navajo) survivance within the context of this school. Aside from documenting the history of this school, which has never been done before, I consider the questions, and begin to partially answer, how my Diné ancestors flexed their agency within a particular federal Indian boarding school, how they utilized their Diné foundations to meet the challenges imposed upon them by a settler society, and what were and are the positive stories of Native survivance achieved within the OLBS. In keeping with Navajo culture, I use non-destructive research methods including archival records, historic photographs, and oral history interviews with Navajo elders, who attended the OLBS in the past, to investigate and document the lives of Navajo children and history of the OLBS. My research is from a Diné perspective and contributes to: 1) postcolonial anthropology and resistance under colonial conditions; 2) Navajo Studies and survivance within a particular federal Indian boarding school, the Leupp Boarding School; and 3) the documentation of a significant historic archaeological heritage site to the Diné people.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Nat’aah Nahane’ Bina’ji O’hoo’ah: Diné Archaeologists & Navajo Archaeology in the 21st Century

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23466