Evangeline Parsons Yazzie ( 1952 – May 22, 2022) was a
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
educator and author of the first textbook adopted by the
U.S. public education system to teach the
Navajo language
Navajo or Navaho (; Navajo: or ) is a Southern Athabaskan language of the Na-Dené family, through which it is related to languages spoken across the western areas of North America. Navajo is spoken primarily in the Southwestern United States ...
.
Life
Yazzie received a Master of Arts degree in Bilingual Multicultural Education and a Doctorate in Education from
Northern Arizona University
Northern Arizona University (NAU) is a public research university based in Flagstaff, Arizona. It was founded in 1899 as the final public university established in the Arizona Territory, 13 years before Arizona was admitted as the 48th state.
...
(NAU) where she taught
Navajo language
Navajo or Navaho (; Navajo: or ) is a Southern Athabaskan language of the Na-Dené family, through which it is related to languages spoken across the western areas of North America. Navajo is spoken primarily in the Southwestern United States ...
courses for 24 years until 2014. In 2007, Yazzie co-authored a textbook for teaching the Navajo language titled ''Diné Bizaad Bínáhooʼaah: Rediscovering the Navajo Language'' along with
Margaret Speas, a professor of linguistics at the
University of Massachusetts
The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and a medica ...
.
In 2008,
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
adopted the textbook making itself the first U.S. state to officially use any text for teaching the Navajo language in its public school system.
Following her retirement in 2014, Yazzie authored several novels about a fictional family's experience of the
Long Walk of the Navajo
The Long Walk of the Navajo, also called the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo ( nv, Hwéeldi), was the 1864 deportation and attempted ethnic cleansing of the Navajo people by the United States federal government. Navajos were forced to walk from t ...
.
Yazzie died on May 22, 2022, at age 69.
References
Native American women writers
21st-century Native American women
Native American women academics
Navajo writers
Northern Arizona University alumni
20th-century American educators
20th-century American women educators
21st-century American educators
21st-century American women educators
21st-century American novelists
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American women writers
American textbook writers
Women textbook writers
Native American academics
Northern Arizona University faculty
1950s births
2022 deaths
21st-century Native American writers
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