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Writer's pictureHispano Americano Heroes

Refugio M. Rochin





Dr. Refugio (Will) Rochin was a former Professor of Sociology, and Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University from July of 1994 through July 1998. He was also the first Permanent Director of the Julian Samora Research Institute (JSRI) at MSU and was also a Principal Investigator and administrator for the Midwest Consortium for Latino Studies. Professor Rochin is also Professor Emeritus of Chicana/o Studies and Agricultural Economics at the University of California, Davis, and retired Director of Research and Evaluation, Educational Partnership Center at U.C. Santa Cruz.


While at MSU he augmented JSRI’s publications from 8 in 1994 to over 120 in 1998; posting all publications online for free downloads before the advance of Google. JSRI generated thousands of downloads each month, rating JSRI as the number one source of Latino scholarship. During his tenure JSRI produced 5 regional conferences, 4 books and led the way for MSU’s first program in Latino Studies.


Over Professor Rochin’s career he advanced to Full Professor in three disciplines: Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Chicano - Latino Studies at U.C. Davis, Michigan State University, and The University of Notre Dame. In his career work he has co-developed new academic programs and curriculum, including the MS degree programs in Community Development and International Agricultural Development (at UC Davis), the BA degree program in Chicana/o Studies (at UC Davis); and drafted plans for Latino Studies at Michigan State University and the University of Notre Dame. At the beginning of his professional career, he was a member of Dr. Norman Borlaug’s (Nobel Laureate) Green Revolution team in Asia, where he generated research on the diffusion and adoption of high-yielding varieties of wheat, rice, potatoes and corn, primarily among small farmers in Pakistan and Bangladesh. His research was based on field studies and interviews with small farmers. He published key reports on the primary and secondary impacts of new seed technology in Asia.


Professor Rochin is a native of Carlsbad California, born in a barrio and raised by hard—working, Spanish-speaking parents. His professional aim has been to enhance the effectiveness of programs and policies that improve education, socio-economic conditions, health and environment, and community well-being. To achieve these goals he has engaged in community service, research and evaluation, networking, and training through various government and charitable organizations. He has worked closely with both public and private sectors to strengthen their effectiveness in multicultural settings. He actively mentors to foster professional careers and academic leaders. His publications number over a hundred articles in professional journals, government reports and monographs on topics ranging from the shifting demographics in the U.S. and economic contributions of undocumented workers to public programs and rural reform policies to education and employment opportunities for immigrants from Central America.



The Great-Grandchildren of Manuelito and Juanita Manuelito and Juanita are my great-great-great-grandparents. Like Juanita, my matrilineal clan is the Tł'ógi of Tohatchi, New Mexico. I am born for 'Áshiihí (Salt People). Manuelito was Bit'ahnii (Within His Cover or Folded Arms People) and born for the Tsi'naajinii (Black Streak Wood People).12 My maternal grandparents trace their lineage to Juanita through two of her daughters, who are also Tł'ógi. The oldest daughter who was married to Dághá Chíí (Red Mustache) and is listed as Dághá Chíí be Asdzáá (Red Mustache’s wife) in available census rolls. In letters written by Indian agents stationed at Fort Defiance, she is named as “Shizie,” the meaning of which remains obscure (see figs. 8, 10, and 11). The younger daughter of Manuelito and Juanita was known as Ałk'iníbaa (spelled Ahkinbah in available documents). Her husband was Dághá Chíí Bik'is (see figs. 8, 9, and 12).


Although a number of my maternal grandparents are descended from two daughters of Juanita and Manuelito, I chose to interview only those with whom my mother keeps in communication. These grandparents, who are her aunts and uncles, are relatives that can count on her to assist them during ceremonies such as the N'da'(Enemy Way) or the Kinaaldá (women’s puberty rite) and who invite our family to their birthdays, graduations, weddings, and other social occasions.


Descended matrilineally from either of the daughters, the great-grandchildren express interest in affirming clan kinship ties and conveying the importance of relationships that began with Juanita and her daughters to the following generations. The great-grandchildren of Manuelito and Juanita regard each other as brothers and sisters. Their mothers were the children of one of Juanita and Manuelito’s two daughters. The first person to whom I expressed my desire to write a book about our ancestors was my grandfather, Charles Manuelito (fig. 18). Charles, who died in January 2002, was descended from Juanita’s older daughter and was my mother’s uncle. He always expressed a special fondness for his ma'yázhí (little mother), my mother, Rose. Early on, he expressed interest in my project, brought out carefully saved newspaper and magazine articles, and allowed me to use letters that had once belonged to Juanita and her oldest daughter, Dághá Chíí be Asdzáá. The fact that my grandfather had saved these written accounts impressed upon me Navajo concerns to create continuity with the past. Others to whom I spoke include my grandmother, Joan Kinsel, Charles’s older sister (fig. 19), who gave to my mother a necklace that had belonged to Dághá Chíí be Asdzáá. Due to Charles’s death in January 2002, Joan is the sole surviving grandmother from our side of the clan, that is, from Juanita and Manuelito’s oldest daughter, Dághá Chíí be Asdzáá.


Descendants from the younger daughter of Manuelito and Juanita whom I interviewed include Mike Allison Sr., Faye Yazzie, Arthur Holyan, Isaac Allison, Helena Bitsilly, and Robert Manuelito, who died in 2001 (see figs. 17, 20, 22, and 23). Beyond this generation of descendants, few others of my clan relatives knew much about their great-great-grandparents, although some know that they are descended from Manuelito and Juanita. Clan members expressed disappointment and concern that we were forgetting clan ties that had been important to the daughters of Manuelito and Juanita. As Raymond Morris, whose grandmother was Ałk'iníbaa, stated, “Our grandmothers said long ago that we should not forget the ties that connect us as kin.” Today, those ties that link the two daughters to their mother, Juanita, are being revived through stories that work to recreate reconnections among clan members.


Recognition of the value and place of oral traditions in understanding how Navajos perceive their past, how narratives are used to shape their perceptions of the past and their own experiences, and how they convey beliefs and values from ancestors enlarges the historical scope to include those people conventional Western history has ignored and excluded. In his discussion of how literary forms such as travel writing and novels have served imperial projects of domination, Edward Said notes, “stories are at the heart of what explorers and novelists say about strange regions of the world; they also become the method colonized people use to assert their own identity and the existence of their history.”13


So it is that Navajos in the very telling and retelling of their own stories, their experiences under colonialism, have resisted Americans’ representations of Navajos. As a Diné scholar, I follow in the paths of other Native scholars who have begun the process of remapping and reclaiming our territory, geographical and cultural. Navajo Culture and History We call ourselves the Diné or The People. We also name ourselves Náhookah Diné (Earth Surface People) and Bilá 'ashdla' (Five-Fingered Ones). In this study, I alternate between the name Diné, Navajo, and The People. Our homeland, called Dinétah or Diné Bikéyah, means Navajo Land or Navajo Country and is bounded by the four sacred mountains: Sisnaajiní in the east; Tsoodził in the south; Dook'o'osłííd in the west; and Dibé nitsaa in the north.14 We Diné trace our origins into Dinétah by a journey from the First World into this present one.


The Holy People created the world as we know it today. From the Holy People, the Diné received knowledge, material gifts, and rituals and ceremonies for a proper life. The Holy People also provided knowledge on proper relationships between the world and all beings.15 Our journey and emergence into the present world can be best understood as a movement from chaos to order, which is also reflected in the phrase, “Sà' ah naagháí bik'eh hózhóón,” which Diné poet Rex Lee Jim translates as “May I be everlasting and beautiful living.” Jim explains that the phrase encapsulates a declaration to live a healthy and wealthy lifestyle and the practice of applying its teachings to life.16 This term embodies a Navajo way of life that has served as a template for our ancestors from time immemorial. Not only is Sà' ah naagháí bik'eh hózhóón the means by which we should live, but it has also been the foundation for renewal and survival into the twenty-first century.


Navajo traditional narratives are embedded in this philosophy and continue to inform our perspectives on our origins and our place in the world, past and present. For more than three hundred years the Diné have been known as a pastoral people who also practiced agriculture. Prior to the eighteenth century, as the creation narratives also note, our Navajo forebears were simple people who hunted and gathered.17 In the 1700s, the Diné saw vast cultural and economic transformations, including the incorporation of livestock, the intermixing with Pueblo people, Navajo population increase, and Navajo territorial expansion. The adoption of the horse transformed the Navajos into a military force that ably resisted and counteracted Spanish and then Mexican invasions.18 Tension, conflict, and peace marked the colonial period as Navajo relationships with Pueblo peoples, the Spaniards, the Mexicans, and then the Americans, shifted along a continuum of kinship and peace to conflict and war.19


Spanish reports noted that Navajos traded at various Pueblos and that they were not particularly interested in Spanish civilization.20 The cycles of peace and conflict that characterized much of the colonial Southwest were directly related to the slave trade, of which Navajo women and children were the primary targets. Spanish treatment of the Pueblo peoples, who resented their colonizers, eventually led to an open rebellion in 1680 as the Pueblos united and successfully drove out the enemy. However, thirteen years later, the Spaniards returned with even more determination to bend the Native peoples to their will. The arrival of the Americans in 1846 resulted in an escalation of conflict among Native peoples, New Mexicans, and the Americans. Navajos saw the Americans in much the same light as they had the Spaniards and the Mexicans: they saw little differences between the colonizers. The slave trade remained a vital component of the colonial economy and was the prime reason for an increase of violence between Navajos and New Mexicans.21


American thirst for natural resources and a desire to open a route to California also fueled hostilities with Navajos. When Americans built a fort in the heart of Navajo land in 1851 at present-day Fort Defiance, Arizona, tensions increased. In 1863, the Americans instigated an all-out war against Navajos. Under James Carleton, the Indian fighter Kit Carson literally scorched Navajo country, forcing Navajo surrender.22 As prisoners of the U.S. military, in 1863, Navajos were exiled to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where they were imprisoned from 1864 to 1868.23 This period, known as the Long Walk, is a watershed in Navajo history and a point of departure for stories that Navajos tell within their clans and families.24 In 1868, the Navajos signed a treaty with the Americans, Manuelito being one of the Navajo leaders. Along with other Navajos, Manuelito and Juanita returned to Navajo Country, where life was reestablished on a reservation carved out of a portion of their former homeland. Manuelito remained a respected leader among his people and American officials sought his assistance in many matters on the reservation. After the death of Manuelito in 1894, his widow moved closer to the present-day Tohatchi community with her two daughters and their families. There she and her eldest daughter continued to convey messages of Manuelito urging retention of Navajo lands and acquisition of an American education for Navajo children. -- R.Rochin-B. (M

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