Generic Navajo

Chapter Two examines language and social authenticity as it relates to Navajo expressive culture. I argue that Diné language politics give us greater insight into the broader story of country music, belonging, and generational nostalgia, and I trace ethnographically how language—often portrayed as a key index of culture—is linked to a Navajo politics of difference through specific registers of speech and song. After an overview of Diné language politics, I turn to how a culturally intimate speech genre referred to as jaan or “jaan Navajo” is incorporated into Native band rehearsals and Navajo comedy, forming the bedrock onto which generational wordplay and humor are overlaid. I then interrogate the expectation that “full Navajos” should speak Navajo or need merely “activate” the Navajo language gene that resides within them. In these ways, perception of speaking the Navajo language shifts from being an index of Navajo identity to an icon of Navajoness itself.

The Intimate Nostalgia of Diné Country Music

The introduction examines how Navajos strategically use sound, and speech and song in particular, in their social spaces and provides a history of country music performance on the Navajo Nation. Through a dual ethnographic focus on music and language, I consider how some expressions of Navajo identity are flexible and negotiated, while others—for example, an affective attachment to place and the lived experience of being from what Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall called a “domestic dependent nation”—are private, nonnegotiable, and often not shared in public contexts such as bars and chapter houses at all. Thus, musical and linguistic performances of Navajoness—also sometimes locally parsed in the broader frames of being Native, Indian and, less often, as “indigenous”—are publicly celebrated. Other expressions of identity—for example the culturally intimate use of the Navajo term for a working-class rube from the “sticks” known as a “jaan”—are elided or hidden from an outsider’s gaze.

“The Lights of Albuquerque”1

The epilogue reflects on what has changed since the years when the fieldwork for the book was carried out, providing updates on key interlocutors and musicians in the book. This includes discussion of Chucki Begay and Mother Earth Blues Band, Candice Craig and the Wranglers, Native Country Band, and Re-Coil. I discuss the cover songs “Mississippi,” Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris’ version of “If I Could Only Win Your Love,” and Charley Pride’s “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone.” Epilogue concludes with a reflection on artists from the Navajo Nation visiting the author’s class at the University of New Mexico and Candice Craig’s performances of songs including “Redneck Woman” and “Okie from Muskogee.”

Keeping up with the Yazzies

Chapter 1 examines Navajo country music through the lens of geography (in particular through discussions of difference between the Arizona and New Mexico portions of “the rez”), focusing on the use of the culturally intimate term jaan, or “john,” to describe rural, “hick,” or hillbilly reservation identities. I then turn to country vocalist, drummer, and bandleader Candice Craig (of the Kinyaa’áanii, or Towering House Clan), analyzing how class, place-based and jaan identities are reflected and parodied in her own performances of Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee” and Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman.” Here, I analyze Craig’s embracing of a working-class, “rezneck” sociophonetic identity as a refusal to adhere to race- and place-based definitions of Diné identity, stretching the boundaries of what it means for a Navajo female performer to “sound” and be Diné.

Sounding Navajo

Chapter Four interrogates what is defined as “sounding Navajo” and what happens when someone refuses to adhere to these expectations. Looking at how gender, nation, and the idea of a prescriptive “Navajo” sound intertwine, I show ethnographically how Navajo blues and rock bands such as Chucki Begay and the Mother Earth Blues Band are often told they don't “sound Navajo'” by local radio station deejays who refuse to play them on air. Instead, these deejays insist that sounding Navajo is defined as a male vocalist singing either Anglo-affiliated genres such as country music, or genres historically associated with Navajo tradition, such as social dance- and ceremonial songs. Tracing why Navajo identity came to be aligned with country music, the “rez” accent and the male singing voice through the work of the late singer and comedian Vincent Craig, it becomes clear how Navajo musical taste is inflected by class, generation, and gender ideologies.

Radmilla’s Voice

Chapter Three focuses on the story of the first biracial, Navajo-African American “Miss Navajo Nation,” Radmilla Cody (born to Tp’ááschí’í, or Red Cheek People Clan). Fluent in Navajo and raised by her maternal grandmother on the Navajo Nation, I show how Radmilla’s singing voice, by performing “traditional” songs with melismatic, R & B inflection in the Navajo language, signals both inclusion and exclusion within Navajo communities. Here, sounding other than “Navajo” is a way of refusing to adhere to the ascribed status of Diné identity, including phenotype and what it means to “look Navajo.” Radmilla’s voice is a signifier of the intricacies of Diné social difference and as a meeting point of the singular and the social: as something innate and idiosyncratic to each singer and speaker, Radmilla’s voice is also something that is learned, socially acquired, and culturally inscribed.

Many Voices, One Nation

The conclusion reflects on how a politics of difference and belonging—and the idea of indigenous social authenticity more broadly—is negotiated by Diné citizens. Focusing on the language fluency controversy in the most recent Navajo Presidential election with Presidential Candidate Christopher C. Deschene, I address what the stakes might be in reifying social difference through the lenses of linguistic knowledge and performance, place of residence, musical taste, and phenotype. I then examine language use and vitality in Navajo language immersion schools on the Navajo Nation. Bringing together ethnomusicology, linguistic anthropology and Critical Indigenous Studies, I examine the parts of Navajo identity that are either publicly celebrated or hidden from view, and I interrogate what these categories of difference mean for those that utilize—or refuse them—today.