Protect the Sacred is part of a nationwide effort to find new and creative ways to engage with young Indigenous voters. Earlier this year, they skated to the polls for the primary election.
And as Cronkite News’ Athena Ankrah reports, this month they gathered in Kayenta, Arizona, to ride on horseback to the polls ahead of the midterm election.
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Early on a recent Saturday morning, a group of activists, advocates and actors mounted horses and rode through the red rock of El Capitán Mountain in Monument Valley.
By lunchtime, they made it to Kayenta Rodeo Grounds on the Navajo Nation.
Black mesas and the wide open desert surround the arena. Local Diné families sit in the bleachers. There, a green flag of a rider on horseback with the words “Reclaim Your Future” waves in the breeze.
Mo Brings Plenty is a Lakota actor from South Dakota. He says events like “Ride to the Polls” can unite Black, Indigenous and people of color.
“it’s about coming together, it’s about creating allies. It’s about making many voices one large voice. And we’re way overdue with that.”
Of the 400,000 formally enrolled Diné, only 70,000 are registered to vote in Arizona.
“We just recently had the primary election… Unfortunately, on the Navajo Nation, even though we are the biggest tribe, we only had about 13% of our people, our registered voters, come out to vote.”
That’s Nathaniel Brown, the Navajo Nation Council Delegate for Kayenta and two other communities. He says in-person voting on the reservation is challenging.
“Some of our people from Navajo Mountain, when they come out to vote at the county and state level, they have to travel four hours one way.”
Brown says mail-in ballots can be even trickier.
“Out here in rural Navajo Nation -- which the whole nation is -- we don’t have physical addresses for the most part."
That’s why grassroots organizer Allie Young decided to take steps to get young people and elder members of the community to the polls.
“I’s a demonstration to say that even though different laws have been passed the past couple of years that have aimed to suppress our votes, especially in BIPOC communities, that we’re not going to let that happen. We’re still going to, you know, show up in our power. And by voting, we’re reclaiming our power.”
Young led the first ride to the polls in 2020. This year to emphasize the importance of voting, young invited speakers from across the country, including Rogelio Diaz. He’s the co-founder of Connecting Compton, a nonprofit in California.
“At the end of the day, some of the rules that exist right now are not working for us. And so we have to begin to figure out a strategy and vote for things that are going to work out for us. I think it’s a necessity that we all vote, we make the difference.”
For attendee Joy Wero, the event reminded her of her own family’s struggle for suffrage.
“My grandmother, I’m pretty sure her and her ancestors were, you know, fighting and putting their lives on the line just to hear their voices heard. But yet, I’m here and all we have to do is register, sign and register to vote.”
Though voter turnout has historically been low here, numbers have spiked over the last two presidential elections. Voters on the Navajo and nearby Hopi reservations cast nearly 20,000 more votes in 2020 than in 2016, according to election data.
The ride to the polls event is just one of several efforts to mobilize the Diné voting bloc before the midterm election on November 8. And when people cast their ballots on the Navajo Nation this year… the “I voted” stickers will be written in Diné Bizaad; the Navajo language.
Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. This story is published via a Creative Commons license (CC BY-SA 3.0)
