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Paul & Michaela Shirley
PROTECTING PEACE AT HOME
Creating a culture of peace can begin with the first people we know — our family. Today’s episode with Paul and Michaela Paulette Shirley focuses on familial love and support as an Inheritance of Peace. Michaela’s significant work in Indigenous Planning is shaping what is possible in community development, educational policy, and ethical research. She’s the daughter of two phenomenal people: Paul and Dolly Mae Shirley. Paul comes from a long line of Diné sheepherders and Michaela is an urban planner and doctoral candidate in American Studies. In this interview, Paul and Michaela, reflect on life lessons from Isabelle Shirley — Paul’s mother who lived for 99 years. They speak about lessons learned from family, our relations to the land and livestock; and the value of discipline, work, and protecting peace at home.
[Paul Shirley standing with his mother Isabelle Shirley. Photo courtesy Michaela Shirley.]
Michaela Shirley (MS): I am Michaela Paulette Shirley. My clans are Water Edge, born for Bitter Water. My grandparents are of the Salt and Coyote Pass clans. I am originally from Kin Dah Lichii, which means Red House in northeastern Arizona, located on the Navajo reservation. I am so happy to be here. Thank you! I’m joined by a very special guest who is very important. I’ll let him introduce himself.
Amy Shimshon-Santo (AS²): Yay! Great.
Paul Shirley (PS): I was born and raised as a sheep herder. I’ll be turning 73 next month. This little bordertown we have is along the I-40 New Mexico borderline. That’s where we’ve mostly been going to get our stuff, which is 45 miles back towards Arizona, towards Window Rock, where we come into. We’ve been at a bordertown all our lives. With my five daughters, and so many grandkids, we had to travel to Phoenix, Tulsa, Seattle and places like that once or twice a year. That’s how we come to be. Still having my grandma’s herd of sheep, which my mom took over. So, recently now, I have it, with 30 heads (of livestock).
AS²: I’m so glad to be here together. Mr. Shirley and Michaela are some of my favorite people in the world. Thank you so much for making time to be together. The next question is about what you get to do. That might be a bit different for both of you. For Paul, you mentioned sheep camp and sheep herding, and Michaela is into research and studies. What do you get to do with your life force?
MS: Okay, well, I’ll let my dad go first.
[Paul Shirley seated beside his wife Dolly, their children standing in a row behind them, on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Photo courtesy of Michaela Shirley.]
PS: All our grandkids are pretty well taken care of. So we hardly have any time with them just once in a while. Like, summertime, there’s maybe a few days. So that’s one good thing. We raised our girls to know how to take care of their own kids instead of the grandma or the grandpas doing the job for them. We’re less stressed that way. That’s what the kids like to come back to. The grandkids.
AS²: Do you want to say a bit about your grandma’s herd of sheep for people who haven’t felt what it’s like to herd sheep?
PS: Well, my mom was the only one that didn’t get her education. Her siblings, younger brothers and sisters, all went to boarding schools or wherever but she never went to school. That’s why my grandmother gave the Sheep Livestock Permit to her to take care of alongside us — being me, my two brothers, and two sisters. Five of us. We maintained my mom’s business of sheep herding. That’s primarily what our girls did, was participate with my mom during the summer at the sheep camp farther into the mountains. My mother, all she did was walk, walk, walk after the sheep all her life. That’s what put her to the age of 99. So she finally passed last year. All she stood for was disciplining. She never gave up on discipline. That’s why now, that’s what I stand with. Being able to discipline people that don’t have the right track of mind.
AS²: Mhm. And know the difference.
PS: We were totally able to get rid of people, like, what you help us get rid of that time you visited. I admire how you traveled by yourself to Albuquerque that time. All by yourself. Yeah. All our girls were like that. They know how and manage to travel by themselves. Especially our first one, the head of the girls, now had to go back to Seattle by herself. She’s a hustler like you on the highway, on the open road.
[Michaela and Atlas Shirley.]
AS²: When you gotta get someplace, you just gotta get there.
PS: Yeah. They all like doing that because they don’t want to be pampered by anybody else. They like to do it themselves.
AS²: That’s a lot of strength and will.
PS: Yeah, that’s what I’m proud of. Me and the mom (Ms. Dolly Mae Shirley) we’re proud of our kids and grandkids, and three great grandsons.
AS²: I know they’re proud of you too.
PS: Yeah.
MS: Dad, did you want to tell how you start your day, everyday?
PS: I start my day with hot coffee in the morning.
MS: He makes the best hot coffee.
PS: Talking about sheep, we butchered yesterday and we had roast mutton on the grill. There were 20 people. Mostly the relatives. That’s what we experienced. And Michaela enjoyed her mutton.
AS²: I bet.
[Paul Shirley seated beside a photo of his grandson Atlas. Photo courtesy of Michaela Shirley.]
MS: Yeah. I’m the family member that has always taken the higher education route. So my daily life is very different, but every step along my journey, my family has always been very supportive of me. Whether they were offering their prayers for me, for success, or even monetarily. And now these days helping to take care of my 3-year-old when I need to do some stuff for school. But all along the way, my family has been very, very encouraging and supportive. My mom and dad have always been the ones to pay for my application fees: my undergraduate, my graduate, and now my second graduate degree for my Ph.D. program. They have always made their mark in that very special way for me. My parents and my family have always been very supportive and loving in that way. And even now, they’re always asking me questions about what the whole process is like. And that was the beauty of the morning that my dad and I got up early, after they brought home my son from him being two weeks away from me because I had to finish my comprehensive exams. My dad was the one that made coffee and was curious about what the process entailed. I showed him what I was working on at the end of this exam. I have this framework I’m trying to build, and it’s tied back to schools and how we are trying to build better communities in our reservation. Because our reservation is homelands that are very, very important to us. Thankfully, we’re an Indigenous tribe that still retains its original territories. That’s not the case for some other Indigenous peoples who’ve been removed.
PS: Relocated.
MS: Yeah. But, for us, thankfully, we are where we are from originally. So, all of my work goes back to trying to figure out strategies and ideas for how to go about our future planning. And it all does start with the teachings from my late Nali, Isabel Shirley, who is my dad’s mother that he spoke very admirably about. She comes up a lot in our stories, even in our daily lives. She was always so strong mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and there was nothing that could keep her down. So the essence of who she is as a person, I really want to keep honoring and respecting that in my work. At the same time honoring and respecting my parents, and the lands that we definitely still have. My dad plays a really big part of staying connected to the land by having a grazing permit which is how Navajos have to go about their sheep herding these days. Having to inherit a sheep permit.
AS²: Do you want to say any other words about the land that you belong to or are connected to?
MS: Well, for us, and a lot of other Diné families that practice this tradition of burying your umbilical cords and your placenta in the land. That’s something my mom and dad still do to this day for all of their grandkids and great-grandkids. No matter where you go in the world, you will always remain connected. That’s home. And that is important, because for a lot of Diné families, we end up having to out migrate to places far beyond our reservation territory boundaries. Like my dad saying “Seattle, Tulsa, Phoenix.” Those are distant places that we’ve had to go to in order to secure the best opportunities for ourselves.That’s also why the planning work I’m trying to do is ensure that we don’t have to leave our reservation in order to pursue those great opportunities. I don’t think I would have that sort of connection, or passion to our homeland, had it not been for my parents dropping us off during the summer for sheep camp.
“We were taught not to be claiming lands. Primarily, on my mom’s side through her culture. Never to say “this is my land.” All she would say is: ‘What’s 6 feet under and so many square measurements, that’s where your land is.’
- Paul Shirley
PS: For my part, pertaining to land, we were taught not to be claiming lands. Primarily, on my mom’s side, through her culture, how she really disciplined us was never to say “this is my land.” That’s not proper for her. Not a human being. But livestock that graze on the land. That is primarily what I stand with.
AS²: You don’t own the land.
PS: Yes. All she would say is: “What’s 6 feet under and so many square measurements, that’s where your land is.”
[Dolly and Paul Shirley, Michaela Shirley’s parents.]
One thing my mom stood with was: Be a man. Be a woman. Be respectful. She did not like domestic violence among families. She pretty well maintained discipline when her in-laws came about (In-laws will come in peace or us [kids would] never be there). Try to deal with positivity, and not be too negative about anything. Just be happy and have a good time with your family. That’s about it, and that’s how our grandkids are raised. They’re taught respect.
“One thing my mom stood with was: Be a man. Be a woman. Be respectful. She did not like domestic violence among families.”
-Paul Shirley
AS²: Our last question is do you feel you have an inheritance of peace?
PS: I would have to have an interpreter with education like Michaela to understand in my culture what that question is. A prime example of understanding the words . . . Most people, the majority of people, do not know the meaning of words that they talk and deal with every day. Especially the work, W-O-R-K.
AS²: You had mentioned that your Mom was walking for most of her life. I thought, is it work or walk? She was walking with the sheep for most of her life, right?
PS: Yeah. And able to understand, talk with the sheep and the dogs here. I was left alone at 10 years old with the sheep in the mountains because my mom had to participate in ceremony. And she never [had to] worry about me. I was able to talk to the sheep and the dogs and the cats. Day and night, especially at night. And I know how to deal with being scared.
AS²: How do you deal with being scared?
PS: Just tough it out. I know crying ain’t gonna solve that problem. You just have to talk to your dogs and the sheep. Get to know even the birds, or whatever animal is living out there. Ants or squirrels. Chipmunks. You just live with them, that’s it.
AS²: Live with them.
PS: One thing I forgot to tell you was that in the early morning hours at dawn, people would get thrown out. Get their sheepskin taken out from under them and get chased out. And the reason why was because of the corralling of Navajos, to participate in the long 300-mile walk to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. They used to call them “police.” The teaching was to outrun the police. “Run hard.” That was stamped deep into us, our generation. I think that’s where it ended. But before, my mom and my grandma were deeply more into that — outrunning the cavalry. And that’s why people learned how to just be quiet and to outrun any danger that comes forth. That’s primarily what the teaching was, to just to run hard in the morning and run hard every day — which was exercise, I guess.
AS²: Absolutely.
PS: All that leisure that people have to this day. Looking at television. That’s what my main teaching from my mom was: Don’t listen to any gossip. Don’t be greedy. Don’t be jealous. The Ten Commandments of the Bible, those were her teachings the majority of the time. Not to giggle or laugh in any public places. Act like a woman, not some wild girls. That’s how she disciplined the girls. And us men, the main thing she taught was not to run away from your kids. That was her primary teaching. Don’t ever gossip. Don’t ever do stupid things. You’ve got your five senses. Your ears, tongue, eyes. Mainly the ears. You have to listen to what you’re being taught. That was one goal that she lived with. Stay in shape. Get up early. Don’t gossip too much.
AS²: Love it.
PS: That’s about it. Hopefully I’ve covered everything.
[Dolly and Paul Shirley with their grandson Atlas, Michaela Shirley’s son.]
MS: I would say to help bring our conversation to a close. I really didn’t know what to think about in terms of your question “what has been my inheritance of peace?” For me, it’s very important that we amplify peace that comes in the form of love and support in your family, and with your family, and you have to protect that as much as you possibly can.
So, in terms of, the intergenerational peace. Peacekeeping, or peacemaking that my dad was talking about, started with my Nali [Isabelle Shirley] because she was in a domestic violence situation with her children. So it’s also the reason why she didn’t want to remarry, like my dad says, with another man after her husband passed away. And then there’s the second peacemaking with my dad and his upbringing and the importance of just trying to maintain that for his family.
I always take a lot of great pride in knowing that I had a childhood where I never saw my dad hit my mom, or them yell, or get angry at each other. Our home was always peaceful, and it was always clean. There was always food at home. There was always a lot of great childhood memories in terms of that peace that was there. So, now I’m the third generation of that peace, and my son is the fourth. I too want to provide him the most peace I possibly can in our home because it’s what he’s going to remember when he’s older. It’s what he’s going to carry on with him and his children later on. There is so much violence, hate, and negativity, that my dad is saying, is out there in the world.
“It’s very important that we amplify peace that comes in the form of love and support in your family, and you have to protect that as much as you possibly can.”
-Michaela Shirley
If you can have a life that’s peaceful, it’s your home. That can come within four walls. It can come within the territories that make up our territory. But yeah, peace. Where I find it is at home. And, like my mom says, “It doesn’t matter where your home is. What matters is where your family is.” We have family in a lot of places, so should I ever feel like I need to get out of any kind of danger, I know I have a strong family network that I can rely on to do that. And I think that’s pretty much how I would want to round out our conversation, as well as focusing on the peace of the home.
[Amy and Michaela in Albuquerque shortly before Atlas’s birth.]
Resources
Dine’é Bikéyah, N. D., Charley (Navajo Nation), E. V., Lopez-Huertas (Maya K’iche’), M. J., & Shirley (Navajo Nation), M. P. (2025). Restoring our tomorrow: planning for who we are. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 21(3), 540-549.
M. P. Shirley and K. Jackson, “Shí Yázhí ‘there is money underneath your fingers,’” Et Al: New Voices in Arts Management, 2022.
Biographies
Paul Shirley is a loving father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and a husband. He was born in Ganado, Arizona and resides in Kin Dah Lichii, Arizona on the Navajo Nation. Paul is Bitter Water clan born for the Coyote Pass clan. His maternal grandfather is of the Long House Hopi clan and his paternal grandfather is the Big Water clan. He is an intergenerational sheepherder and a retired heavy equipment operator. He enjoys ranching, herding sheep, movies at home and in the theater with his beloved wife, Dolly Mae Shirley.
Michaela Paulette Shirley is a doctoral candidate in American Studies at the University of New Mexico. She identifies with the Water Edge and Bitter Water clans, with her maternal grandfather from the Salt clan and her paternal grandfather from the Coyote Pass clan. She was raised in Kin Dah Lichii in northeastern Arizona on the Navajo reservation. With over ten years of experience in Indigenous planning, community development, community engagement, qualitative research, conference planning, and technical assistance training and workshops. She is currently serving as the KSU Tribal TAB Program Manager.
“Equal and inalienable rights is the foundation, justice, and peace in the world.”
- Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
This interview has been edited and condensed. Subscribe to Inheritance of Peace with Amy Shimshon-Santo on Apple Podcasts or on Substack at Warm Blooded Mammal With Hair. Theme music for this program is by Avila Santo. This series highlights survivors, everyday people from across the generations and various walks of life —poets, researchers, shepherds, healers — who discuss our Inheritance of Peace as foundational for a just society.
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By Inheritance of Peace with Amy Shimshon-SantoPROTECTING PEACE AT HOME
Creating a culture of peace can begin with the first people we know — our family. Today’s episode with Paul and Michaela Paulette Shirley focuses on familial love and support as an Inheritance of Peace. Michaela’s significant work in Indigenous Planning is shaping what is possible in community development, educational policy, and ethical research. She’s the daughter of two phenomenal people: Paul and Dolly Mae Shirley. Paul comes from a long line of Diné sheepherders and Michaela is an urban planner and doctoral candidate in American Studies. In this interview, Paul and Michaela, reflect on life lessons from Isabelle Shirley — Paul’s mother who lived for 99 years. They speak about lessons learned from family, our relations to the land and livestock; and the value of discipline, work, and protecting peace at home.
[Paul Shirley standing with his mother Isabelle Shirley. Photo courtesy Michaela Shirley.]
Michaela Shirley (MS): I am Michaela Paulette Shirley. My clans are Water Edge, born for Bitter Water. My grandparents are of the Salt and Coyote Pass clans. I am originally from Kin Dah Lichii, which means Red House in northeastern Arizona, located on the Navajo reservation. I am so happy to be here. Thank you! I’m joined by a very special guest who is very important. I’ll let him introduce himself.
Amy Shimshon-Santo (AS²): Yay! Great.
Paul Shirley (PS): I was born and raised as a sheep herder. I’ll be turning 73 next month. This little bordertown we have is along the I-40 New Mexico borderline. That’s where we’ve mostly been going to get our stuff, which is 45 miles back towards Arizona, towards Window Rock, where we come into. We’ve been at a bordertown all our lives. With my five daughters, and so many grandkids, we had to travel to Phoenix, Tulsa, Seattle and places like that once or twice a year. That’s how we come to be. Still having my grandma’s herd of sheep, which my mom took over. So, recently now, I have it, with 30 heads (of livestock).
AS²: I’m so glad to be here together. Mr. Shirley and Michaela are some of my favorite people in the world. Thank you so much for making time to be together. The next question is about what you get to do. That might be a bit different for both of you. For Paul, you mentioned sheep camp and sheep herding, and Michaela is into research and studies. What do you get to do with your life force?
MS: Okay, well, I’ll let my dad go first.
[Paul Shirley seated beside his wife Dolly, their children standing in a row behind them, on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Photo courtesy of Michaela Shirley.]
PS: All our grandkids are pretty well taken care of. So we hardly have any time with them just once in a while. Like, summertime, there’s maybe a few days. So that’s one good thing. We raised our girls to know how to take care of their own kids instead of the grandma or the grandpas doing the job for them. We’re less stressed that way. That’s what the kids like to come back to. The grandkids.
AS²: Do you want to say a bit about your grandma’s herd of sheep for people who haven’t felt what it’s like to herd sheep?
PS: Well, my mom was the only one that didn’t get her education. Her siblings, younger brothers and sisters, all went to boarding schools or wherever but she never went to school. That’s why my grandmother gave the Sheep Livestock Permit to her to take care of alongside us — being me, my two brothers, and two sisters. Five of us. We maintained my mom’s business of sheep herding. That’s primarily what our girls did, was participate with my mom during the summer at the sheep camp farther into the mountains. My mother, all she did was walk, walk, walk after the sheep all her life. That’s what put her to the age of 99. So she finally passed last year. All she stood for was disciplining. She never gave up on discipline. That’s why now, that’s what I stand with. Being able to discipline people that don’t have the right track of mind.
AS²: Mhm. And know the difference.
PS: We were totally able to get rid of people, like, what you help us get rid of that time you visited. I admire how you traveled by yourself to Albuquerque that time. All by yourself. Yeah. All our girls were like that. They know how and manage to travel by themselves. Especially our first one, the head of the girls, now had to go back to Seattle by herself. She’s a hustler like you on the highway, on the open road.
[Michaela and Atlas Shirley.]
AS²: When you gotta get someplace, you just gotta get there.
PS: Yeah. They all like doing that because they don’t want to be pampered by anybody else. They like to do it themselves.
AS²: That’s a lot of strength and will.
PS: Yeah, that’s what I’m proud of. Me and the mom (Ms. Dolly Mae Shirley) we’re proud of our kids and grandkids, and three great grandsons.
AS²: I know they’re proud of you too.
PS: Yeah.
MS: Dad, did you want to tell how you start your day, everyday?
PS: I start my day with hot coffee in the morning.
MS: He makes the best hot coffee.
PS: Talking about sheep, we butchered yesterday and we had roast mutton on the grill. There were 20 people. Mostly the relatives. That’s what we experienced. And Michaela enjoyed her mutton.
AS²: I bet.
[Paul Shirley seated beside a photo of his grandson Atlas. Photo courtesy of Michaela Shirley.]
MS: Yeah. I’m the family member that has always taken the higher education route. So my daily life is very different, but every step along my journey, my family has always been very supportive of me. Whether they were offering their prayers for me, for success, or even monetarily. And now these days helping to take care of my 3-year-old when I need to do some stuff for school. But all along the way, my family has been very, very encouraging and supportive. My mom and dad have always been the ones to pay for my application fees: my undergraduate, my graduate, and now my second graduate degree for my Ph.D. program. They have always made their mark in that very special way for me. My parents and my family have always been very supportive and loving in that way. And even now, they’re always asking me questions about what the whole process is like. And that was the beauty of the morning that my dad and I got up early, after they brought home my son from him being two weeks away from me because I had to finish my comprehensive exams. My dad was the one that made coffee and was curious about what the process entailed. I showed him what I was working on at the end of this exam. I have this framework I’m trying to build, and it’s tied back to schools and how we are trying to build better communities in our reservation. Because our reservation is homelands that are very, very important to us. Thankfully, we’re an Indigenous tribe that still retains its original territories. That’s not the case for some other Indigenous peoples who’ve been removed.
PS: Relocated.
MS: Yeah. But, for us, thankfully, we are where we are from originally. So, all of my work goes back to trying to figure out strategies and ideas for how to go about our future planning. And it all does start with the teachings from my late Nali, Isabel Shirley, who is my dad’s mother that he spoke very admirably about. She comes up a lot in our stories, even in our daily lives. She was always so strong mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and there was nothing that could keep her down. So the essence of who she is as a person, I really want to keep honoring and respecting that in my work. At the same time honoring and respecting my parents, and the lands that we definitely still have. My dad plays a really big part of staying connected to the land by having a grazing permit which is how Navajos have to go about their sheep herding these days. Having to inherit a sheep permit.
AS²: Do you want to say any other words about the land that you belong to or are connected to?
MS: Well, for us, and a lot of other Diné families that practice this tradition of burying your umbilical cords and your placenta in the land. That’s something my mom and dad still do to this day for all of their grandkids and great-grandkids. No matter where you go in the world, you will always remain connected. That’s home. And that is important, because for a lot of Diné families, we end up having to out migrate to places far beyond our reservation territory boundaries. Like my dad saying “Seattle, Tulsa, Phoenix.” Those are distant places that we’ve had to go to in order to secure the best opportunities for ourselves.That’s also why the planning work I’m trying to do is ensure that we don’t have to leave our reservation in order to pursue those great opportunities. I don’t think I would have that sort of connection, or passion to our homeland, had it not been for my parents dropping us off during the summer for sheep camp.
“We were taught not to be claiming lands. Primarily, on my mom’s side through her culture. Never to say “this is my land.” All she would say is: ‘What’s 6 feet under and so many square measurements, that’s where your land is.’
- Paul Shirley
PS: For my part, pertaining to land, we were taught not to be claiming lands. Primarily, on my mom’s side, through her culture, how she really disciplined us was never to say “this is my land.” That’s not proper for her. Not a human being. But livestock that graze on the land. That is primarily what I stand with.
AS²: You don’t own the land.
PS: Yes. All she would say is: “What’s 6 feet under and so many square measurements, that’s where your land is.”
[Dolly and Paul Shirley, Michaela Shirley’s parents.]
One thing my mom stood with was: Be a man. Be a woman. Be respectful. She did not like domestic violence among families. She pretty well maintained discipline when her in-laws came about (In-laws will come in peace or us [kids would] never be there). Try to deal with positivity, and not be too negative about anything. Just be happy and have a good time with your family. That’s about it, and that’s how our grandkids are raised. They’re taught respect.
“One thing my mom stood with was: Be a man. Be a woman. Be respectful. She did not like domestic violence among families.”
-Paul Shirley
AS²: Our last question is do you feel you have an inheritance of peace?
PS: I would have to have an interpreter with education like Michaela to understand in my culture what that question is. A prime example of understanding the words . . . Most people, the majority of people, do not know the meaning of words that they talk and deal with every day. Especially the work, W-O-R-K.
AS²: You had mentioned that your Mom was walking for most of her life. I thought, is it work or walk? She was walking with the sheep for most of her life, right?
PS: Yeah. And able to understand, talk with the sheep and the dogs here. I was left alone at 10 years old with the sheep in the mountains because my mom had to participate in ceremony. And she never [had to] worry about me. I was able to talk to the sheep and the dogs and the cats. Day and night, especially at night. And I know how to deal with being scared.
AS²: How do you deal with being scared?
PS: Just tough it out. I know crying ain’t gonna solve that problem. You just have to talk to your dogs and the sheep. Get to know even the birds, or whatever animal is living out there. Ants or squirrels. Chipmunks. You just live with them, that’s it.
AS²: Live with them.
PS: One thing I forgot to tell you was that in the early morning hours at dawn, people would get thrown out. Get their sheepskin taken out from under them and get chased out. And the reason why was because of the corralling of Navajos, to participate in the long 300-mile walk to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. They used to call them “police.” The teaching was to outrun the police. “Run hard.” That was stamped deep into us, our generation. I think that’s where it ended. But before, my mom and my grandma were deeply more into that — outrunning the cavalry. And that’s why people learned how to just be quiet and to outrun any danger that comes forth. That’s primarily what the teaching was, to just to run hard in the morning and run hard every day — which was exercise, I guess.
AS²: Absolutely.
PS: All that leisure that people have to this day. Looking at television. That’s what my main teaching from my mom was: Don’t listen to any gossip. Don’t be greedy. Don’t be jealous. The Ten Commandments of the Bible, those were her teachings the majority of the time. Not to giggle or laugh in any public places. Act like a woman, not some wild girls. That’s how she disciplined the girls. And us men, the main thing she taught was not to run away from your kids. That was her primary teaching. Don’t ever gossip. Don’t ever do stupid things. You’ve got your five senses. Your ears, tongue, eyes. Mainly the ears. You have to listen to what you’re being taught. That was one goal that she lived with. Stay in shape. Get up early. Don’t gossip too much.
AS²: Love it.
PS: That’s about it. Hopefully I’ve covered everything.
[Dolly and Paul Shirley with their grandson Atlas, Michaela Shirley’s son.]
MS: I would say to help bring our conversation to a close. I really didn’t know what to think about in terms of your question “what has been my inheritance of peace?” For me, it’s very important that we amplify peace that comes in the form of love and support in your family, and with your family, and you have to protect that as much as you possibly can.
So, in terms of, the intergenerational peace. Peacekeeping, or peacemaking that my dad was talking about, started with my Nali [Isabelle Shirley] because she was in a domestic violence situation with her children. So it’s also the reason why she didn’t want to remarry, like my dad says, with another man after her husband passed away. And then there’s the second peacemaking with my dad and his upbringing and the importance of just trying to maintain that for his family.
I always take a lot of great pride in knowing that I had a childhood where I never saw my dad hit my mom, or them yell, or get angry at each other. Our home was always peaceful, and it was always clean. There was always food at home. There was always a lot of great childhood memories in terms of that peace that was there. So, now I’m the third generation of that peace, and my son is the fourth. I too want to provide him the most peace I possibly can in our home because it’s what he’s going to remember when he’s older. It’s what he’s going to carry on with him and his children later on. There is so much violence, hate, and negativity, that my dad is saying, is out there in the world.
“It’s very important that we amplify peace that comes in the form of love and support in your family, and you have to protect that as much as you possibly can.”
-Michaela Shirley
If you can have a life that’s peaceful, it’s your home. That can come within four walls. It can come within the territories that make up our territory. But yeah, peace. Where I find it is at home. And, like my mom says, “It doesn’t matter where your home is. What matters is where your family is.” We have family in a lot of places, so should I ever feel like I need to get out of any kind of danger, I know I have a strong family network that I can rely on to do that. And I think that’s pretty much how I would want to round out our conversation, as well as focusing on the peace of the home.
[Amy and Michaela in Albuquerque shortly before Atlas’s birth.]
Resources
Dine’é Bikéyah, N. D., Charley (Navajo Nation), E. V., Lopez-Huertas (Maya K’iche’), M. J., & Shirley (Navajo Nation), M. P. (2025). Restoring our tomorrow: planning for who we are. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 21(3), 540-549.
M. P. Shirley and K. Jackson, “Shí Yázhí ‘there is money underneath your fingers,’” Et Al: New Voices in Arts Management, 2022.
Biographies
Paul Shirley is a loving father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and a husband. He was born in Ganado, Arizona and resides in Kin Dah Lichii, Arizona on the Navajo Nation. Paul is Bitter Water clan born for the Coyote Pass clan. His maternal grandfather is of the Long House Hopi clan and his paternal grandfather is the Big Water clan. He is an intergenerational sheepherder and a retired heavy equipment operator. He enjoys ranching, herding sheep, movies at home and in the theater with his beloved wife, Dolly Mae Shirley.
Michaela Paulette Shirley is a doctoral candidate in American Studies at the University of New Mexico. She identifies with the Water Edge and Bitter Water clans, with her maternal grandfather from the Salt clan and her paternal grandfather from the Coyote Pass clan. She was raised in Kin Dah Lichii in northeastern Arizona on the Navajo reservation. With over ten years of experience in Indigenous planning, community development, community engagement, qualitative research, conference planning, and technical assistance training and workshops. She is currently serving as the KSU Tribal TAB Program Manager.
“Equal and inalienable rights is the foundation, justice, and peace in the world.”
- Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
This interview has been edited and condensed. Subscribe to Inheritance of Peace with Amy Shimshon-Santo on Apple Podcasts or on Substack at Warm Blooded Mammal With Hair. Theme music for this program is by Avila Santo. This series highlights survivors, everyday people from across the generations and various walks of life —poets, researchers, shepherds, healers — who discuss our Inheritance of Peace as foundational for a just society.
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