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The Photographs of Milton Snow and the Making of the Modern Navajo Nation, 1937-1959 with Jennifer Denetdale

Photographs of Diné/Navajo date to the Hwéeldi period,1863-1868, and reflect Diné under American occupation of the Southwest. Photographs of Diné, like images of other Indigenous peoples, read through the lens of settler colonialism suggest that Indigenous peoples are always works-in-progress and who must always necessarily be re-engineered into citizens, not only of their always in progress own nation, but of the American democratic nation as well. This presentation examines the photographs of Milton Snow who was hired by the Navajo Service to photograph the environmental devastation to Navajo land in the aftermath of Indian Commissioner John Collier’s draconian livestock reduction of the 1930s and 40s. Collier’s policies intended to rehabilitate Navajo land and to provide Navajos with technical and agricultural knowledge that would improve the land and also revitalize the economy, which had been heavily dependent on livestock raising. My proposed project showcases the Snow photographs to argue that an American progressive reform project for Navajos proposed to remake them into reflections of American citizens who embrace democratic ideals, from land use to governance to the family and domestic.Ìý

Jennifer Denetdale (Diné) is a professor and chair of American Studies at the University of New Mexico. She is the chair of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission. She has several research projects that she is currently working on and privileges community-based scholarship.Ìý

This event will be on Tuesday, February 21st from 4:00pm - 6:00pm in UMC 386. ThisÌýevent is generously co-sponsored by History Department and Center of the American West.

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