Thank you, Frances, for that very beautiful and generous
introduction.
It's good to be here.
Thank you for coming out and to all the organizations that
helped put this event together.
I don't remember everyone's names, sorry.
But you've been treating me so well.
I feel like a star.
I'm glad to be here, and I want to introduce myself in my own
language, because I know there are some Diné students
in the audience.
[SPEAKING DINÉ BIZAAD]
I'm sorry.
Let's start over here.
[SPEAKING DINÉ BIZAAD]
What I said is that I gave you my clans.
I am Sleepy Rock People clan, born for the Bitter Water clan.
And I have two grandfather clans.
One is the Laguna People and Sun Clan People.
And my other grandfather clan are the Coyote Pass People.
My family's originally from Lupton, Arizona.
And my parents are both moved on.
My mother was instrumental in me becoming a writer.
My father was in World War II, and was
one of the code talkers.
I have two sons.
And you probably heard the part about me teaching at ASU.
You probably understood that.
But I'm very happy to be here.
And I want to share some of my older words that I've done
and some of my new work that I'm almost finished,
a manuscript of poetry and stories about Canyon De Chelly
up in northeastern Arizona on the Navajo reservation.
And I'm collaborating this work with Stephen Strom, who I'm
glad to see here this evening.
And I put him on the spot earlier
and asked him if he could come up and say a few words
about his photography.
He does very beautiful work.
And he said he thought he was just
going to come here and sort of melt into the audience.
But now he has to come up and say a little bit
about his work.