WINDOW ROCK — Crystalyne Curley has been elected the first woman president of the Navajo Nation, according to The Associated Press, breaking a barrier in the largest tribal land base in the United States.
Curley told the AP her political ambition began on a third-grade field trip to the Navajo Nation Council, where she watched a heated debate between two tribal lawmakers. “I thought to myself at a very young age, that’s where I want to be,” she said.
“This is a win for all Navajo women,” Curley told the AP.
The Navajo Nation spans about 27,000 square miles across Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and its population is second only to the Cherokee Nation’s, the AP reported. Its modern centralized government has been led by men since it was established more than a century ago.
Curley’s win came in an election that brought several milestones for Native American women. According to the AP, Peggy Flanagan became the first Native American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, and Deb Haaland became the first to win a state governorship.
Jordan James Harvill, a Cherokee Nation citizen and strategist with the group Advance Native Political Leadership, told the AP that decades of organizing are paying off. “This is a seismic shift that is happening in our communities,” he said.
Navajo voter Lene Bitsui told the AP she backed Curley but was pessimistic when she cast her ballot. “I thought our people weren’t ready for a female president,” she said. “I was wrong, and I feel so happy to have been wrong.”
Sources: KTAR News / The Associated Press. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: Arnaldo Faustini Italian-born geographer (1872–1944) / Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
