All of us stood there in silence. Most of us did not know any words in English. Those who did know some English words were so shocked that they could not remember any of them. Finally, Mr. Jacob Benally helped us.

“Children,” he said in Navajo, “here is a word of greeting that you can say. Watch how I hold my mouth and then repeat it after me. Heh-low. Heh-low.”

All of us did as he said. We opened our mouths and made those two sounds. “Heh-low, heh-low, heh-low.”

We hoped that this kind Navajo man would stay with us and keep talking Navajo. His job as an interpreter, though, was for one day and one day only. After that he went back to working in the stables and speaking broken English.

The only way left to us was to speak English. Thinking back on it, years later, I see now that it was a good policy in one sense. In the weeks that followed, we learned English much more quickly because we could not use our native tongue. But I can never forget how sad it made me feel when I learned enough English to understand what the angry, red white man, whose name was Principal O’Sullivan, had to say about our sacred language and our whole Navajo culture.

“Navajo is no good, of no use at all!” Principal O’Sullivan shouted at us every day. “Only English will help you get ahead in this world!”

Although the teachers at the school spoke in quieter tones than our principal, they all said the same. It was no good to speak Navajo or be Navajo. Everything about us that was Indian had to be forgotten.

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