Conceptualizing Tribal Cooperatives in their Purest Form

REGISTRATION: 

Members of the Cooperative Professionals Guild and members of the Just Transition Lawyering Institute attend free. This activity has been approved for 1.5 hours of CLE credit in California.

DESCRIPTION:

Panelists will discuss the ideal tribal cooperative from a Diné point of view, and some challenges faced when forming enterprises under available laws. This will be followed by a short participant discussion focused on potential solutions.

PANELISTS:

HERB YAZZIE is retired Chief Justice of the Navajo Nation, serving from April, 2005 - May, 2015. He is now a farmer and rancher. Retired Chief Justice comes from the community of Dennehotso, Tábạạhí clan, born for Kinłichíchíi’nii, Tó’áhaní (maternal grandparents) and Tódích’íi’nii (paternal grandparents). He served as attorney for DNA People's Legal Services and was legal counsel for the Kayenta Township. He was a school board member of the school at his community and later a member of the Executive Board of the Navajo Area School Board Association. He has also served the Navajo Nation as its Attorney General and as its Chief Legislative Counsel and was an attorney for the Yavapai-Apache Nation. Retired Chief Justice is a military veteran, serving a tour in Vietnam as an Army lieutenant. He is a 1975 graduate of Arizona State University College of Law. He is a founding board member of Indian Country Grassroots Support. 

DONNA HOUSE is a Diné/Oneida Native American advocate for bio-cultural diversity and a contributing designer of the National Museum of the American Indian. Donna was born in Washington, D.C., where her father was a guard at The Pentagon, and grew up on the Navajo Nation at Oak Springs and later Fort Defiance, Arizona. She is "of the Towering House People Clan of the Diné and Turtle Clan of the Oneida." Donna was born into a family of nine children and raised by traditional Navajo values. She went to the University of Utah and became the first person from Oak Springs to graduate from university. She initially read molecular biology and wanted to become a doctor, however she then changed major to environmental science to investigate the relationships between people and the land around them. 

GLORIA DENNISON is a sheepherder and matriarch in Naschitti Chapter on the Navajo Nation who well understands that the restrictions, whether on the size of her herd or the use of her land, represent more than just an inconvenience, but rather a fundamental intrusion on a traditional Navajo way of life. As a Diné, the issues surrounding the use of Dennison’s land strike not only to her occupation, but to her cultural identity. As ranchers and livestock owners within the Navajo Nation seek out resolution to the issues surrounding their livelihoods, the answers they seek will ultimately decide more than just how they work, but how whether they can live in a manner consistent with their cultural identity.