Funding for New Mexico in Focus is provided by viewers like you.

This week on New Mexico in Focus: suspended reality.

A new state report finds indigenous and Hispanic students in Gallup are disciplined far more severely than their white peers.

>>Greyeyes: And sometimes when you talk to these students who have been disciplined, they do feel that sense of shame.

They feel embarrassed, they don't want to publicly talk about it to.

>>Nash: And a historic indigenous water rights deal gets caught in the stalemate.

New Mexico in Focus starts now.

Welcome to New Mexico in focus, I'm Nash Jones.

On tonight's show we are going to welcome back KUNM reporter Jeanette Dedios who's had her eye on the largest tribal water rights settlement in U.S.

history.

The years long negotiations over Colorado River water has hit a snag due to opposition by four states, including New Mexico.

Later this hour, Janette sits down with a law professor to discuss what's being proposed, where the pushback is coming from, and the potential impact on native families who lack running water were this political dam to break.

Also tonight, you are going to get the chance to meet the US Poet Laureate who, if you didn't know, lives in Santa Fe.

Arthur Sze sits down with our own Lou DiVizio to discuss his work, the world translation plays, and how he's approached the position and why he has found a home here in New Mexico.

But first, we are going to dive into a stunning report.

Years in the making from the New Mexico Department of Justice entitled Forced Out How Exclusionary and Disparate Disciplinary Practices at Gallup McKinley County Schools rob students of instructional time.

In it, the agency says the district students are suspended for at least twice as many days as the statewide average.

That's despite breaking similar rules at a similar frequency, and not all students are receiving the same punishments, the investigation found.

Native American students have, at worst, getting suspended for about 8 to 10 times as many school days as their white peers, and Hispanic students missed 3 to 4 times as many days.

Attorney General Raul Torres said in a statement, quote, our investigation found that Gallup McKinley County Schools relies too heavily on exclusionary discipline and that these practices disproportionately affect Native American and Hispanic students.

The loss of instructional time has real consequences for academic success and future opportunity.

This report is intended to provide a roadmap for reforms that promote accountability, fairness, and better outcomes for students.

The AG's investigation followed investigative reporting by New Mexico In Depth and ProPublica that was published back in 2022, and the state's findings corroborate what those journalists uncovered.

So we thought, who better to lead a conversation about these new findings and recommendations, then New Mexico in Depth█s Executive Director Trip Jennings.

He's joined by Wendy Grey-Eyes, UNM associate professor of Native American studies and chair of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission, to unpack the report.

Here's Trip, >> Trip: Doctor gray eyes.

Thanks for joining me to talk about this important subject.

You are the chairperson for the Human Rights Commission of the Navajo Nation.

You guys also put out a report.

And I'm just wondering what you guys found is maybe some of the problems that you encountered.

>> Greyeyes: Sure.

So we hosted for hearings on the Navajo Nation, and those were in chapter communities that fall within the Gallup McKinley County School District.

And we had parents and teachers, community members come out to speak to these issues.

We were also grateful that the superintendent, the former Mike Hiatt, had also joined us at that time, as well as Kevin Mitchell, who serves as the school board president.

They didn't make any comments.

But, you know, I know that the whole focus of the public hearings was really around school disciplinary action, but parents who saw them there felt like there would be some type of retaliation.

So, you know, they felt pretty silenced.

But other issues came up around the disparities around school funding, the lack of access to culturally grounded teachers, the access to transportation within many of the schools.

But also, you know, there were some life safety issues in terms of students being subjected to really, really cold buildings during the winter or really, really hot buildings in the summer.

And all of that impacts student learning.

And so many of these issues we did bring up to the superintendent after the public hearings did occur.

And so ultimately, you know, many of the people who came, they were very upset.

We gave people time to speak and people were crying.

They were voicing their concerns.

I mean, that was rooted not just in that one moment, but deep seated experience of people who graduated from Gallup, McKinley County School District or even left and dropped out.

And they talked about some of those situations.

And so, you know, this was a chance for us to learn more.

And we had previously tried to work with the attorney General's office to host these previous nine public hearings, but they ended up pretty much bailing on the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission and asking and us taking that responsibility of doing the four hearings in those communities.

And we learned a lot.

We really found a lot of problematic issues.

And that led to our recommendations.

>> Trip: So we should point out that the district is really large.

It's larger than the state of Delaware, to give some perspective for folks.

And 70 roughly 70% of the students are Native American indigenous, and most of that population is Navajo.

Furthermore, it's like half the schools are actually on the Navajo Nation and half the schools are not.

So that's kind of also, you know, you guys did do these public hearings at the chapter houses.

So you were on the nation.

So you were hearing from people probably who were going to these schools that were majority Navajo.

Is that correct?

>> Greyeyes: Yeah.

Yeah, and, you know, Gallup, McKinley County School District does have one of the highest American Indian population.

But, you know, there's a lot of demographics that are shared locally as well.

And I think that's one of the powerful things that the AG report found is they compared these harsh disciplinary actions against Native Americans to other school districts with similar demographics, meaning high numbers of American Indian students, but also the same level of rural community structures.

And so, you know, most of those school districts did not have those same high rates.

And they also had some of those schools actually had better best practices in place to help support American Indian students attending their schools.

So there is definitely a very robust, very deep analysis that the Attorney General's office did in terms of finalizing this report and releasing it publicly.

>> Trip: You know, we met back in 2023 when New Mexico in Depth in Pueblo hosted an event.

In sitting and talking with folks, even outside the room.

There was a woman who had gone to boarding schools and it she was she was visibly moved by some of the stories, saying that this kind of reminded her of her experiences at the boarding schools.

So there's what we are talking about is is much deeper and has a longer history than just as school district.

Right.

Is that how you view that?

>> Greyeyes: I do I view a lot of the situation, the practices of being able of just kind of being very quickly responsive to these students.

I think a lot of it is based in stereotypes and bias that people have about Native Americans, especially students who have some behavioral issues.

And, you know, one one statement that was brought about that session was a grandma who talked about how she was raising her grandkids to attend McKinley County School District.

She didn't have the resources.

She didn't have the education and not knowing how to support them very well.

And so that's part of the issue, is that families aren't being told what their rights are in order to protect and defend their students when they actually encounter some disciplinary action.

And so there's a lot of education that needs to happen.

Many of these grandparents are primarily Navajo speakers.

And so, you know, educating them about what their rights are, both as grandparents, guardians, parents of these students, but also most importantly, telling students what their rights are in terms of being able to defend themselves.

Because Gallup McKinley County School District is a large school system.

It's very spread out throughout Gallup, throughout the northern part of New Mexico, and it is hard to find things.

I mean, we had a meeting with the superintendent back in November.

I got one of the schools confused, and I didn't realize, you know, I was not at the school district administrative building.

And it is it's a very complex structure and it is intimidating.

I can imagine it's intimidating for grandparents who never finish school.

And so there's a lot of that systematic issues that encounter, that these grandparents encounter and these parents encounter that creates a sense of intimidation.

And sometimes when you talk to these students who have been disciplined, they do feel that sense of shame.

They feel embarrassed.

They don't want to publicly talk about it, too.

And the expectation of actually having a public hearing about it and having students voice that, I mean, that's that's not something that students want to talk about.

So these meetings actually have to have happen internally.

And this is where that data really captures the essence of that.

And many of them don't want to come out.

I know in in New Mexico, in-depth had gone to Gallup Flea market to try to find people to talk about these issues.

People didn't want to talk about it because it's not a fun topic to talk talk about it.

>> Trip: Yeah, we try to find people who would talk about this and it took a lot of effort.

I want to go back to something you were talking about with the maybe the children who were punished feeling shame.

What did the discipline look like at Gallup?

McKinley?

>> Greyeyes: Yeah so a lot of the disciplinary action that was described in the report and mentioned by families as a lot of this was out of school suspensions, meaning they weren't allowed to contact other students.

They weren't allowed to be back on the premise on the school campus.

You know, there was some days they were up to ten days of out of school suspension.

I mean, these were just very reactive, automatic school disciplinary action.

And that's something that the report actually identifies is that the school disciplinary disciplinary policy at McKinley County School District is very automatic.

But in terms of how it's utilized, the interpretation of who actually determines that, it's not quite clear who's responsible, but who.

But clearly what's what's what's visible in terms of the report is that Native American students suffer a higher rate of harsher disciplinary action than their white peers.

And I think that's a very important point, because it's also for the same type of infractions.

So those two student groups are being treated completely differently.

>> Trip: Maybe the indigenous students are maybe at home or whatever, right?

Instead of being in school and reading the report, it leads to feelings of isolation, all sorts of things.

>> Greyeyes: Yeah, absolutely.

>> Trip: Thank you.

>> Greyeyes: Thank you.

>>Sze: Poetry and translation bring people together.

It crosses boundaries.

It crosses age, divides cultures, languages.

The poetry speaks to everyone, and it has a crucial role to play right now.

When we live in such a fast paced and divisive and challenged and challenging world.

>>Nash: Lou█s conversation with US Poet Laureate Arthur Sze on his poetry and the art of translation, and he's coming up in less than 15 minutes.

But first, a water rights deal that affects nearly 40 million people is at a stalemate.

The Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act, if approved by Congress, would be the largest tribal water rights settlement in U.S.

history, and it would provide much needed water for the Navajo Nation, as well as the Hopi and San Juan Southern Paiute tribes.

It would also invest 5 billion in federal dollars to help build the infrastructure needed to transport that water.

Additionally, the legislation would create a reservation, a permanent homeland for the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe.

So what's holding it up?

Well, negotiators at the table from New Mexico, as well as Colorado, Utah and Wyoming have taken issue with a provision that would allow the Navajo Nation to lease some of its water to nearby cities outside of its reservation.

KUNM reporter Jeanette Dedios has been following this complicated story on water rights and tribal sovereignty.

And this week, she sits down with Heather Tanana, an assistant law professor at the University of Denver, to break down the many details of the settlement and discuss how life changing this deal would be if it went through.

Here's Jeanette Heather Tanana it's great to have you.

Welcome to New Mexico in Focus.

>> Tanana: Thanks so much.

Glad to be here.

>> Jeanette: All right.

Let's go ahead and get started.

So at least for me, the ProPublica piece was what really turned my attention to what was happening with the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act.

Heather, for those who didn't read the story, do you mind giving the viewers a lowdown on what's been happening?

>> Tanana: Yeah, so there's a lot that goes into it.

But at its core, it's really getting at tribal sovereignty and tribal water rights.

So tribes, in order to exercise these water rights that are legal, have been legally acknowledged since 1908.

You either have to go to the court and adjudicate your right, or you have to reach a settlement.

And so that's what three tribes did.

San Juan, Southern Paiute, the Hopi Tribe, and Navajo Nation.

These are outstanding rights that they've been trying to reach an agreement on for literally decades.

And so it's a really big deal that an agreement was reached with the state of Arizona, over 20 different parties.

Again, these three tribes and the federal government.

And so the next step is getting that congressional approval.

And so it's been introduced twice.

This is the second time, and I think we're all really crossing our fingers that will make it over this final hurdle, because it'll secure much needed water for Hopi Navajo and give reservation lands to the San Juan Southern Paiute.

So really important.

>> Jeanette: And when we're really talking about this water, settlement it really goes back to the 1908 Supreme Court case that gives tribes the right to water as part as as part of the federal government's trust responsibility.

Walk me through how that's supposed to work.

>> Tanana: Yeah, absolutely.

So this is the 1908 U.S.

Supreme Court case, winters versus United States.

And it's really well established and recognized, right?

The federal government removed tribes westward to open up the land for settlement, restricted them onto these reservations.

But when they did that, they acknowledged that those reservations were supposed to be permanent homelands where the tribe and their community could prosper, thrive, and live forever into the future.

Well, you need water for that.

And so the winters case recognize that tribes, they hold sufficient water rights to meet the purpose of their reservation, and one of those is a permanent homeland.

There could be other purposes, for sure.

Right.

But at a minimum, it's a permanent homeland.

And that means we've got to support these families.

We've got to support economic development and the ability to live.

>> Jeanette: So what's the current proposal on the table?

>> Tanana: Yeah.

So the north eastern and it totally is a mouthful.

Northeastern Indian, northeastern Arizona Indian water rights settlement.

What it does is it's resolving these water right.

Claims that Hopi and Navajo have the Little Colorado River to the main stem Colorado River.

There's aquifers, other water sources as well.

And one of the really unique proposals in contested area is that it's allowing Navajo Nation tribes to utilize water from the upper basin, in the lower basin, and vice versa, to store some of the water and Lake Powell.

And so this is where we get the backdrop of what's happening right now in the Colorado River, whole complex area.

Well, they call it the law of the river that governs the use and apportionment of the Colorado River.

And so that's kind of hanging there in the backdrop.

But put simply, again, really important project for the tribes to finally quantify and be able to access that water with infrastructure projects.

>> Jeanette: And what has been the central conflict holding this water settlement back?

>> Tanana: Yeah.

So we actually had a hearing just back in March before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and we heard testimony from all three of the tribal leaders about how important this settlement is to their communities and how necessary it is for their survival.

Again, economic growth and benefit.

At the same time, we also had the upper basin state.

So that includes New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming who submitted these letters to the Senate committee.

And they all kind of said the same thing.

They said, you know, we recognized tribes have water rights.

It's important to settle and to quantify those.

But as upper basin states, we have concerns, concerns that their water would be impacted and that it's doing something that hadn't been done before.

This exchange of inner basin tribal water in the upper or lower and vice versa, and their concern that that would create some kind of negative precedent and just being able to account for, as I mentioned before, in this broader Colorado River governance.

And so that seems to be the primary hangup as Congress kind of holding on the Senate committee until there's agreement among the basin states to move it forward.

>> Jeanette: And the upper basin states say that the Navajo Nation's ability to lease the water could create a precedent for other tribes to do the same.

How realistic is this and what would it be the issue if it does?

>> Jeanette: Yeah.

Again, it gets a little disingenuous when we're talking about the law of the River and the original 1922 compact that made this division of the upper and lower well, Navajos right there in the middle.

They cross the upper basin and the lower basin.

And this is exactly what Navajo President Buu Nygrn fed in his testimony.

It's a unique situation.

Navajo is the only tribe to cross the basins.

And so does it really set up a precedent when it can't happen again?

And it's really important to remember that in the 1922 compact.

And really, until the last five years or so, tribes have not been involved in Colorado River governance at all.

The 1922 compact actually includes a provision that says nothing in this compact shall be construed as affecting the obligations of the United States to the Indian tribes.

So they weren't included in the law and tying use the law of the river now as a way to prevent them from exercising these legally recognized tribal water.

Right.

I think is a little problematic.

>> Jeanette: And let me ask you this as well.

How have the three tribes proposed to counteroffer the original proposal in regard to water leasing?

>> Tanana: Yeah.

So there were in recognition of these concerns, they put limits on it this second time that the bill was introduced to really kind of clarified that this is a short term arrangement.

It's limited in geographic scope as well.

They're really trying to help what many scientists and other Colorado River professionals have recognized as a crisis right now, in this moment that the river is over allocated.

The system is that threat of failure any day.

And so this is a solution that can really help and benefit everyone.

>> Jeanette: And, Heather, can you walk me through the process of what tribes typically have to do in order to get access from the federal government?

>> Tanana: Yeah.

So this is a really interesting area where tribes and the federal government and really all the parties have pursued settlement.

Certainly, it's been the federal position since 1990s.

That settlement is a better way to resolve tribal water rights than going through the courts.

Supposed to be less costly, supposed to be faster, although it still takes decades.

And what we are really able to achieve through settlements that you can't if you go through the courts, are infrastructure projects.

And so I think, you know, again, in recognition of the federal treaty and trust responsibilitie to tribes, right, that they gave up millions and millions of acres of land to be restricted on reservations, often in arid areas, that the government has a duty to protect them and to ensure their survival.

And so, again, going back.

Water is life.

Water is necessary for everything.

And so even if you get, you know, quantification on paper, the tribe can't put that to use.

They need those infrastructure projects to bring in the water to provide services.

And so that's again, another big component about this settlement is it includes some large infrastructure projects that will be life changing for Navajo and Hopi.

>> Jeanette: And we're talking logistically about this act on the federal level, on the state level.

But, Heather, how are tribal members on the Navajo Nation currently finding and sourcing water?

>> Tanana: It's a struggle.

I mean, it's a daily struggle you█re Dine Right?

You or someone close to you and your family is hauling water right now.

Just the average American today uses 100 gallons.

If you took a really quick five minute shower today, you probably used about 12.5 gallons of water.

That is more than the average Navajo water hauler who uses seven gallons a day.

Some even have to confine down to two.

So I encourage you to think about your water usage today.

How in the world are you going to meet all of your needs on seven gallons a day?

We have Navajo families where their children are going to bed thirsty because they have to conserve that water.

It's just more costly.

Aside from the public health challenges, right?

It's wearing.

To go and haul water from the source point takes time out of your day to do it really, really challenging.

And so that's the state right now.

Navajo and Hopi families, both of their tribal leaders, testify before Congress.

About 30% of their tribal members are having a haul water to meet their daily needs.

>> Jeanette: So if this bill were to pass, how would that impact people living on the Navajo reservation?

>> Tanana: And it's the infrastructure projects that are going to bring water into the community.

So help facilitate more connections, cut down the number of haulers who are out there, help support economic development in these communities.

Right.

Again, it's just so necessary for them to thrive, let alone the cultural kind of component as well.

And the way that we've managed water in the United States following the Western law prior appropriation.

It's all about use for consumption and economic gain.

And that's, you know, you need water to support all industries.

But for many of our tribal communities, including Navajo, Hopi, Salem and Southern Paiute, there's also that relational aspect as well.

And by quantifying their rights, they can govern their water with their traditional fundamental laws and recognize and honor that relation as well.

>> Jeanette: So does Congress have the authority to, let's say, today to pass this act without consulting these states or these federal tribes?

>> Tanana: Yeah.

Absolutely.

Right.

An agreement was reached between the parties who had an interest, who had a stake in their Arizona and all these other entities who had claims to the water.

That's at issue.

Now, it's good to get consensus and agreement and the basin and kind of the broader Colorado River issues that are going on.

But it's all the senators that are going to be voting on this at the Senate bill with what moves ahead.

Right.

And so I think, you know, it's up to that committee, Senate Committee of Indian Affairs, to move it forward.

They've heard from the tribal leaders about this need.

They heard from the federal employees as well about the treaty.

Trust, responsibility and obligations needs to be moved forward.

>> Jeanette: So with all that said, why has it taken this long to propose and to agree on a settlement?

>> Tanana: I mean, that's such a good question, but I think, quite frankly, it's because there's powerful interests at play.

If we look at, again, the basin, it's over allocated.

We do not have enough water to meet all of the needs.

And so as a practical matter, the water that these tribes are going to be utilized, it's going to cut off someone else who is already using that water.

And I think that creates tensions.

But we have to go back to, again, kind of this recognition that the tribes, they're sovereigns.

This isn't like a charity project.

This is a legal obligation that's owed to them, and it's something that others have been taking advantage of.

We've had tribal water being used by other non-tribal users for free.

And just think of how much we paid under the bipartisan Infrastructure Law Inflation Reduction Act.

All these farmers and other users got money to help stabilize the system.

This is really just kind of allowing tribes to be on an equal foot as other users.

>> Jeanette: So looking forward, what should people keep an eye on regarding this bill?

>> Tanana: You know, I think regardless of what state you're in, contact your representative.

All you care about this matter that all Americans are entitled and should have access to clean, safe running water in their home.

We just celebrated, you know, the 4th of July and all the wonderful things about this country.

Well, I think we should show that we care about one another as well.

And so to support the human rights of water and exercise, you know, the democratic process, to let your representative know that this is an issue important to you.

>> Jeanette: Heather Tanana I appreciate you taking the time.

>> Tanana: Thank you, yay.

Thank you to KUNM█s Jeannette Dedios for that interview and to Heather Tanana for coming on to talk tribal water rights.

Now let's get back to that attorney general report detailing disproportionate discipline against Native and Hispanic students in the Gallup McKinley County School District.

Earlier, New Mexico in-depth Executive Director Trip Jennings and Professor Wendy Greyeyes laid out the scope of the problem.

As their conversation continues, they dig into possible solutions.

>> Trip: The reports.

AG's report and your report at the Human Rights Commission.

They also had recommendations that honestly went from the district to the state and at all levels of government.

Number one, the district officials should clearly define infractions and penalty ranges, which is what you kind of are talking about in the in the first segment, which is it's kind of confusing what that is.

Can you explain maybe how they should define why that's important in defining infractions?

>> Greyeyes: Yeah.

The infractions are pretty clearly laid out.

And what we're concerned about is the response.

You know, we were we're really aware that sometimes policies can play this role of looking very neutral and unbiased.

And we write and talk a lot about, you know, there's a lot of I'm going to just say this colonized like perspectives that get instituted into these practices.

So they're very westernized policies.

And as we talked about some of the solutions, and this actually came up in the conversation about thinking about some of the peacemaking strategies that the Navajo Nation has instituted in their tribal court systems, is thinking about how to bring that into the school student handbook in terms of creating and embedding restorative justice actions in student management of school disciplinary action.

And so we did a bit of research, looked at other schools that implement this.

We were able to get information from the Star School which is near Flagstaff, Cuba independent school, but also Santa Fe Indian School, Navajo Preparatory school.

Many schools do have student disciplinary action that integrates restorative justice policies.

And we see some of those best practices maybe needing to be integrated into what Gallup McKinley County School District is doing.

So now a nation human rights believe these policies need to be reviewed.

And even the McKinley County School District, when they hired their auditor to evaluate the results of the New Mexico in depth, they even labeled that policy is looking very, very neutral, which it's not.

I mean, clearly what the report from the Ads office shows is that it's really open to interpretation.

So what we're recommending right now is the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission is going to the Navajo Nation Council to create a template language that should be embedded into the student policies.

Because before we can actually act, we need our laws, our tribal laws, to say that we have the power to implement and encourage and advise other school districts to implement this.

And so right now, we are getting our council delegate, doctor, Andy Nez, to sponsor this legislation, which won't be in this summer session, but it will hopefully be in the fall session of the Navajo Nation Council to revise the Navajo Nation Tribal Code, which is the title ten education, the Sovereignty and Education Act.

So we're making some revisions there, because right now there's no language in there that actually states restorative justice for students.

>> Trip: Can we unpack maybe a little bit.

What sort of justice is for maybe some of our viewers who maybe don't know what that is?

>> Greyeyes: So in Navajo, we believe in, Hózhó, which is balance and beauty.

And when we talk about Hózhó and beauty, you know, the only way to get to that is actually talking about having a conversation and being able to find some consensus among the individual who's enacted the infraction with maybe the people he harmed are the imbalance that they caused and actually have a conversation with them about, okay, do you understand what the issue is, why this causes imbalance, what your actions cause in terms of thinking about maybe what they could have done differently, and just having this deep conversation with people from the school.

But also, you know, the Navajo Nation has tribal advocates and thinking about how to create that tribal advocacy at the school site, which would be trained and understanding what peacemaking means on the Navajo Nation and how it's understood in our philosophy and our ways of thinking about these issues.

And so, you know, that's one way of embedding and challenging colonial policies that have been utilized to obviously, here, in this case, hurt Navajo students.

But thinking about strategies of trying to get them through the school, but also trying to recreate that balance in the school system.

So that's the idea around restorative justice.

>> Trip: I know at some point, I think it's still true that the state itself had a pilot project for restorative justice in other schools.

And so it's, it is not something that is just the Navajo Nation is pushing.

I mean, there are other states that are using rhetoric justice.

And New Mexico also is at least exploring this model, which is talking about helping people understand what the other person went through.

Right.

>> Greyeyes: And yeah, I mean, I think you can I think the state creates very general efforts.

Cookie cutter, cutter models, everything that exists out there.

But the the effort for restorative justice, the only way it works is the school itself, as a community, has to come to kind of an agreement of what they believe, those that what they believe are what balance means in their community.

So it's more localized.

And that's always been the problem, I think, with the New Mexico Public Education Department and the legislatures trying to create these blanket like policies, they don't ground it in the values and the philosophy philosophies of the local knowledge system there.

And Gallup is primarily Navajo, but you also have members of the Zuni tribe.

You have members from other nations like Lakota, Lakota, Dakota, I mean Apache community members who come to that school.

And I think it's important to have that conversation that is inclusive of all those voices.

So, yeah, I do see that the state has made those efforts, but they always fall apart because if the community doesn't believe in it, then it doesn't work.

>> Trip: I mean, I know that the AG has recommended that to moving to that, mentioning the public Education department, both the AG report and the Human Rights Commission both made recommendations on how, you know, PED should Smith in this oversight of of disciplinary records.

I know that we had some trouble getting data from the PED.

Can you talk a little bit about, you know, that part of the recommendation that they need to do a better job of of monitoring this and analyzing the data?

>> Greyeyes: So every school district in New Mexico is required by law, both state and federal laws, to provide data to both entities.

And, you know, the thing is, once that data gets there, I mean, what happens to it?

I know for many school districts that have large Native American populations, this in impaired produces what they call a test, which is the tribal education status report and just reports out the data, but never really does anything analytically to do the comparative analysis or to detect whether or not there's an overabundance of specific issues happening in a particular school district.

And I don't know if it's an issue of understaffing, funding, whatever it is.

But that is their charge is really to be those the entity that's monitoring that.

But also school districts are required by law to submit data to the US Department of Education for the Civil Rights Division on any school disciplinary action in their in their programs.

And so there's two places that it goes to.

But nobody picked up on this.

And in terms of the research that's been out there, I think it's important to really bring this in and try to understand that, you know, that we have to hold these bodies accountable for their inaction as well.

And so when we wrote our Human Navigation Human Rights Commission report back in February of 2026, that was something we talked about was how do we hold an impaired accountable?

How do we hold US Department of Education accountable?

We have been in conversations with the US Department of Justice from the Navajo Nation human Rights to talk about some of these issues, and they did ask us to keep them abreast of everything that's happening.

But we can't really move and tell the and tell.

The New Mexico attorney general had finalized their investigation, their report.

And so now, you know, we're will be releasing a statement really soon from the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission and then pushing this, this effort to make that restorative justice portion implement it.

So, you know, but ultimately, what we're asking is that let's get this data auditing happening.

Let's make sure that we're not continuing this data war, which seems ever persistent.

You know whose data is right.

We're totally done with that conversation.

We need to just admit that there's a problem here.

>> Trip: I want to bring up one recommendation that was not in the AG's report, which was in your report, which is doing an audit of how money is spent on schools that are on the nation in Gallup, McKinley, and schools that are not.

That audit, as I understand it, has not been done yet.

And that's important.

I just wanted to raise that as part of the recommendation.

Also want to say that the AG's report and your report, well, I'm not sure about your report.

I know the AG report is calling for state lawmakers to also pass a law that would give them ability to prosecute or do deeper investigations into civil rights abuses.

But I know I just wanted to bring up that about the contract audit, because that's something that I did notice between your report and the AG's report that that was one difference.

>> Greyeyes: Yeah.

So that comes from our community.

When we held a public hearings, folks felt like there wasn't just a racial disparity happening.

There was also a financial disparity of resources being funneled into what people were calling the city of Gallup and taking money from the rural communities on the Navajo Nation by either bussing a lot of students to the the nicer high schools in Gallup, and that as actually stripping resources out of the local communities.

And they were upset because, you know, they wanted new schools, they need new resources.

They need busses constantly having to be repaired.

I mean, there's a lot of needs for rural communities that get outstripped by Gallup itself as the city that manages the overall resources for the community.

And so when we said we would, we're going to start a financial audit.

We did reach out to learn more about some of the financial transparencies.

And we did learn that New Mexico Public Education department does have a financial transparency page.

It's like a one stop shop for looking at that data.

And so we did look at the data that's on that website.

But unfortunately it doesn't really detail exactly how the money is spent.

It details how much money is provided from sources like Johnson O'Malley impact a New Mexico Indian Education Act.

I mean, there's a lot of parts of money.

And just because of the Yazzie Martinez lawsuit, it's increase in funding.

But how is that money being utilized at each of these school districts and at the schools and sells?

So, you know, there's there's still needs to be a deeper analysis in on that.

And, you know, we have raised this with our council delegate doctor Andy Nez.

So, you know, the work's going to continue in terms of understanding what the impact of this disparity has been for our Native American students and our Native American teachers as well.

>> Trip: Well, thank you, Doctor Grayeyes, for spending time with me and talking about the the problems that also solutions.

>> Greyeyes: Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you so much.

>>Nash: Thank you to Trip Jennings and to Wendy Greyeyes for that discussion on discipline at Gallup McKinley County Schools.

Santa Fe based poet Arthur Sze Has a mile long resume.

He's won a National Book Award.

He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and he's received multiple lifetime achievement declarations.

And earlier this year, he accepted a second one year term to continue his role as the 25th United States Poet Laureate.

Well, this week, senior producer Ludovico sits down with Sze to talk about his work as a poet and a translator, as well as the relationship between his art and our state.

>> Lou: US Poet Laureate, Arthur Sze.

Thank you so much for being here.

I'm grateful and excited to speak with you.

>> Sze: Thank you for inviting me.

>> Lou: Yeah, so -- of course, you're a world renowned poet now.

But why don't we start at the beginning?

How did you get into poetry initially?

>> Sze: It was an accident in junior high school.

Poetry was my least favorite subject.

We had to memorize the passage of the rhyme of Ancient Mariner.

We had to analyze its meaning.

I felt like poetry was always difficult, hard to understand.

But that -- experiment with language, the power of language was there.

And so even though I was basically a science major and as you know, started -- went to MIT.

My very first semester there, I sat bored in a calculus lectur and I thought do I really want to do this with my life?

And I started to write, and then I wrote and I wrote pretty soon I knew that's what I wanted to do.

And so poetry really came as a surprise.

>> Lou: Okay.

Well, now, as a reluctant beginner, you're now the US Poet Laureate for a second year in a row.

I know last year, in an interview with the New York Times, you mentioned telling the Library of Congress that you wanted to think about it when you were initially approached for your first year.

You're now onto your second year.

What was the reason for your initial hesitation, and -- was there a pause again this year?

>> Sze: My initial hesitation had to do with recognition that this is a really important position, it's a public role, and I knew each Poet Laureate is asked to -- decide on a signature project.

And I thought, I want to think carefully about, do I have something that I can do, that I can contribute and make a significant contribution to poetry?

And I also wanted to feel that I would be free to pursue that project to the best of my ability, that the position was not going to be -- pushed around in terms of politics, that I could stay focused on poetry and celebrating and promoting poetry.

And once I was assured of that, then I accepted.

>> Lou: Well, now that you have done that one year, has your experience been a positive one?

Have you gotten out of it and have you contributed what you hoped to?

>> Sze: It's been a really wonderful experience.

I have to say.

The opening reading at the Library of Congress was really a great honor, and I put together as my project, this book Transient Worlds which to to bring that out within one year, I had literally like less than 100 days to assemble it.

But I thought of poetry and translation as a signature project.

And in my second year, I'll be taking it around to different cities.

>> Lou: Okay.

That's exciting.

And yeah, a very interesting choice for your focus.

I know your project is called Words Bridging Worlds correct?

And aims to show how poetry transcends linguistic barriers.

Later on, I want to spend some more time on the specifics and the nuances of translating poetry specifically.

But broadly speaking, why did you choose Words Bridging Worlds?

>> Sze: I chose that as the title to my project because I feel like poetry and transation bring people together.

It crosses boundaries, it crosses age, divides, cultures, languages.

Poetry speaks to everyone, and it has a crucial role to play right now.

When we live in such a fast-paced and divisive and challenging world, the humanity of poetry, the sound and rhythm helps us slow down and pay attention and live more deeply and fully.

And I feel like these are all crucial things that poetry can do, and poetry and translation can do as well.

>> Lou: How do you approach translating poems?

Of course, there's the meaning of words, but then there's also the way that they flow together, there's maybe a rhyming scheme that you want to keep intact, or the form on the page is also very important, how it looks -- so how do you take all of those factors into account?

>> Sze: Translating a poem involves all the fundamentals, and it involves loss because you can't -- convey or carry over the sounds from one language to another.

I'm thinking of Chinese, which is a tonal language, say, the Diné, the Navajo language, has tones in it.

There's no way -- if you're translating that into English, you can say, “oh, I'm making it clear.” Translation, there█s so many decisions that have to be made in terms of sound, rhythm, meaning, symbolism, as you say, the shape of the language on the page.

And one of the things I do in Transient Worlds is instead of saying, here's the poem in Spanish, here's the translation.

I present multiple translations of the same poem to show a reader.

Each translator makes very different decisions.

One isn't necessarily better than another, but each one is a kind of lens to look at or view or understand the original.

So when I translate from Chinese, I actually write out the Chinese characters, and then I write out clusters of words in English under each character.

Because the semantic range, the range of meaning for each Chinese character is so wide.

I need a number of words in English, and then after I create those fields, I start to string the words together and think about what's it sound like in English?

You know, translation needs to have a contemporary voice.

The language needs to feel alive.

>> Lou: I'm sure that's a difficult process, or at least an intensive process for someone like you.

And in this book, you're trying to spread that ability out to and teach people how to do it themselves.

How does someone who does not have the expertise that you do approach such a complex task?

>> Sze: So, I think one way to do it is really to focus in and on that sense of love of language.

The sound, the rhythm, the beauty and power of language is what's fundamental.

So that's the daring part of my book, is to invite the reader.

I want this to be a book where you don't just sort of read it and say, “oh, I'm done and put it on the shelf.” But a reader can say, okay, I know a little Spanish.

I don't know a lot, but I can turn to my aunt or my mother, or father, or brother or cousin, or I can turn to a teacher or a good friend, and we can take, say, a poem by Pablo Neruda, and we can read through it and I can think about it, and maybe I'll try my version of it.

I want the book to be very hands on.

And in that way, when you make a translation, you're really transformed from being a reader to becoming a creator in language.

So one of the things I'm doing is blurring reading, writing, making a translation, and writing poems.

They're all connected in a wonderful way, and that's part of the idea of words bridging worlds.

To translate is not just to carry over from one language to another.

It's sharing, it's talking to different people.

It's getting different experiences of the same poem and deepening that through conversation.

>> Lou: Now, you've taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts for decades, and have led a creative writing program there, in years before you retired, you taught a class, the Poetic Image, that walked students through the work of translating ancient Chinese and Japanese poetry to English, while also encouraging them to translate those poems into their indigenous languages.

How did that work, as a teacher, go on to inform your project now as Poet Laureate?

>> Sze: That class was really the seed for this book, Transient Worlds.

I'm trying to give you a long story in a few amount of words.

In the beginning, when I taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts, I noticed Native students, like -- I was, you know, in public school, coming into a poetry class feeling very tense and uptight.

And one Native student said to me, “oh, I'm only taking this class because it's required.” “I have to take poetry and I'll see what I can do.” And I thought, “oh, this is, you know, a lot of resistance right at the beginning.” And the at first, I thought, “okay, they should just write what they want.” I'm not going to put any rules or any expectation.

And the poems were uniformly mediocre.

And week to week there was no progress whatsoever.

And I thought, “I have to invent a pathway for them to really develop.” And I thought for the Native students, “Okay, a lot of them know many different native languages.” Some of them don't know their native language.

I'm going to walk them through ancient Chinese poems, put up the characters on a whiteboard, write words in English under each -- lay out, different translations, and we'll talk about what we like and don't like in the translations.

And then I'll ask them to make their own translations.

So, like the following week, we'd have 15 different translations of the same poem, and we would talk about what we liked or didn't like.

And then I would tell the students, okay, if you know your native language well enough, go ahead and translate that into the Diné language or into Lakota.

What's that look like?

What's that sound like?

What decisions are you making?

And that freedom to experiment, to play with language was really groundbreaking.

I could feel physically, palpably this excitement and week to week, I could see them start to grow as writers.

And then I would say, “okay, think about what you learned in making this translation.” Feed it, feed your creativity.” “How can you write your own poem, inspired by something you learned here?” And so that class became really crucial for a whole younger generation of Native poets to emerge.

That class was foundational.

It gave them permission to experiment and really let loose with their voices and visions.

>> Lou: Yeah, that's really beautiful, the idea that -- translation itself could inspire you to then write your own original works at a level that maybe wasn't possible before.

And did you see that in the student's work after those translations, was their original work?

>> Sze: I did see that, yes, it took time, but yes.

>> Lou: Sure, sure.

>> Sze: Yeah.

>> Lou: Now you're also on a short list of US Poets Laureate with connections to our state.

Juan Felipe Herrera, once published a book through UNM press.

Joy Harjo, of course, used to teach at UNM and at IAIA, [Institute of American Indian Arts] What is it about New Mexico that fosters and connects with prolific poets and artists of all kinds?

>> Sze: What a great, wonderful and difficult question.

I think New Mexico is so unique.

I came here really on a lark on the East Coast and West Coast, and the things that appealed to me about New Mexico -- well, you know, I'm sort of straying a little bit, but it's all part of the story.

For the ten years I worked as a poet in the schools in New Mexico, I worked at Zuni Pueblo, Jemez Pueblo, I worked at Ojo Caliente, West Las Vegas, Bernalillo High School.

I worked at the School for the Deaf in Santa Fe and had a Sign [language] translator.

I was experiencing part of America I didn't know existed, and I was really thrilled and ecstatic and had sort of having this kind of experience, which I think in many ways is so unique to New Mexico, the way that different cultures and sensibilities interact and are in conversation with each other.

One of the things I like about Santa Fe and New Mexico is, it's really human scale.

I've oftentimes thought, you know, if I were living in New York City, there are all sorts of wonderful people who would come through and I wouldn't really know about it.

But in New Mexico, it's small enough where we█re in conversation and you -- as interesting people, come through, if you make an effort, you get to meet them and have conversations with them.

So, in that way, New Mexico is really an astonishing and wonderful place.

>> Lou: Now, I'll ask you to read a poem, after this, and we can find that online.

But I want to close this interview with an idea that you've shared in the past, that moments or unexpected ideas or experiences are like seeds, something that you mentioned before in this interview.

You can plant them, revisit them, and live with them.

Can you expand on that general way of thinking and how it can be applied to poetry specifically?

>> Sze: Yeah, I think -- one of the great things about poetry is you can't be in a rush, and I want to approach that from different ways.

So when I say the transient worlds is convergence reading, writing, translating poetry, writing poetry, it's really being creative with language.

And fundamentally, it's about the power and vitality of language itself.

So if you try and speed read a poem, you're cheating yourself.

The experience.

You need to slow down and say the poem aloud and hear the sound in rhythms.

And when you're writing a poem, you can't be in a hurry.

You can't say, oh, I'm going to write a poem in 60 minutes, or by 5 o█clock, the poem is going to grow and gestate and evolve on its own.

The image of seeds, the metaphor of seeds that you brought up is really crucial because as people, we need to have -- we need to nurture the power of our imaginations.

We need to nurture the power of our language and how we speak and communicate.

And poetry is language at its most musical and intense.

So in writing every phrase we write are ultimately seeds, I always told my students, “Don't throw those drafts away.” The phrase that's there that isn't in your poem.

That might be a seed for another poem that's going to come to you a few years down the road.

Don't be in such a hurry.

Think of it as planting again as that metaphor, and you're growing and you need to nurture it and take your time, or it will -- you can't force it.

>> Lou: U.S.

Poet Laureate Arthur Sze, thanks for being here on New Mexico in Focus.

>> Sze: Thank you so much.

>>Nash: Thank you to US Poet Laureate Arthur Sze.

And to Lou and everyone else who contributed to the show.

Before we sign off, an acknowledgment to world renowned political cartoonist Pat Oliphant, who died this week at his Santa Fe home at the age of 90, Oliphant spent more than five decades satirizing and ridiculing our country's most powerful political figures through drawings, becoming the most syndicated editorial cartoonist in the country, with his daily cartoons appearing in more than 500 publications here and around the world, NMPBS█ cultural affairs program Colores had the privilege of visiting Oliphant Santa Fe Studio to speak with him back in 2013, and to hear about his mindset as he thought up some of the most iconic political cartoons ever created.

>>Oliphant: You gotta be mad.

You got to be pissed off.

You've got to bring yourself to a boil, and that's how you should feel.

It's why you do this thing because you get outraged.

>>Nash: Oliphant won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1967 and, in classic Oliphant fashion, criticized the prize process for honoring what he thought was the weakest piece of work that he had submitted.

Thanks again for watching for New Mexico PBS.

I'm Nash Jones until next week.

Stay focused.

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