Column: Harvard students learn a lot from trip to Navajo Nation

Thursday, March 3, 2011  

"This past J-term, a group of ten Harvard students travelled to New Mexico to deliver health care to people that are historically more ‘American’ than most of us, the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Nation is the largest tribe in America with over 250,000 people, and it spans the states of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. In spite of the expansive territory they occupy, the Navajo have a very low standard of living. Over 56 percent live below the poverty level, and unemployment rates are ten times as high as other parts of America. The infrastructure within the reservation is largely underdeveloped, leaving many people isolated in their homes, with infrequent means of transportation.

The Harvard students went to the Navajo Nation with a pediatrician and an epidemiologist to screen children for developmental problems, and they also delivered firewood and canned food to people who lived in remote locations. The students spent a substantial amount of their time on the reservation traveling on terrible roads. The firewood and canned food they distributed was essential to some of the Navajo people who who had no other means of getting around.

“Traveling through the reservation is reminiscent of traveling through a third world country,” Shalini Pammal ’13, observed in an interview. “Its very striking to see how impoverished a community like the native reservations can be within America because you typically aren’t made aware of it on a day to day basis.” She also noted that alcoholism seemed to be very prominent among the Navajo people, as some would leave the reservation to buy alcohol at surrounding gas stations at 8 a.m. in the morning. Quality education was also a struggle as the Head Start (federally funded preschools for low-income families) preschools were frequently closed due to impassible mud after rain. Many Navajo in the area where Pammal and the other students worked live in small, shoddy houses with no electricity, unsafe drinking water, and outhouses for toilets. In some cases, there were very large families living on unsustainable wages."

Get the Story:
Meredith C. Baker: A Nation Forgotten (The Harvard Crimson 3/3)