Ałk’idąą’ yádahodiiz’ąądąą’ yá’áhoníkáándi…
Those words – “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” – made their historic debut on the night of July 3, 2013, when they were projected onto a giant screen bolted to the side of a ten-wheeler truck at the rodeo grounds in Window Rock, Arizona. For the first time ever, a major motion picture had been translated and dubbed into Diné Bizaad, the native language of the Navajo people.
Although once prominent throughout the America Southwest, the Navajo language had become close to extinction by the turn of the twenty-first century. During World War II, there were less than thirty nonnatives worldwide who were fluent in the language – making it the ideal “code” to pass sensitive information for the United States’ intelligence community – and even amongst the native Navajo it was being left to the wayside in favor of English.
For Manuelito Wheeler of the Navajo Nation Museum, translating Star Wars into Diné Bizaad was the ideal way to help stem the tide. “There are definitely Star Wars nerds out there who can repeat that movie verbatim, and they speak no Navajo,” he explained at the time. “So when they’re watching this and it’s in Navajo, it’s them learning Navajo.”
Choosing Star Wars for the first movie translated into the Navajo language was a masterful stroke as the epic’s attraction goes beyond the ability to recite lines from the film. In many ways, the mythology of Star Wars intersects with the mythology of the Navajo people – adding to its popularity – while images from the series have likewise woven their way into contemporary Native American artwork.
In October 2019, the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff set out to explore the links between Star Wars and the Navajo with The Force Is With Our People, a six-month long exhibit featuring close to eighty pieces of artwork created by over twenty Native American artists. The items on display were crafted in a variety of mediums – from paintings, prints, and posters to jewelry, carvings, and pottery – but they all had one thing in common: Star Wars.
“What we’re trying to explore in this exhibit is the cultural connections between the Star Wars narrative and Native stories and oral traditions on the Colorado Plateau,” curator Anthony Thibodeau explained. “And to really kind of explore the influence that Star Wars has had on these native artists in particular, but also by extension native communities on the Colorado Plateau.”
Thibodeau came up with the idea for The Force Is With Our People after visiting the initial Indigenous Comic Con – now called IndigiPop X – in 2016. The event was sponsored by Native Realities, a publisher of Native American comic books that likewise operates Red Planet Books and Comics in Albuquerque. While the convention was a celebration of Geek Culture in general, Anthony Thibodeau couldn’t help but notice that Star Wars dominated the proceedings.
“I always love to reimagine Star Wars from the indigenous perspective,” Lee Francis, founder of Native Realities, explained to DGO Magazine in December 2019. “The Tusken folks, you know, those are our peoples, right? That’s like Apache homeland right there. That’s Comanche homeland – you don’t go across there, they’re going to mess you up. And if you’re having your little pod races over there, they’re going to shoot at you too, so good luck.”
For Francis, it’s just not the Apache who share similarities with the Star Wars Universe but other Native American tribes as well. “I think there’s an immediate identification of Native peoples with the rebellion,” he further elaborated. “I mean, honestly, as a Pueblo person myself, I’m like, it’s the Pueblo Rebellion, baby. We fought the Empire and we won. One of my ancestors back there was Han Solo and one of my ancestors back there was Luke Skywalker. Popé (leader of the 1680 revolt) was like Luke Skywalker, right?”
New Mexico-based Navajo artist Ryan Singer agrees with the sentiment. “There’s always that rebellion kind of attitude or spirit,” he told NPR. “Like the little guy, people that don’t have all the power and they’re getting trampled over. Indigenous people can kind of feel like the rebels fighting the Empire.”
Singer’s artwork reflects a life-long love of Star Wars and intertwines aspects of the epic saga with Native American images, blurring the lines between the real-world experiences of Native Americans and the fictional elements of Star Wars. One of his pieces on display at The Force Is With Our People – entitled “Tuba City Spaceport – transforms the Arizona city where Ryan Singer was raised with Mos Eisley of Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine.
The realistic Tuba City Trading Post sits in the center, with horses, Native Americans and a wagon surrounding it. In the background, however, are dwellings similar to those where Luke Skywalker was raised while Jawas, Tusken Raiders, and Stormtroopers are seen mingling about as well. A land speeder hovercraft is about to park in front of the trading post, completing the mishmash of competing images.
“(De)Colonized Ewok,” meanwhile, explores the trauma felt by many Native Americans at the turn of the twentieth century when they were forced to attend boarding schools in an attempt to assimilate them into American culture. Ryan Singer’s painting depicts a traditionally dressed Ewok from The Return of the Jedi on one side with a neatly attired Ewok with an Imperial Crest on its sleeve on the other. “You can use Star Wars metaphors or motifs to kind of reel people in to educate them, to let them see what’s happening or see what happened before, say, in history,” Singer explains.
Dale Deforest likewise draws inspiration from Native American history for many of his creations, including re-imagining the droid C-3PO as a Navajo Code Talker from World War II. “C3PO is a protocol droid who is fluent in a million languages,” curator Anthony Thibodeau notes. “It’s very, very fitting.”
C-3PO’s companion R2D2 likewise experienced a transformation at The Force Is With Our People exhibit. Duane Koyawena custom-built a remote-controlled life-size R2 unit, but instead of the traditional blue-and-white color scheme, this particular R2D2 was tan with reddish burn marks. “A lot of pottery is designed with specific markings that identify Hopi pottery,” Koyawena explained to the Navaho-Hopi Observer. “So when I saw the dome, I could imagine it looking just like pottery with the head spinning. My thoughts came from, how can I make this metal thing, a robot, look like pottery?”
Another highlight of The Force Is With Our People was the Diné Rey costume designed by cosplayer Dezbah Rose. By incorporating elements of her father’s Navajo heritage – including a concha belt, woven trade bag, and moccasins – with the outfit worn by main character Rey in The Force Awakens, Rose was able to weave elements of Native American culture and Star Wars into clothing the same way Ryan Singer did through painted art and Duane Koyawena with his functioning R2D2.
“The lack of her having identity or having that identity crisis, I kind of felt as a Native person,” Dezbah Rose said of her connection with Rey. “Growing up in an urban setting kind of removed from my people and having to relearn a lot of my cultural knowledge because of that. Rey is going on a similar journey of discovering who she is, and I think that’s why I love her so much – and then she’s just a really strong badass.”
The Force Is With Our People at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff ended in March 2020, but its message of how Geek Culture can be used for an exploration of one’s heritage, insight into a shared history, mythological intersections, and expression of self-identity will no doubt resonate far into the future.
“The big message in both the Native People Gallery and this exhibit is that Native people are not just a historical curiosity stuck in the past somewhere,” Anthony Thibodeau said. “Native people are fully engaged with contemporary culture and that contemporary culture influences them in a lot of ways. And this exhibit is one way of expressing their Native culture and connecting them – by using popular culture.”
So May the Force Be with You regardless of your ancestry. Or, as the Navajo say, atsʼáhoníyééʼ nił hólǫ́ǫ doo!
Anthony Letizia