FREE TIME? Violet Tso says, “I don’t think there’s a word for free time in Diné.” She is pictured receiving her Student of the Year award from Richard B. Williams, president and CEO of the American Indian College Fund. Photo by Danee Voorhees, courtesy of the fund

“My father opened the windows at 4:00 a.m.., no matter if it was cold or hot, telling us to get up, go outside, run, pray. The Holy Ones are here,” Violet Tso remembers.

She attributes her own leadership aspirations to her father, the late Emmett Tso, a former tribal council delegate and community leader. “He wrote resolutions, researched topics, and was a public speaker at many functions – and yet, he only had an 8^th grade education,” says Tso. “He was self-taught.”

Her father told her, “Use the English language as a tool to help yourself and your people. Wherever you go, you have relatives. Express yourself with respect and kindness, using the Diné principles of k’e.” (Diné people relate to one another as blood relatives and as clan relatives using a clanship system or the system of k’e.)

Last year, Tso, age 38, initiated the first student body government at the Tuba City branch of Diné College. Students elected her president.

Not surprisingly, Tso was also named “Student of the Year” for Diné College, which has more than 2,000 students. “Violet exceeded requirements for every award criteria,” Agatha Spencer, chair of the selection committee, stated.

In March, she attended the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) conference in Billings, MT, as part of Diné College’s competition team. At the conference, students from all of the organization’s 35 tribal colleges and universities elected her as their president.

As the AIHEC Student Congress president, Tso says she will focus on “advocating for tribal campus development. Our tribal colleges have operated out of doublewide trailers and portable buildings for too long. I believe quality buildings provide the foundation for quality education.”

Amid such honors and recognition, Tso stays grounded with traditional teachings learned from her mother, Faye Tso, a well-known potter who received the “Arizona Living Treasure” award. “She taught her children and grandchildren the authentic pinon pitch pottery-making process.” Since her mother is an herbalist, the family learned the uses of plants from her.

“I don’t think there’s a word for free time in Diné. My father would say free time was just being lazy,” Tso laughs, as the conversation moves to her children — Chantelle, 14; Dejay, 6; and Autumn, 9 months old. She met her husband, Darwin Whitstone, a Cree from Canada, at a pow wow in Kentucky over 10 years ago.

“I was very fortunate to find a loving person in Darwin who accepted Chantelle and me without question.” And she’s grateful her family is so adaptable. “When my mom became ill two years ago, we had to adjust to help her.”

“Every morning we drove out to her place to feed her dogs, let her sheep out of the corral, get our kids to school, take our baby to the babysitter’s, and then rush to class.” She’s glad, too, that her children “know the world doesn’t revolve around them. They have animals to feed and tend to. They’re learning responsibility.”

Tso graduated in May on the Dean’s Honor List with associate degrees in both liberal arts and social science. Her next goal is a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. She was selected for a new teacher education program called Alchini Ba (For the Children), which is a collaboration between Northern Arizona University (NAU) and Diné College. She will take classes both in Tuba City and on the NAU main campus in Flagstaff.

As a future teacher, she hopes to integrate cultural teachings and Navajo language into daily instruction so that students can speak, read, and write Navajo. She worries that some Navajo parents don’t seem to see the loss of language as a crisis.

“I believe parents need to speak Diné at home while the schools need to continue to teach the language as well. Even if they can’t speak the language, parents need to try because everything starts from practices in the home – our values, our morals.”

Responsibility for family and traditional teachings is central to Tso’s life. She recently helped to organize a symposium, “The Decline of Clans and Rise of Family Violence in Indian Country.” She especially appreciates learning based on connections between humans and animals. “We always had livestock to tend. Our parents kept us busy tending the animals everyday.”

Today she’s concerned for the many single women struggling to keep their families together. “We need our Diné men to become warriors again and to focus on protecting and providing for their families. We need to be careful about losing touch with our traditions because of reliance on technology and pursuit of materialism.”

With wisdom beyond her years and a promising future ahead of her, Violet Tso is a woman to watch in Indian country today.

Tina Deschenie, a member of the Diné Tribe, is a language activist and a poet. An educator for over 20 years, she is now the associate dean for continuing education at Crownpoint Institute of Technology.