Miss Navajo
For Yolanda Charley, its all about character
Miss Navajo Nation contestant Yolanda Charley displays one of her drawings during the contemporary talent competition at the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock Tuesday, September 2. — © 2009 Gallup Independent / Cable Hoover

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Natasha Kaye Johnson
For the Independent

WINDOW ROCK — As Miss Navajo Nation 2008-2009 Yolanda Charley gives a tour of her apartment, she comes across a prominently placed portrait of her closest family members surrounding her late grandmother Matilda Nez-Wilson.

She began to recall favorite memories of her grandmother and how excited she was each year when the new Miss Navajo was crowned.

“She always cut out newspaper clippings of Miss Navajo when they got crowned,” recalled Charley. “She would say, ‘One day you’re going to run for Miss Navajo and be Miss Navajo and share my teachings with our people.’”

Charley’s grandmother passed away Easter Day in 2004, but Charley never forgot her words. Thoughts of competing for the highly sought crown would swirl through Charley’s mind as a young girl, and she would eventually make her way into Navajo pageantry. She would compete and win three crowns as a teenager, including Miss Chichiltah 2001-2002, Tseyatoh Veterans Princess 2005-2006, and Miss Eastern Navajo 2007-2008.

This past summer, Charley felt she was ready to run for the ultimate title: Miss Navajo Nation. She was a strong candidate considering her past pageantry experience and her knowledge of the Navajo language and culture.

“When it finally got to Miss Navajo, my whole community (of Chichiltah) was behind me,” Charley said. Charley turned in her application at the Window Rock office, but as she began making her way back home to Chichiltah, feelings of doubt slowly began to consume her.

“I was at home, right after I returned my packet to the Office of Miss Navajo Nation. I was having second thoughts, saying, ‘Am I making the right decision? I’m not sure if I really want to do this’,” Charley said.

When asked the reason, Charley sums up her doubt with one word: looks.

“That’s where I kind of got scared,” she said. When she arrived back home, she shared her anxieties with her uncle, Sam Wilson.

“All the Miss Navajos in the past were thin and beautiful,” Charley recalled saying to her uncle. “How can you top that?’”

It was then her uncle quashed the self-doubt that was beginning to overwhelm her.

“My uncle said, ‘It’s not about that,’” Charley said. “It’s about the things your grandma taught you. This is not the Miss America pageant.”

He reminded her of the past three titles she held, her ability to speak fluent Navajo, and the courage she had to openly express her thoughts.

“You’re not afraid to go out there and talk to the people and sing to the people,” her uncle told her. “What you have to offer is your teachings. That’s what every Miss Navajo is there for.”

Charley regained her confidence, but the same thoughts would circulate her mind in the final hours of the competition. During the few moments between the announcement of the first runner-up and Miss Navajo Nation, Charley was certain that Danielle Goldtooth had won.

“Dani is the pretty one and has got what every former Miss Navajo has got,” Charley remembers thinking. “But then not realizing the judges chose me.”

“I was hesitant to run too,” Danielle Goldtooth said. “I felt she was a top competitor because she knew the culture and the language.”

Throughout the pageant, Goldtooth openly expressed she was not fluent in the Navajo language, but was determined to learn. While Goldtooth had a following of supporters throughout the pageant, she said she was ridiculed for not being fluent in the language.

During the pageant, Goldtooth expressed nervousness for the Navajo language portion of the competition, while Charley expressed feelings of anxiety for the Western portion of the competition. The two supported one another throughout the pageant, and have remained good friends since, calling and texting one another frequently.

Goldtooth believes Charley broke barriers for a lot of women by winning the pageant.

“Weight shouldn’t be an issue,” Goldtooth said. “I’m happy for her and feel she can be the best representation for the Navajo people.”

It was a joyous moment for Charley, and her e-mail was soon flooded with letters from young girls and women who expressed their support. Many of them also applauded her courage to run for the title, especially since she did not fit the Western pageantry model of being tall and slender.

Many also said they had at one time wanted to compete for the crown, but felt their weight would be an eliminating factor.

“I got so many (e-mails),” Charley said. “I tried my best to answer them.”

Charley was praised by some for her courage to run, but also received a fair share of criticism, mostly from bloggers from the Internet, criticizing her weight. Charley recalled a particular blog from someone questioning why the judges didn’t select a “skinny” Miss Navajo. The blogger was anonymous.

“That part made me laugh (being anonymous),” Charley said. “I would have been brave enough to put my name on there.”

Charley said such unwarranted criticism rolls off her back since he has endured so much hardship as a child.

“Along the way, I’ve been through so much, and the things people say, it just makes you a stronger person,” Charley said.

Tough Childhood

Charley did not have an ideal childhood and has spent a majority of her life estranged from her mother and father.

Her parent’s absence led to bullying from schoolmates throughout her formative years.

“I would come home in tears because I didn’t have parents,” Charley said. “They (classmates) used to say stuff like, ‘Your parents don’t love you, that’s why they left you’. I used to go home and cry to my grandmother about it.”

Charley’s upbringing is similar to many Navajo youth. Her parents relationship was one dominated by rage, jealously, and domestic violence. With an unstable relationship, Charley’s mother yearned to move away from the reservation. When she finally did, she decided to leave Charley with her parents.

“She wanted to get away from it all,” Charley said. “She made a promise back then that she could make money and come back for me.”

Her mother, Clara Kehoe, eventually remarried and started a life in Twin Falls, Idaho. When Charley was in the fifth grade, she moved in with her mother and step-father, but unresolved issues and tension prevented the two from building a relationship.

“I wasn’t that close to my mom,” Charley said. “We tried to get along and understand each other, but there was a lack of communication and everything just blew up.”

Charley moved back home and the relationship with her mother remained unchanged. Shortly after her grandmother passed away, when Charley was 16 years old, she went to stay with her mother for the summer. It was then Charley sparked a conversation the two had attempted to avoid for years.

“I basically confronted her and said, ‘Why did you leave me?’” Charley said. “I asked what happened to us back then and why things happened the way they did. I wanted to know the reasons she gave me up.”

The question prompted hesitation from Kehoe, but Charley insisted on an explanation.

“I said, ‘Mom, we never really talk about this and it probably hurts to talk about it, but we have to talk about it sometime. The more we keep it inside, the more it is going to hurt.’”

The conversation was highly emotional and confrontational, Charley recalls.

We talked about the things she really didn’t want to talk about,” Charley said. The two had a heart-to-heart conversation starting from when Charley was born.

“You start talking about the hardship and you have your little cries, but you start to express your thoughts and you begin to really understand their point of view,” Charley said. “Talking is the only thing to help.”

Charley’s mother still lives in Idaho, and while Charley says she would not necessarily consider them close, she is happy they speak frequently on the phone. They see each other twice a year. She keeps in contact with her father, Benjamin Charley, but only speaks with him about three to four times a year.

Putting college aside to take care of grandparents

After graduating from Gallup High School in 2006, Charley aspired to go straight to college, but with her grandmother gone, she wanted to take care of her elderly grandfather, John Wilson.

“I thought to myself, ‘My grandfather gave up his time to raise me, my grandparents gave up their time to put a strong roof over my head,” Charley said. “I’m going to do whatever he needs as far as cooking and cleaning. I’m not going to have my grandfather very long.’”

Charley recalled how her grandmother was always there to console her and always stood up for her.

“I could talk to her about anything,” Charley said. “She wasn’t raised by her mother either, she was raised by her grandmother too. I think that’s what we had in common.”

Her grandmother passed away at 65 years old. For two years, only one-quarter of her heart was working.

“It’s really hard to lose your best friend, the person who really understood you the most,” Charley said. “I consider my grandmother my mom because she’s always been there. I still can’t get over the fact that she’s gone.”

Charley’s grandmother suffered from diabetes and various heart problems, but Charley is still unsure about the details surrounding her late grandmother’s death.

“I’m not sure about my grandmother’s condition because she really didn’t want to share it with me,” Charley said.

“She knew she would go at anytime; she didn’t want me to know.”

Now in her reign, Charley encourages the elderly to talk to their children and grandchildren about their health.

“Some elderly (people) don’t want to look at the bad things, they just want to look at the good things,” Charley said. “Sometimes our elders don’t really talk about the way they feel, they just keep it bottled up inside. I really encourage them to tell somebody how they’re feeling whenever they feel pain.”

Charley feels most comfortable speaking with elders and can sense they appreciate her knowledge of traditional Navajo teachings.

“I’m getting through to them and I’m taking them back to their roots,” Charley said.

Being Miss Navajo

It’s been four months since Charley was crowned Miss Navajo, and she is comfortably settling into her daily routine of making three to four appearances a day.

“It’s really different from all the other titles because basically you represent the entire Navajo Nation,” Charley said. “There’s a certain way of doing everything. When you’re a Miss Navajo, you’re a mother, an aunt, and a grandmother.”

Her main priority is to go to the more rural parts of the Navajo Nation. Recently, she made a visit to Cameron and Low Mountain. The community of Low Mountain was pleased with her visit, telling her that a Miss Navajo has not come to the visit them in over 28 years.

“She’s doing very well,” said Dinah Wauneka, program director for the Office of Miss Navajo Nation. “She speaks the Navajo language very fluently and she knows the culture. Even at the chapter level, she’s right in there knowing what their needs are. She comes down to their level.”

Charley’s main goal is to stress the importance of Navajo language and culture.

“The only thing I really encourage is our Navajo language,” Charley said. “The only thing I can offer is my words of encouragement, my love and my prayers to the Navajo people.”

Charley is Water Edge, born for Towering House. Her maternal grandparents are Red Bottom and her paternal grandparents are the Mexican People.

‘However you feel comfortable, be that person’

When Charley thinks back to the time when her Uncle Sam offered the right words to help her regain her confidence, she smiles.

“When you’re a guy, it’s hard to talk to your daughters, but it wasn’t like that,” Charley said. She gives a lot of credit for her success in pageantry to her uncle for his encouragement and support.

“He is the one who traveled for me, carrying my stuff, carrying my clothes,” Charley said. “He would spend half is paycheck to get me to an event. How many uncles can do that for their daughters and be so proud? My uncle is just like that; he believes in me. What more can you ask for? My Uncle Sam is my biggest fan.”

Charley believes her relationship with her uncle reflects one of a strong traditional upbringing.

“In Navajo teachings, your uncles on your mother’s side discipline her children,” Charley said. Her uncle’s Sam Wilson and Albert Wilson were the ones who escorted her to the Dean C. Jackson Memorial Arena, shortly before she was crowned.

“That (her uncles escorting her) was what caught the eyes of a lot of people,” Charley said. “It made some people realize that not only a woman can raise a child, but a man can also do that job.”

When Charley was a little girl, she spent her afternoon hours herding sheep and her evening hours doing homework by a kerosene lamp. At four in the morning, she had to wake up, so she could heat water and wash.

Charley continues to live by the Navajo teachings instilled into her by her grandparents and uncles. She wakes before the sun rises each morning and prays with white corn pollen, so the Holy People know her.

She still wakes up at four in the morning, but instead of bringing in wood and heating up water, she now takes her time to primp herself for a busy day: applying her make-up, fixing her hair, and putting together a matching ensemble.

She admits to still feeling a bit of hesitation from some people when she first enters a crowded room, but she is assured their uncertainty about her will pass.

“I think people kind of judged me for a while on not being thin,” Charley said. “But once they knew I could speak the language, and sing, they changed their mind.”

She encourages young girls to be however they feel comfortable.

“You don’t have to be skinny like Angelina Jolie to be successful,” Charley said. “Looks are not everything; it’s what you know.”