This week's heroine(s): Miss Navajo

This weekend, I watched the documentary film, Miss Navajo on PBS's Independent Lense. The film follows a young Native American woman, Crystal Frazier, as she prepares to compete in the Miss Navajo Nation contest.

The first time the title was awarded was in 1952 at the Navajo Nation Fair. Initially, the crown was awarded to the most popular contestant among fair attendees. Over the years, the contest evolved. The winner represents the Navajo people to the rest of the world, acting as a kind of ambassador of good will. Contestants must demonstrate skill in traditional Navajo ways, including fluency in the Navajo language. This particular talent has become a difficult hurdle for many, since most Navajo families now speak English at home and English has been the dominant language in the public schools attended by the Navajo.

Some of the other skills that contestants must demonstrate include rug weaving, fry bread making, and sheep butchering. This last bit is very grueling, for the contestant as well as the animal. Contestants are questioned on their knowledge of Navajo culture and history by a panel, typically in the Navajo language.

The winner of this pageant exemplifies a beauty of cultural spirit. Since Native cultures and traditions are threatened by modernization and more than a century's worth of subversive intentional assimilation, I applaud the intent of this contest. Wouldn't it be fantastic if other pageants encouraged contestants to embody certain spiritual, cultural, or intellectual ideals? While many Miss America contestants pay lip service to social ideals, how many actually do anything to further those ideals in more than just a mock fashion?

So, Hooray for Miss Navajo, and all the runners up who try to live up to the spirit of the contest.

Heroines on Sunday

On Monday nights, we record Heroes, so we can watch it at our leisure as a family on Tuesday. It's a great show ("Save the cheerleader, save the world.")

I'm not one of those women who have any feelings one way, or the other, about the verb "to man" or the nouns with feminine versions such as actor/actress and hero/heroine. As a matter of fact, one of my current favorite popular songs is "Hero/Heroine" by Boys Like Girls.

That said, I am always interested in inspiring women. So, I think I'm going to start a blog theme: Heroines on Sunday. This week's candidate: Andree De Jongh.

Born in Belgium in 1916, the Countess De Jongh was a very active member of the French resistance during World War II. She helped found the Comet Line, a route used by over 800 Allied soldiers to escape the Nazis. She personally escorted 118 of those soldiers. After the execution of her father by the Nazis in 1943, she too was arrested. Under tortuous interrogation she admitted to being a key figure in the resistance and the organizer of the escape route. The Nazis did not believe that a woman could have such a key role, so they merely imprissoned her. Eventually she ended up in Ravensbrück concentration camp and then Mauthausen. She survived in the camps until her liberation by advancing Allied troops in April 1945.

In her later life she worked in leper hospitals in both the Congo and Ethiopia, but eventually retired to Belgium as her health began to fail her. In 1985, she was made a Belgian Countess. Andree De Jongh passed from this world in October at the age of 90.

I don't have a daughter, but if I did I'd take this opportunity to encourage her with such examples. While much more trivial, I did stumble across a cool book for girls The Daring Book for Girls which is produced by the same folks who gave us The Dangerous Book for Boys. While both books are supposedly for kids, they look like fun reads for adults as well.

Happy Sunday!