After only two years, a new language class has hundreds of students connecting to their culture

When Herbert Smith speaks Diné Bizaad, the Navajo language, he immediately feels connected to his culture and ancestors.

“Language is important. Language has always been the foundation of every culture,†he said.

It's why Smith, an elder in the class, has taken up a Diné language class at the Urban Indian Center of Salt Lake.

Smith grew up in New Mexico on the east side of the Navajo Nation reservation with his family, learning both English and Diné Bizaad.

“I've been working here in Salt Lake and not able to be home on the reservation that much,†Smith said. “It kind of refreshes my mind, my memory.â€

So every Wednesday, Smith joins 40-60 other students in classes in the Ballpark neighborhood. They range in age and background, but are all looking for one thing: to connect to their culture.

From Indigenous ‘Star Wars' to the Urban Indian Center

In front of each student, a yellow propped-up piece of paper lists their clan. When they introduce themselves, it's not simply by stating their names, but their identity and heritage.

“Always identify yourself with who you are,†Clarissa Yazzie, the course instructor, tells the students.

The community center room where they gather features artwork by Indigenous people from the eight federally recognized tribes of Utah. The language class is part of the Urban Indian Center's larger Rebalancing Culture program, which fosters the passing down of culture and tradition.

This year marks 52 years of the UIC. From its three locations, it serves members from over 100 tribes.

Rhonda “Honey†Duvall, the UIC's outreach manager, is the brain behind the Rebalancing Culture program.

“It was a pilot back in 2024 and that's where we really started to understand what it is our community wants to see,†Duvall, who is Diné and African American, said.

Duvall has been coming to the center since she was 3 years old and considers it a “third home.â€

“[Back then] I came here not necessarily to the programs, but to the community events, to the powwows and whatnot,†Duvall said.

Duvall wants to find ways to serve the registered members of the center, while bringing in new people from the community.

The program not only has the beginner, intermediate and advanced Diné Bizaad courses, but other cultural offerings. There have been classes on dance, music, arrow making, beadwork and more.

“[It] opens the doors and the space for community to come in, and bring their families, native as well as non-native, and they can experience that culture, that tradition, collectively,†she said.

Duvall ran into Yazzie at an event two years ago, while Yazzie was in the middle of her own language revitalization journey.

Yazzie's first language is Navajo. “I probably didn't learn English until I started preschool,†she said.

She grew up in Rock Point, Arizona, where she attended Rock Point Community School.

“They were one of the first two schools in the reservation where they taught Navajo literacy,†Yazzie said.

Over the years, she's found her way back to sharing that knowledge with others.

In 2009, Yazzie came back to Arizona and the reservation. There, she taught a junior high Navajo language course at her alma mater for almost two years, which is what got her started on her teaching kick. Four years later, Yazzie would become the voice of Princess Leia in a Navajo-dubbed version of “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.â€

“I brought my gift to this, my fluency,†Yazzie said. “It just kind of opened my eyes to why language revitalization was important.â€

Years later, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Yazzie saw younger generations of Indigenous people expressing frustration that they wanted to learn their Native languages.

For many reasons, including the systemic assimilation of generations of Indigenous children at boarding schools, the language hasn't always been passed down.

So Yazzie took her teacher skills to social media. Her first video went through the numbers one to 10.

Yazzie was working on developing her own online curriculum when Duvall told her she was looking for a Dinè teacher for the center.

Now they work together in their class, where they start with the foundational aspects.

“We're learning the high tones, the low tones, the glottal stops, really trying to understand what it means when we're utilizing each of those instances through our language,†Duvall said.

The language class started with 15-20 students, Duvall said. Last year, there were over 150 people in the first class for the foundational course.

There's a wide variety of people who attend: those who grew up speaking Navajo and then left the reservation for college but wanted to stay connected to their language in cities, those who were raised outside the community and have no exposure, or those who want to keep up on their skills.

Yazzie adjusts the syllabus based on what the class needs. Instead of throwing new content at them every week, they build on what they learned in the previous course.

“Learning a language comes with repetition and practice,†Yazzie said.

But Duvall said they want the students to take away more than the basics.

“It's a lot deeper than actually just learning the language. It's catering to making sure that our youth are understanding the stories that come with that, but also the importance of our life lessons … it's sort of closing that cycle of trauma that we've experienced as we're continuing to find our way in our communities.â€

At the first class for the intermediate course, Yazzie tells her students to use the vocabulary they're learning, like the days of the week, every day. To recite them in the mirror. By week six, students will stand up and introduce themselves to everyone.

“That's where preserving our language has to happen. We have to start speaking in the homes again. We have to start speaking to our children, our grandchildren,†she said.

The class ‘feeds' spirits of students

Smith, the elder, said one of his favorite parts of the class is seeing how many young people come to it.

“These younger generations, [it's] important for them to pick it up and to speak it, because they said that once our language goes, that's the end of our people,†he said.

Kaden Stevens is one of those young people. He started taking the class alongside his sister and nephew after his mom took it.

Stevens, who is Diné, grew up in West Valley City, away from the reservation. He didn't pick up Diné as a child, though his mother knows the language.

But over the last few years, he felt that, “There was something that was missing, something I needed to feel more whole.â€

So he decided to take the class.

“We need to do it for ourselves and for our community, and those who came before us, and who are going to come after,†Stevens said. “In a lot of native cultures, the language is so intertwined with our homelands and in our traditions.â€

Stevens said his favorite parts of the class is being able to connect with the other students and learning alongside his family.

“There's three generations of us all learning it,†he said. “It just kind of feeds my spirit being among everyone.â€

At the beginning of the intermediate course, the class starts with their kinship models — family trees that extend beyond the chart.

“When your own blood family is not here … we have this family, we're able to establish these relationships,†Yazzie explains. “Now, essentially, I have sisters over there. I have an aunt or a cousin. I don't have to miss having that family, because we have family everywhere.â€