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NavajoStrong Co-Creator of Utah's K'é Program - Bringing the Rez to the City - Meet Mariah Plummer


Yáʼátʼééh shí k’é dóo shí dine’é. Shí éí Mariah Odessa Plummer dashjiní. ‘Ádóone’é nishłínígíí ‘éí Tł’ááshchí’í nishłí. Tó'aheedlíinii ‘éí bá shíshchíín. Táchii'nii ei dashicheii nááná
Tódich'ii'nii dashinalí. ‘Ákót’éego ‘éí diné asdzání nishłí.

[English translation] Greetings my relatives, my family members, and my people. They call me “Mariah Odessa Plummer.” I am of the Red Cheek clan, born for the Water Flows Together clan. My maternal grandparents are the Red Running into the Water clan, and my paternal grandparents are the Bitter Water clan. In this way, I am a Diné Navajo woman.

What key moments defined you as a leader?

Any Navajo will tell you their home is Dinétah, the land within the six Sacred Mountains. My family on the other hand, will tell you that my home is where my umbilical cord is buried beneath the reservation dirt. My home is where paved roads end, and you must use plastic bags to protect your shoes when walking to the school bus stop. It is where the wind whistles and the Rez dogs bark all night long. My home is the Navajo Nation, where I was born and raised.

When I tell people I am from Arizona, they are quick to assume I am from The Valley of The Sun (Phoenix). Little do they know, I grew up on one of the largest Indigenous reservations in the Nation. We have approximately 400,000 enrolled members and only about 1,000 people populated my hometown of Tsaile, Arizona. As a matrilineal society, this was the land where three generations of our family clan was raised. Years later, we moved to an even smaller community of approximately 900 members called Chiłchinbíto’ (Where The Sumac Berries Sit In The Water) to care for my paternal grandparents. The area is known for its abundance of sumac bushes. Sumac bushes are the natural resources used to weave traditional Navajo Wedding Baskets and as an ingredient for traditional Navajo foods. Coming from a family of Navajo Basket weavers, this community was the perfect place to call our new home.

Leaving home to pursue my education was by far the hardest thing I have ever had to do. However, the honorable Diné Navajo tribal leader known as Chief Manuelito, served as an advocate for western education and told his Diné Navajo people, “My grandchildren, education is a ladder. Tell our people to take it.” This cultural shocking experience became one of the key moments to define me as a leader for my community. Not only was I molding myself info a resilient Indigenous woman, but I was also fulfilling the legacy and honoring my Diné ancestors.

I believe that health and culture persistence, on and off colonized reservations, are in the hands of the younger generations. Like many other indigenous peoples, I chose to take the ladder of education. Despite all the obstacles I have overcome, education has always been my strength. I am proud to be excelling in my studies and to have graduated from Utah Valley University with my Bachelor of Science degree in Public Health.

What kind of community-driven projects have you spearheaded/participated in that you are personally proud of? What did you take away from these experiences?

In April of 2022, I was announced as one of the ten Running Strong for American Indian Youth Dreamstarter Grant recipients. With this grant I teamed up with the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, NavajoStrong, to create the Utah K’é project. The purpose of Utah K’é was to “Bring the Rez to the City” by creating a safe place for Indigenous members of the Salt Lake City to connect and promote cultural preservation through facilitated cultural workshops embracing their inner Rez kid.

When developing this community-drive project, I used the Diné Navajo teachings of K’é. The Navajo-English translation of the term “K’é” is used to describe kinship, blood relation, and balance; which are all essential to a person’s inner peace and striving goals. Through this acknowledgment of connecting together, indigenous peoples have established resiliency, compassion, generosity, and empathy. These core values are demonstrated through the Utah K’é project and connects me to my community.

From this 12-week project, we were able to impact over 200 individuals between ages 4 and 70 from 10 different tribal nations (Diné Navajo, Ute, Paiute, Blackfoot, Anishinaanbe Ojibwe, Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian, Tsuut’ina, and Oglala Lakota). Through community partners and sponsors, Utah K’é and NavajoStrong were also able to provide participating students with back-to-school packs containing essential school supplies, reusable drawstring bags, Nike Elite basketball shorts, and an inspiring message encouraging them to excel in their studies.

Before Utah K’é began, it was an individual dream for one person, myself. Over the course of the project, the dream became a reality with life-long results. With each workshop, Utah K’é and NavajoStrong, saw more and more people coming out to support one another. There were familiar faces from the week before, new faces that were excited to join, and even a few shy faces who fit right in with everyone else! Since Utah K’é workshops were community-driven, it was also a great way for the community to understand “social media famous” influencers, community workers, and business owners, were just normal people.

During the Utah K’é program, people were each others’ friends, relatives, aunties, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, and never strangers. Through the ancestral teachings of K’é, I have always believed that deep down, Natives will always be Rez Kids, and even though we all have our own paths, we are just Rez Kids at heart. If colonization does not allow us to be home with our families, it is our time to Bring the Rez to the City!

Today, Utah K’é and NavajoStrong are proud to report that Utah K’é participants are still closely connected to each other, even after the program has finished for the current fiscal year. NavajoStrong and myself have even invited 2022 participants to offer their skills and insights to further develop Utah K’é as members of the 2023 Utah K’é planning commitee.

How do you connect with your ancestral roots in your professional and personal life?

I am privileged to have been born and raised on the Navajo Nation Reservation by a family who made it a priority to be proud of myself as an Indigenous person. With that honor, it is crucial for me to carry on Diné teachings and apply them to my everyday life. Anytime I meet someone new, I am sure to greet them with a firm handshake and to introduce myself to them in my traditional language. By doing this, I feel like I am being vulnerable enough to make new friends, build new relationships, and foster success. I connect my ancestral roots in my professional and personal life by always putting my elders first and honoring my ancestors through songs, prayers, medicines, and good intentions.

As an Indigenous leader, what motivates you to move forward in times of adversity? Where do you find your passion?

Anytime I start a new project, I always think of my childhood. Growing up with limited resources on the reservation made me strong, resilient, and innovative. Anytime I encounter obstacles, I think about when I was eight years old and my basketball net tore. I was annoyed that I had to sell more baked goods to buy a new net, but my older brother, Isiah, helped me find the simplest solution. He taught me how to craft a new net using recycled hay twines. It wasn’t a fancy Wilson basketball net, but I thought it was the coolest thing in the world! I wanted everyone to know that I made it, but deep down I knew I couldn’t have done it without my older brother.

I think of this story during hard times because it reminds me, as long as I have someone special with me, we can share knowledge and share teachings to accomplish anything! This is why the teachings of k’é and kinship are so important to me. It is also why I choose to build friendships first and partnerships second. Everyone who has been part of my life, took turns guiding me and mentoring me. My late great grandmother, Irene, told me the knowledge I possess is not mine alone. It belongs to all the seven generations before me, and this taught me that success doesn’t mean anything without my community behind me.

What do you see yourself doing in the future? Next five years? Ten?

Lately I have been spending most of my down time thinking about this transition period I am currently in. As a new graduate, I am transitioning from youth to leader. It is nerve-racking for me to take on new responsibilities and new roles as a community advocate. In the next five years, I hope to be embracing these difficulties and turning them into strengths as a leader for my community. In the next ten years, I hope to be so far in my career that I can heal broken souls and empower Indigenous youth to find their own paths of success.

SAVE the DATE: Join us in Denver June 7-9

June 7 Inclusive Leader Awards Dinner,
First Gen Leadership Program

June 8, 9 GlobalMindED Conference
2023 Denver, Colorado

Watch the brief video below that The PhD Project produced highlighting the experience at GlobalMindED from several key demographics; students, faculty, and business leaders
Making Impact: Leveraging Collaborations and Partnerships to Advance STEM Equity

Moderated by Dr. Susan Swayze, Founder & CEO Diversity Think Tank. Dr. Swayze is a DEI strategist and expert researcher who created Diversity Think Tank to help organizations identify transformative solutions and accomplish audacious goals. Susan is a highly sought-after speaker on topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion with special emphasis on holding conversations about bias, race, and gender pay equity. She has inspired audiences in Africa, Brazil, Canada, and across the U.S. An accomplished scholar, Dr. Swayze has authored three books and more than 50 scholarly works. Speakers include:

Melvin Stallings, President, Cyber Green Group
CGG is a workforce training non-profit for teachers and students in STEAM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Arts, and Math) that trains, educates, and creates innovators of the future. Mr. Stallings is also a Curriculum Development Specialist and has written many math and science curriculums for high schools throughout the US. He has presented professional development workshops at local and national conferences and managed various STEAM initiatives for over 1,500 students in subject areas like Cyber Forensic, Biomedical Engineering, Coding, and the Art of Green Science across the US.

Dr. Janelle M. Johnson, Associate Professor of STEM Education, Metropolitan State University
Dr. Johnson is co-editor of “STEM21: Equity in Teaching and Learning to Meet Global Challenges of Standards, Engagement, and Transformation” (2018). Her research focuses on interdisciplinary STEM equity and inclusive approaches to teaching and learning. Janelle taught K-12 math and science with English Learners primarily in Guatemala, and now teaches multicultural education and science methods at the university. Dr. Johnson is on the board of the Colorado Assoc. of Science Teachers, the Director of the Colorado STEM Ecosystem 2.0, and she served on the Council of State Science Supervisors ACESSE Network in the disrupting ableism affinity group.

Lisette Torres-Gerald, Senior Research Associate and Program Coordinator, TERC
Dr. Torres-Gerald is a scientist and disabled scholar-activist at TERC, a non-profit made up of teams of math and science education and research experts. Her academic research focuses on addressing racial and gender inequity in science and higher education. Lisette is an active member of Science
for the People and a co-founder and executive board member of the National Coalition for Latinxs with Disabilities. Dr. Torres-Gerald is also an advisory board member of Science Friday’s Breakthrough Dialogues Program and the Invisible Disability Project (IDP)

Rubi Amateco, Biology Student, Metropolitan State University
Highlights from the Resolve to Solve in Atlanta below. You can watch a YouTube video of the entire day,thanks to WABE/PBS Atlanta.
Rose Scott with Dr. Glenda Glover, Dr. David Thomas, and Dr. M. Brian Blake
Michael Render, AKA "Killer Mike"
June 2022 Conference Summary in Photos and Videos
We had an inspiring conference in June after two years of virtual gatherings due to COVID. If you missed that, you can still be a part of the experience through the photos from the 2022 GlobalMindED conference, as well as seeing the complete program for connections and inspiration.



Video remarks:
Honoring the 2022 Inclusive Leader Award Winners. Please see their stories:
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