War, Patriotism, Tradition, and the Dine Marriage Act of 2005 Jennifer Nez Denetdale

■ mm ike many other Americans, I became aware of the attacks on the United States on September 1 1, 200 1, via the national news, which broadcast the scenes of airplanes diving into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. I remember learning of the attacks right before having to go to teach a class at Northern Arizona University. That day the students sat quietly, for it was almost impossible for anyone to not have heard the shocking news. 1 Many Americans marked these events as a signal that they were no longer safe and supported President Bush and his administration's preparations to begin invasions in the Middle East, first Afghanistan and then Iraq. In much the same way, Navajos also enthusiastically expressed their patriotism to the United States,-however, Navajos have manifested their loyalty within the rhetoric and symbols of Dine traditional values. This manifestation of Dine traditional values conflates Navajo na-tionalism with American nationalism, so that they appear to be one and the same. Such articulations streamline Native pasts into the dominant American narrative about itself as a multicultural nation founded upon moral and ethical principles and erase the historical links between the past and the present, wherein Native peoples have been violently dispossessed of most of their lands and they see their sovereign statuses as nations continually undermined by US federal Indian policies and the Supreme Court. Native peoples remain second-class citizens within