American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Three generations of Navajo women respond to the vast historical change of the twentieth century with distinctive as well as common elements in their life course patterns. The lives of these women bear the imprint of major historical events such as stock reduction, the funding of on-reservation projects by the Navajo-Hopi Long Range Rehabilitation Act, and the implementation of the Navajo Family Planning Program. At the same time their education, wage work, marriage, and childbearing patterns maintain the unique stamp of a Navajo worldview. Navajo women confront challenges posed by a historically constructed reality with culturally constructed courses of action that arise from persistent pronatalist values toward children and their egalitarian position in a matrilineal society.