Annie Dodge Wauneka (1910-1997) was a prominent leader in the Navajo community, and a voice for Navajo people in the US government. She worked to improve the health of people in her community, while respecting and preserving Navajo culture.
Annie Dodge Wauneka (1910-1997) was a prominent leader in the Navajo community, and a voice for Navajo people in the US government. She worked to improve the health of people in her community, while respecting and preserving Navajo culture.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica.
This month, we’re covering Indigenous women from around the globe.
Today we’re talking about a woman who was a prominent leader in the Navajo community, and a voice for Navajo people in the US government. She worked to improve the health of people in her community, while respecting and preserving Navajo culture.
Let’s talk about Annie Dodge Wauneka.
Annie was born in 1910 on a Navajo reservation. Her father, Henry Chee Dodge, was a prominent leader in their tribe. She grew up herding sheep on his ranch. When Annie was eight years old, an influenza epidemic swept across her community, killing thousands of Navajos. Annie witnessed many of her peers fall sick and die.
Later, Annie enrolled in the University of Arizona and graduated with a degree in public health. Then, in 1951, Annie ran for a seat in the Navajo Tribal Council and won - becoming the second woman to ever be elected.
Two years later, a tuberculosis epidemic struck the Navajo reservation. Annie was appointed as the chair of The Health and Welfare committee. She began learning everything she could about tuberculosis. She would drive alone across the reservation - which stretched through Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico - visiting hospitals and tuberculosis patients and studying the disease and treatment options.
During her research, she began to observe that many Navajo tuberculosis patients distrusted government-run hospitals, and wouldn’t complete treatments in those spaces, leaving those in their community vulnerable to tuberculosis.
So Annie started launching health education campaigns that specifically targeted Navajo populations. She created a Navajo-English dictionary of medical terms,
helped produce short films narrated in Navajo about health education, launched a weekly radio program, and even organized a baby contest, where physicians would screen babies’ health and offer medical advice.
Plus, Annie personally travelled around the reservation, explaining to people how tuberculosis worked and how and western medicine - like x-ray machines - could help.
While Annie was doing this work, she was also observing the living conditions of many of the people that she was visiting. Witnessing their houses led her to develop other programs in the Navajo reservation to provide adequate sanitation, vaccinations, and infant care.
Annie was always conscious of Navajo culture and traditions - and her programming always considered the existing practices of the Navajo people, and focused on integrating modern medicine into existing Navajo traditions. During her time on the tribal council, she connected government physicians and volunteer doctors with traditional Navajo medicine men, so they could all work together to improve the health conditions of Navajo people.
But Annie’s influence expanded beyond the reservation. During her career, she also was a member of advisory boards of the US Surgeon General and the US Public Health service. During a time when Congress was overwhelmingly male, Annie regularly walked halls of congress to confer with presidents, heads of government agencies, and US representatives to be a voice for the Navajo people.
Annie served seven terms on the Navajo Tribal Council, from 1951 to 1979. At one point, she ran against her husband - and still won.
In 1963, Annie was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her groundbreaking work in public health. In 1984, she was designated by the Navajo people “Our Legendary Mother of the Navajo Nation.
Annie passed away in 1997, at the age of eighty-seven.
All month, we’re talking about Indigenous women.
Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator.
Talk to you tomorrow!