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I am thinking of taking a teaching position in a Navajo reservation, and have my 6 year old who would come with me (both white).
I am looking for others who have done the same, either as a parent or child, and what their experience has been.
I have worked with Navajo people before, in the Grand Canyon, and they were all really nice people, so I'm not concerned about that.
I've also worked on the Flathead and Blackfoot reservations in Montana, but that was before I had a child and didn't notice this type of thing.
I'm more concerned about if my son will find friends, be ostracized because he isn't from there, etc.
If he was in high school I wouldn't worry so much, but he is little.
I have a close friend whose parents were teachers, employed by the BIA, who taught on the rez in the late 70s early 80s (which was a far different era, mind you). My friend was a young boy at the time, elementary school aged, and he told me what it was like to go to school with Navajo children as the only bilagaana child in the school.
While he said he wasn't harshly bullied, he did feel like he was an outsider and even self-identified as a Hopi (this is a child of Irish heritage) because the Hopi were the canonical 'outside group' among the Navajo. The community as a whole were frindly to his family, and they were welcomed to many events outsiders didn't see, and received many gifts that non-Navajo would never have because they have sacred significance, but the fact of the matter is, his interpersonal relationships with other Navajo children were, from what I understand, strained.
Now keep in mind that we are living in a different era. Depending on where on the rez you are teaching, the kids are probably far more cosmopolitan than Navajo kids were in the 70s. Many parts of the rez are connected to the internet and cable satellite TV has been around for decades. The social dynamic may well be way different.
But regardless, your child will be a racial and ethnic minority. It would be a double edged sword. He will have insight into culture that most people will never get, a rare and character bulding experience, and he will also learn what it means to be different in a positive way, but will probably also come against what it means to be different in a negative way. Such is the experience of ethnic/racial minorities in every corner of the country.
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