Non-Navajo is Twin Lakes princess

 

You had to look - and listen - closely to see that Twin Lakes Elementary School last week crowned a non-Navajo as its princess.

"She had the outfit, she had the tsííyeel ... she looked just like a little Navajo girl," said Carmen Clark, the new princess' Navajo language teacher.

In fact, Charlize Fernandez is 100 percent Filipina ... though she's spent seven of her eight years on the Navajo Nation.

"We're Navajos at heart," said Charlize's mom, Jane Fernandez.

Jane Fernandez teaches at Tohatchi Elementary School and her husband, Hindley Fernandez, teaches fine arts at Twin Lakes.

The family moved to Dinétah after Jane, who was teaching at an international school in the Philippines, became curious about Native Americans.

"I was teaching children of all nationalities, but I never met a Native American," she said. "So when an opportunity came to teach on the Navajo Nation, I took it."

Jane encouraged her children to learn all they could about Diné culture, but they soon surpassed her.

"They speak much more Navajo than I do now," she said.

Last year, Charlize's elder sister Gwyneth was first runner-up to the Tohatchi Elementary princess, so Charlize decided to follow in her footsteps this year.

"I haven't tried it before, so I decided to try," Charlize said.

"It was kind of a last-minute decision," Clark recalled. "She said, 'Can I do this?' I said, 'Yes, go ahead.'"

Jane offered to choreograph her daughter's talent number, but Charlize had other ideas.

"She said, 'No, I already know what I want to do,'" her mom recounted.

Charlize blew the judges away by singing in Navajo, then working on a sewing project while she switched to Spanish for a rousing rendition of "Las Mañanitas."

"Her Navajo pronunciation is better than most of her Navajo classmates'," Clark observed.

Were the Diné kids jealous of Charlize's victory?

"Not at all," said Clark. "They're all proud of her."

     Jane said her family feels very comfortable in Diné Bikéyah, halfway around the world from their home.

"We look like the people here, which I think helps us fit in," she said. "And I see a lot of similarities between Navajo and Filipino culture."

Jane said she'll continue to encourage her daughters to study Diné bizaad, even though it's their fourth language. They also speak Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines, a well as their regional dialect and of course English.

If singing in Spanish can be counted, Charlize actually speaks five languages.

Does she ever get them mixed up?

"No," she said.

Any advice for her classmates who'd like to be princess?

"Practice," she said. "Practice every day."

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