Recently I spent some time with family on the Navajo Nation and it gave me a chance to catch up on our tribe’s elections. We sat at mom’s kitchen table visiting and sipping coffee, while KTNN – our local tribal radio station – played in the background. My mother lives in the heart of Dinétah (Navajoland) and is a fluent speaker of our language. So is my father. My sisters and I are not.

The hot topic up for today’s discussion? Diné Bizaad (our Navajo language), its decline and the efforts to revitalize it. The balancing act – honoring and respecting traditions while simultaneous modifying them to suit our contemporary needs – has been going on for centuries, but thanks to the current tribal election, our private narratives have been brought into the public realm.

The election is forcing us as Diné (The People) to talk about our current state of affairs and is helping us face challenging realities; the survival of our language and generational power shift.

For the first time, my tribe – the largest American Indian Nation in the United States – openly debated whether to allow a presidential candidate who is not a fluent Navajo speaker to run for our tribe’s highest office (a tribal hearing ruled against him, but he is expected to appeal).

The non-fluent candidate, Christopher Clark Deschene, is young and a shining example of what our elders have encouraged us to achieve (on paper, at least): he went to law school, served in the military and held public office, even if he speaks Navajo about as well as I do – poorly. His opponent, Joe Shirley Jr, is an elder – a fluent speaker now running for his third non-consecutive term. I didn’t vote for either in our primary elections. My preferred candidate did not make it, and that left me conflicted.

But debate had to happen eventually: nearly 50% of our tribal members are under the age of 30 and many are not Navajo speakers. We have over 330,000 tribal members and only an estimated 169,000 still speak the language – the majority of whom, unsurprisingly, are elders. They are the reason we still have a living traditional culture.

The issue of Navajo language fluency sets a precedent not only for my generation, but for future generations. I want the Navajo Nation to progress, but that doesn’t mean pushing aside Diné Bizaad, which is a core value of our people. On the other hand, our younger generations should not be left out of the political process because we don’t speak the language. It is also disheartening to bear witness to the generations pitting themselves against each other: we need our elders more than ever.

I value my tribal language. And I would love to hear our Navajo president speak our language fluently, but not at the cost of excluding younger members of the tribe. I appreciate that our council still conducts meetings in our language, especially since few tribes anywhere do that today.

I would give so much, just to be a fluent speaker. If there were a magic pill, I would take it. If there is a traditional Navajo ceremony that would really give me that ability – which I hear there is – I would do it in a heartbeat. So many parts of the Navajo world have been closed to me, and I want in on this secret club, to be let in on those stories, jokes, holy songs, prayers and play-by-play sports action in Diné.

The late Navajo storyteller Vincent Craig used the term “mental television” to describe the images and experiences of hearing stories in our language. I get by now using mostly slang, contextual clues, piecing together short phrases here and there and listening for English words. That is like trying to watch a show while limited to snowy, jagged, black-and-white images; I want to experience Diné in HD.

I do not want to imagine what Navajo would be like if we had no fluent speakers: there would be no KTNN, no stories and no ceremonies to attend because no one would be able to conduct them. I can’t truly imagine a world where our songs and prayers are not spoken in Diné. Linguists have said that “languages are, in fact, forms of life”. I believe that.

It might not happen in my lifetime, but that day could be closer than we think, especially if we don’t take ownership and act.

There is no quick fix. I wish I could reverse hundreds of years of external and internal language oppression in one week – or even one year – but I cannot. I have to put in the time and effort like anything else and I can only blame my parents so much. I fully understand that my parents choose not to teach my siblings and me the language because they thought life and school would be easier for us.

It was US government assimilation policy to eradicate Indigenous languages. During the harsh US Indian Boarding School era, children like my parents were rounded up, taken away from their families and forced to only speak English. Many young Indian children, like my mother, were shamed and severely punished for speaking Diné. All Diné, all of Indian Country, know these stories, but at what point and time do those of us affected by those policies and traumas say enough and take responsibility for ourselves?

I hope Deschene can learn the language quickly: it would be a great example to all Diné that our language can be learned and that it need not take a lifetime, despite the oppression that’s taught us otherwise. I just wish he had taken more time to learn it before running for office. But Joe Shirley Jr. has had his turn, and I’m not a fan of individuals who want to be “Chief for Life”.

Even after the Navajo Nation Office of Hearings and Appeals makes its decision on the legal challenge to Deschene’s candidacy, we as Diné will still have to make our individual decisions and ask ourselves what are we going to do to ensure the future of the Navajo Nation: What do we value, and what are we willing to give up? The balancing act will have to continue, regardless of who gets elected.

On 4 November, I will vote in our tribal elections and I am anxious to see what direction my tribe takes. In the meantime, I’ll continue my work with tribes, pray for Dinétah and plan for how to learn Diné Bizaad.