ACS Boston Meeting Talk

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Walking the Road Between Two Worlds

Ya’a’teeh! Hello! Shandiin Beyet yinishye. My name is Shanadeen Begay. Kin thla chii nii ei nish thli doo tah na zha nii bashishchiin. I am Red House clan born for Tangle People. Aadoo dibe thlizhin ei da shichei doo tse dezh gish nii ei da shinali. Moreover, my mother’s father’s clan is Black Sheep and my father’s father’s clan is split rock between a gap clan. Kot’ eego ei asdzan nishli. I am female. Gallup, NM dee’ iiyisi naasha. My home town is Gallup, NM. Doo Fort Defiance, AZ di shi’ dizhchi. And I was born in Fort Defiance, AZ. Boston, MA di shighan. I live in Boston, MA. Nakii naahaigo aadi shighan. I have lived there for two years. Aadoo Boston University di iinishta’ aadi Chemistry baiinishta. Also, I attend Boston University and Chemistry is my field of study. Thomas Keyes ba naahnish. I work for Thomas Keyes. Ahe hee. Thank you.

This is the way a Navajo person introduces themselves to their new friends, and so this is how I address you all. I want to thank you all for coming here today, and for being supporters of the American Chemical Society Scholars program. I’ve been an ACS scholar and alumni for four years. I have had a great relationship with the ACS Scholars Program staff and encourage any undergraduates listening to this talk to learn more about this program and meet the wonderful staff involved in this work.

I have entered the Theoretical chemistry field because of two main influences. The first is my family. My father and nali, my father’s grandmother, have been the two halves of the circle that form my travels to graduate school. My father was forcefully taken away from his home in Coal Mine, AZ as a child and attended a series of boarding schools, one of which was a MA boarding high school called Andover. I always had a desire to learn about the places he lived and so it was not so difficult to come to Boston after my undergraduate education was complete. My nali, or father’s mother, is the person who taught me Navajo stories in Navajo, she started to teach me how to weave, and the hozho, or balance, of my cultural heritage. She is the one who taught me how to pray early in the morning, and so I will now bring this talk into the blessing of the corn pollen in hopes that all that is done here at this meeting will be received in a balanced and peaceful way.



From in front of me, Early Dawn and the pollen from my ancestor’s prayers and wisdom teach me.
From the back of me, Evening Twilight and Yellow corn’s pollen from my ancestor’s prayers and wisdom teach me.
From the bottom of my feet, Mother Earth and Little Wind’s Child’s pollen teach me.
From the top of my head, the Sky and the Sun and Bluebird’s pollen teach me.
From the tip of my tongue, Little Wind’s Child and pollen teach me…



For Native American children, it can be difficult to move away from their family and take risks in the wider academic experiences offered in other parts of the country and world. My father has taught me that for my generation, the best way to come back to the Dine, my people, is most easily done in a figurative sense. There is so much in the world to be learned, so much I can be taught, and pursuing a career in Chemistry is the way I have chosen to give my gifts and talents back to the greater community.

My path has taken me to pursue my doctorate degree at Boston University, and I have had a chance to learn about proteins in simulations. I have been fortunate to find a career that combines my two undergraduate skills: one in computer science, and the other in discovering chemistry. This path has been the way that I have been true to myself, and how I delicately walk between the two worlds every modern Native American must face.

Remembering the teachings of my nali, my father’s mother, I have found a home away from my home in Chi’ chil tah, NM, and I have found a continual inspiration to continue to ask the questions, “Why does a chemical system work in the ways it does? What are the deeper mathematical principles in nature, and how to we approach these problems?”

When the nights get late, the papers to dry, the coding too obscure, the derivatives too cumbersome, and the protein too large, I always think about two quotes that have guided me through my continual transformation.

The first is from Annie Mae Pictou Aquash. She was an American Indian Movement activist who died for her dedication to her Native people in her struggle for acknowledgement as an American Indian here in Boston. She said,

“I’m not going to stop fighting until I die, and I hope I’m a good example of a human being and my tribe.”

The other quote is from E. E. Cummings, he said.

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

And so these quotes lead me to continue my path, to continue to fight for my heritage, and to fight for my future as a chemist. To be part of this vibrant and exciting community while contributing my own piece to the overall theoretical understanding of small molecules and proteins has been my great privilege.

My heart is always with my people, for I fully understand them in their struggles, and I would like my journey to continue in a path where I can serve them through my skills as a chemist. I don’t know if this will take the form of becoming a teacher, professor, or if it will be achieved through another career in chemistry, but I know that up to this point my path has been always away from my people in a physical sense. I have been physically removed from them. Soon, I hope to return, and to bring a greater understanding of the world of chemistry, of all cultures and people and how they understand theory and science.

The American Chemical Society Scholars Program has been like a close friend, always there to help me closer to my vision. I have gained benefits of academic success through their funding support. But more importantly I have been able to attend the ACS meetings and network with professors from all across the world who share my passion for theoretical science. It is the funding ACS has supplied that allowed me to attend the San Francisco meeting where I met David Wales and was able to make the first contact with him and learn about his research. And so, this has lead to my summer internship in the Wales group learning about a course-grain DNA model and taking the time to understand how to implement this model into a minimization code called GMIN.

My internship in Cambridge has been a truly transformative experience. I have leaned to be more committed to my goals, more dedicated in my cause, and more true to myself (as E.E. Cummings would hope!)

When I return to Boston, I will help coordinate an Indigenous Film Festival where my role is to portray the benefits science can have to the Native Community. I want to be a representative for positive change. There have been a great number of environmental injustices committed on Native Land. Uranium mine dumping on the Navajo Reservation, the loss of salmon runs in northern California for the Salish tribes, the loss of huge tracts of rainforest for the Amazon Indians. Our way of life as protectors of our mother earth is threatened, and I would like to use my skills in chemistry, and my representation as a chemist to help fulfill my birthright to protect the female nature of our planet. Native people need a voice, and need a way to express their grief. But more importantly, they need a way to move past these 400 years of pain and begin to find solutions. I want one way to find these solutions to be through problem solving and understanding the fundamental elements of the chemical world around us.

In the distant future, I would like to start translating chemical terms into Navajo, and start to form a vocabulary in Navajo to describe chemistry. I would like to make science available to my people in their own voice and lives. So many cultural ideas and our way of life is taught only by describing and using Navajo words. I want the Dine to have a teaching about chemistry; I want us to look forward and be progressive in science and not just to remember our past in ceremonies.

I have always desired to be a medicine woman for my people. This training takes many years and many songs and rites must be learned. I think that my medicine can be taught in two ways, the first through the “objective” science, and the other through the “subjective” ceremony. And so my plot to take over the world continues in this way, and I live each day to see this reality.

I would invite each one of you to continue your own journeys, and weave them together with your endeavors in chemistry. As a great leader of the Indian people (this time I mean from India) once said, “Be the change you seek in the world.”

And so in closing, I will finish with the second half of the prayer I gave earlier, in dedication to all I have planned, and in hope that you will succeed in all your plans as well.



From the front of me, Evening Twilight and pollen teach me.
From the back of me, Early Dawn and yellow corn’s pollen teach me.
From the bottom of my feet, Mountain Woman and Little Wind’s Child’s pollen teach me.
From the top of my head, the Sky and Moon and Ripener’s pollen teach me.
From the tip of my tongue, Little Wind’s Child and pollen teach me.



Ahe’ hee’.