The Hopi Tribe: The Bond Of Family

Most people depend on family during times of hardship. The bond of family is so powerful that it almost seems as if everybody was a part of one big family, many problems would be minimized. My community, the Hopi tribe, designed an extremely unique and broad family connection that has been a sustainable means of life for thousands of years. I admire our family system that allows us to overcome the challenges we face in the community. Mission teams come to our community from the east and west coast and every time, I get similar questions from them. “How do people here live without a job or even some basic means of survival?” I give them a slight shrug and say, “we are all families here, fam.” “Um himu wungwa?” In Hopi, it means “What clan are you?” By
I observed that because we are so closely bonded within the family, we don’t feel the need to pursue education and succeed. Many people in the community blame our school’s lack of rigor to prepare students for college. I partly agree. As I started the application process, I felt the disadvantage in attending a noncompetitive school that does not offer many higher level classes and a lot of resources for competitive colleges. However, I believe that more improvement has to be made in the community. We currently don’t have a community that is supportive of aspiring students or even raising students to properly succeed. As a community, we have to bolster the students in ways that the school cannot. We need to build more libraries and youth centers where room for study and research is available and various programs such as college preparation, SAT/ACT tutoring, and college campus visits are offered. With some extra support, I know that more Hopi High School graduates can achieve higher level education and become outspoken outside of the