Participant Info

First Name
Farina
Last Name
King
Affiliation
Northeastern State University
Website URL
https://www.farinaking.com
Keywords
Native American history, Indigenous history, twentieth-century Diné/Navajo studies, ethnohistory, oral history, Navajo educational history, Native American Mormon history
Additional Contact Information

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

Bilagáanaa niliigo’ dóó Kinyaa’áanii yásh’chíín. Bilagáanaa dabicheii dóó Tsinaajinii dabinálí. Ákót’éego diné asdzá̹ á̹ nilí̹. Farina King is “Bilagáanaa” (Euro-­American), born for “Kinyaa’áanii” (the Towering House Clan) of the Diné (Navajo). Her maternal grandfather was Euro­-American, and her paternal grandfather was “Tsinaajinii” (Black­streaked Woods People Clan) of the Diné. She is Assistant Professor of History and an affiliate of the Cherokee and Indigenous Studies Department at Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, Oklahoma. She received her U.S. History Ph.D. at Arizona State University.

She was the 2016-2017 David J. Weber Fellow for the Study of Southwestern America at the Clements Centers for Southwest Studies of Southern Methodist University. She was the 2015-­2016 Charles Eastman Dissertation Fellow at Dartmouth College. She received her M.A. in African History from the University of Wisconsin and a B.A. from Brigham Young University with a double major in History and French Studies. Her main area of research is colonial and post­colonial Indigenous Studies, primarily Indigenous experiences of colonial and boarding school education. Her first book with the University Press of Kansas, titled The Earth Memory Compass: Diné Landscapes and Education in the Twentieth Century, explores how historical changes in education shaped Diné collective identity and community by examining the interconnections between Navajo students, their people, and Diné Bikéyah (Navajo lands). The study relies on Diné historical frameworks, mappings of the world, and the Four Sacred Directions.

To learn more about her work and background, visit her website at farinaking.com.

Recent Publications

Earth Memory Compass: Diné Landscapes and Education in the Twentieth Century, University Press of Kansas (October 2018).

“An Indian Boarding School Family,” Phi Kappa Phi Forum 99, no. 4 (Winter 2019): 8-11.

“Aloha in Diné Bikéyah: Mormon Hawaiians and Navajos, 1949-1990,” in Essays on American Indian and Mormon History, edited by P. Jane Hafen and Brenden Rensink, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2019.

“State of the Field: Indigenizing Mormonisms,” Mormon Studies Review 6 (2019): 1-16.

“Intergenerational Ties: Diné Memories of the Crownpoint Boarding School during the 1960s,” New Mexico Historical Review 93, no. 4 (Fall 2018): 399-420.

“Miss Indian BYU: Contestations over the Crown and Indian Identity,” Journal of the West 52, 3 (Summer 2013): 10-21.

Media Coverage
http://www.byuradio.org/episode/956d49c8-4d88-47a6-b81f-439df763559f?playhead=3080&autoplay=true
Country Focus
United States
Expertise by Geography
United States
Expertise by Chronology
20th century
Expertise by Topic
Children & Youth, Colonialism, Family, Gender, Indigenous Peoples, Local & Regional, Race, Religion