I have always wanted to know what’s beyond the mountain. As a child living on the edge of Old Pascua, a Yaqui village in Tucson, Arizona, I often enquired as to who lived on the other side of the mountain, and if the people there were like us or different. I was advised to be content with my surroundings, to stay within the safe confines of my familiar reservation and our own people. My grandfather taught me tolerance, understanding, and how to dream. Together we dreamed of a sanctuary for Native American children, a place called Native Images. With my grandfather’s passing the responsibility of making his dream a reality became my mission in life. Over the years our dream began to unfold. Now it is a place which welcomes diversity, respects all cultures and celebrates our differences. Keeping the dream alive has never been an easy undertaking. We still lack land to plant our traditional gardens, and be one with mother earth. There are still many mountains to climb. I do what I do because I am living the dream that was entrusted to me. I climb new mountains each day, and look beyond to where the dream awakens. 

This essay and portrait is part of a community-art and leadership project called “wdydwyd?” Tony Deifell (KNLP-16) invited his colleagues in the Kellogg Fellowship to reflect on what motivates them to follow their personal and professional paths by answering the question, “Why do you do what you do?”


“wdydwyd?” has reached over 1.5 million people worldwide and it has been used for team-building at Google, Twitter, many colleges and universities, nonprofits and K-12 classrooms. And, according to Wired Magazine, “In Silicon Valley, that question has been the hottest team-building meme since Outward Bound – and it’s spreading.” For more information: http://wdydwyd.com/leadership.


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