Best of '09: Navajo Students Write Letters to Obama

By Daniel Kraker

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/knau/local-knau-874044.mp3

Tuba City, AZ – When President Barack Obama was elected, a group of middle school students on the Navajo Nation wrote him letters telling him about life on the reservation. Many write honestly about the poverty they live in, but also dispense advice, and offer lots of invitations to their homes.

The project was the idea of Margaret Erhart, who teaches creative writing at Eagle's Nest Intermediate School in Tuba City, on the western edge of the Navajo reservation.

Click here for the story NPR originally aired on the students, including photographs and the text of many of the letters.