Manuelito Wheeler

And they need some help in the carpenter shop.

And I'm like, okay, I need a job, I'll take it.

So I was a carpenter's assistant, and then I moved up to the exhibit installer, and then I moved up to the design manager there at the Heard Museum.

So during my time there, my wife has finished her master's and now she's on to her doctorate in English Lit.

And all the while she's teaching Navajo.

So she's teaching Navajo to high school students here in the Phoenix area.

And we would always have this discussion of how do we make our language relevant?

How do we get these young people to connect to our language?

And this is something that's very close to both of us.

It's close to me because I'm not fluent in Navajo and that's a secret shame that I carry with me.

That's a secret shame that people of my generation, we carry with us.

And it's like, there it is, something that's part of us and it's fading and we're trying to figure out how to save it.

So we're sitting around the dinner table and we talk about, man, it would be really cool to have our own movies in the Navajo language.

And so they're like, yeah, yeah, that would be cool.

So we tossed some ideas around.

She maybe has said, like, we should do the Steel Magnolias in Navajo.

And I thought, eh.

But then I say, like, you know, think about it for a while.

Like, we should do Star Wars.

Maybe you've heard of it.