Dinée Dorame on living her values as a Navajo woman in sports media

March 8, 2021

Dinée Dorame is a citizen of the Navajo Nation and a self-identified running nerd. She was born and raised in Albuquerque, NM (on Tiwa ancestral lands). She graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in 2015 and worked as an Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale for three years before moving back to New Mexico. She currently works as the Associate Director of College Horizons, a national college access program providing admission and financial aid workshops for Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian high school students and families. Most recently, she became the founder, host, and producer of the Grounded Podcast, which explores the connection of running, community, land, and culture.

Discussed in this episode:

–Tiwa ancestral lands

–Lenape ancestral lands

–Dinée’s personal essay in Runner’s World

–Safety as physical, mental, and spiritual

—Underrepresentation of Native students in higher education

–18:58: The importance of running in Navajo traditions

–23:23: what running means to Dinée

—Leroy Silva on Grounded Podcast

–36:45: food sovereignty and sports nutrition

—Starla Garcia on Social Sport Podcast

43:46: what Dinée has learned from hosting Grounded Podcast

—Runners World article featuring Dinée, by Taylor Dutch

–57:00: Dinée and I geek out over Gilmore girls and pitch a podcasters’ Gilmore Girls trivia tournament

Quotes:

–“Storytelling is a cultural value for me as a Navajo person. How can I help other people tell their story? How can I tell my story? Because I’m also a native woman, and I’m worthy of that space. And how can I help my dad, my mom, and my family tell their story?”

–“For me [sports podcasting] is about being myself. I definitely use words like activist or feminist or environmentalist, but I try to avoid them, to be honest. Because for me, those are things that are baked into my own values. As a native person, I’m just taught to be community- minded. If you’re community-minded, you’re always thinking: if someone is giving something to me, what am I giving to them?”

–“I go for a run and I know exactly where I am. I remember who I am and whose land I am grateful to be on at that time. And I can be with so many members of my family, both who are here, and who have passed on. For me, that’s what makes [running] so powerful.”