Lambert Yazzie spent the holiday break in Hunter's Point, Arizona, getting help to his mother, who lives in a remote part of the Navajo Reservation, in a place where electricity arrived just last summer and unpaved roads are a barrier to plows. A strong snowstorm passed through Arizona in late December, leaving her and others stranded.

Once his mother's safety was assured, Lambert spent a couple of days at Navajo Peacemaking, a traditional system of conflict resolution on the reservation. Rather than mustering attorneys and expert witnesses for an extended adversarial hearing, the disputing parties meet for conversations with a peacemaker, no other outsiders allowed. The central question is "what do you think is fair," Lambert says, "and everyone walks away feeling positive." The goal of his master's thesis in American Indian Studies at UCLA is to provide an analysis that will help others make use of the system's strong points.

His family and his academic career, Hunter's Point and UCLA, these are the poles of Lambert Yazzie's life these days. If you ask Mapquest to provide directions from Hunter's Point to Westwood, you'll be told that Hunter's Point isn't in their data banks. However, a map of Arizona shows the small community on a road north from Interstate 40 to Window Rock, capital of the Navajo Nation, about 700 miles from Los Angeles.

For Lambert, the distance is measured not in miles but in the small incremental steps of his academic journey from high school, through community college and Arizona State, to UCLA. "I never thought that I would be in graduate school," he says. "On a reservation, not a lot of people are afforded that opportunity."   .

Opportunity, however, is only part of the story. Others have left Window Rock to go to college and come back without degrees. Resources, both financial and personal, also count. When Lambert left high school, all his parents could provide financially was "a reliable vehicle" to get back and forth to school. Lambert has put together grants and fellowships and pay from part-time jobs to cover his costs.

Another important gift from his mother was encouragement. She sent Lambert to an Upward Bound program at Northern Arizona University for two summers during high school, to get him used to the idea of living away from his family and the culture of his people. She reminded him of the Navajo saying, loosely translated: "It's up to you; nobody else can do it for you."

Lambert began his immersion in the new academic culture at Yavapai College in Prescott, Arizona, then took his credit hours to Arizona State in Phoenix. He started out as a computer engineering major at his father's urging. "It wasn't my call," Lambert says. "I could do the math, but I knew this wasn't me. It's not my passion." He ended up with a dual bachelor's degree in justice studies and American Indian studies, which gave him a wider context for his intimate knowledge of the Navajo tribe.

As he approached graduation, Lambert attended a guest lecture by Professor Duane Champagne of UCLA and was impressed by the noted scholar's compassion as well as his knowledge. Professor Champagne encouraged him to apply for graduate studies at UCLA. Lambert was accepted and, just as important, received a Graduate Opportunity Fellowship to pay for his first year. His second year is supported by a teaching assistantship and a fellowship from the Institute of American Cultures, as well as a research grant.

Lambert's master's thesis will complete the circle, returning him to the wellspring of the Navajo Nation. Navajo Peacemaking, used mostly in civil matters such as land disputes, marital conflict, and child custody, is part of a rich and complex culture. "It's difficult to get people who are deeply embedded in that culture and their tradition to think in a different spectrum," Lambert says. His goal is "to strip away the culture to see what legal skeleton is there."

Why do some Navajos choose Peacemaking while others take their disputes to non-Indian legal proceedings? Who finds the process most effective? How do Navajo values and those of the American judicial system interact in Indian communities? These are some of the questions his thesis may answer.

According to his adviser, Carole Goldberg, Lambert brings strong skills to the task. He "is an unusually bright and curious student, who has shown an unusually great aptitude for the study of law," she says. Enrolled in a Law School course on Indian Law, he "more than held his own with the law-trained students," Professor Goldberg says. "He seemed particularly adept at figuring out how to apply legal principles to new and complex situations."

Those skills will serve Lambert's eventual goal: obtaining a law degree. Again, he's encouraged by his mother's advice: "The best way to predict the future is to create it."

Lambert has a clear understanding that his academic achievements serve not only himself but also his family and his larger community. Through what has sometimes been a difficult struggle, he's been sustained by "the passion for learning and for becoming a person who says to Native Americans, to Latinos, to African Americans, and to other underrepresented people, you can make it," he says. "If I can do it, you can do it, or you can do better."

Published in Winter 2004, Graduate Quarterly