I’m puzzled by the most recent hoo-ha over protecting Bears Ears country (“By renaming new Utah monument Shash Jaa, is Trump trying to divide Native American tribes?”). Here’s why:

Last year, before President Barack Obama’s proclamation, Angelo Baca, a Navajo, filmmaker and Ph.D. student at New York University, released an ethnographic film. In the context of a historical collaboration of five tribes “to save their homeland by making it a monument,” according to the film’s website, it gave voice to Navajos living on the reservation in Utah.

Baca is currently a cultural resources coordinator at Utah Diné Bikéyah. He works under the direction of Gavin Noyes, executive director of the nonprofit that’s played a prominent, possibly decisive, role in creating the monument. Noyes is quoted as saying, “The selection of the Navajo name (Shásh Jaa’ for President Trump’s scaled-down monument) tramples the Native American true history of the place.”

That’s interesting, because the name of Baca’s award-winning film is “Shásh Jaa’ (Bears Ears).” Was he, like Trump, “trampling” on true history when he gave his film that name?

Was the all-Navajo film crew that produced it — including Mark Maryboy, featured in the film and a board member of Utah Diné Bikéyah — also showing contempt for the past?

Bill Keshlear, Salt Lake City

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