Fed up with rising gas prices, Nita Mexican voted last November for Donald Trump, who is increasingly popular among Native American communities which have long supported the political left.
“A lot of the younger ones are for him now, including friends of our grandkids,” the 77-year-old member of the Navajo Nation reservation told AFP.
As a Republican voter, Mexican was used to being in the minority in Tuba City, a small, remote hamlet in the Arizona desert, located on a plateau part of the vast Native American reservation.
But in recent years, she has witnessed a change in attitudes towards the divisive US president.
Like her, some neighbors have begun to blame immigration from Latin America for the unemployment and drug trade plaguing the impoverished reservation.
“Trump is cleaning up America, it’s a good thing,” said Mexican, a former power plant employee who praised Trump’s hardline deportation policy.
“America has to come first,” she said. “Us Natives, we are Americans and we should have the jobs first.”
Rising inflation is an enduring concern in this isolated region, where cars are essential for getting around.
Mexican and her husband Joe spend $40 a day on gasoline to tend to their sheep, which are kept in a pen some 25 miles (40 kilometers) away.
The couple also provide financial support for some of their unemployed grandchildren.
“Sometimes we don’t have enough to get groceries for the both of us,” Mexican said, adding that she would like Trump to “slow down” on his tariffs targeting multiple imported products.
Surprising inroads
Spanning the southwestern states of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, the Navajo Nation is the largest Native American reservation in the United States.
Trump made surprising inroads in last year’s presidential election in the region that has been a Democratic stronghold since the 1980s.
The Republican leader notably won by 17.1 points in Navajo County, double his margin of victory from four years earlier, and lost by just 19 points in Apache County, down from 33.6 in 2020.
A similar trend was observed nationwide, from North Carolina to Montana, with Native American voters overall backing Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, but with much less enthusiasm than in the past.
Like with Latino voters, more men than women from the minority group voted for Trump, according to polls.
At her home, which does not get electricity, Gilberta Cortes said she “butts heads… all the time” with her 21-year-old son, who voted for Trump.
“He talks about inflation, he says that cartels are ruining everything for Native Americans,” Cortes said.
The 42-year-old mother is not as impressed by the billionaire president.
She resents his mockery of the Native American origins of Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, whom he regularly refers to as “Pocahontas.”
‘Favoritism’
Laws enacted by Trump during his first term to probe the disappearance of thousands of Native American women did not persuade her either.
“It was just favoritism so that he would get our votes,” said the left-wing voter.
And the president’s anti-immigration rhetoric and policies have unsettled her further.
Several Navajos have been stopped in recent months by immigration agents because of their skin color, according to some reservation officials.
“You see a lot of racism… When I go out, I feel like I’m just walking on eggshells,” said Cortes.
Trump’s climate change skepticism is also a concern, with many Native Americans claiming a spiritual connection to the environment.
Cortes has had to forbid her children from playing outside in the summer because of heat waves, which are growing more intense in the Arizona desert.
“If he drills oil like crazy and he makes cuts to environmental agencies, it’s gonna make things worse in the long run,” Cortes said.
Elbert Yazzie thinks some of his friends will soon regret their decision.
Trump’s recently passed signature spending bill is expected to shrink the federal food assistance program, among other cuts that could hit out at low-income Americans.
“They voted for him because they thought there would be more jobs for us American citizens. But instead, he’s cutting off food stamps,” Yazzie told AFP from his caravan.
“That’s going to affect a lot of people around here.”
