The concrete skatepark oasis in the Navajo Nation desert

The desert air of New Mexico’s Two Grey Hills whirs with polyurethane rolling over concrete. Quarterpipes, bowls, ledges, and rails rise from the half-baked copper earth, with plains punctuated by rusted mountains and small community settlements beyond their perimeter. This is the Diné Skate Garden – not just a skatepark, but a rare gathering place in the vast expanse of the Navajo Nation.

The Nation has been the heartland of the Navajo people – or the ​‘Diné’ (meaning ​‘people of the earth’) as they call themselves – for almost 1,000 years. It is the largest Native American reservation in the United States, and home to over a quarter of a million Indigenous people.

Traditionally, the Navajo are sheep herders, farmers, and weavers – some of the finest rugs and blankets on the continent can be purchased there. However, much like Indigenous communities the world over, colonial repression and rapid modernisation have partially severed them from their cultural roots. Limited job opportunities force many away from their homes to find work in border towns, while traditional ways of living have been challenged as new technologies have taken hold.

The new skatepark, which opened in 2023, is providing the nation’s people with a space to express themselves and an outlet to channel energies into purpose. ​“I’m committed for the long run,” says Amy Denet Deal, the Diné matriarch and fashion designer behind the project. ​“If we provide these kids with skateparks and equipment, so many things fall into place in their lives. It helps them bypass diabetes, high suicide rates, and pathways into addiction that happened through intergenerational grief. Skateboarding can be an amazing solution to these long-term problems.”

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Native American youth face some of the starkest health disparities in the US. Suicide rates among indigenous teenagers are nearly three times the national average, while chronic illnesses like Type 2 Diabetes, which affects Native communities at disproportionately young ages, remain widespread. On a reservation spanning 27,000 sq miles with limited youth facilities, spaces like the Diné Skate Garden are not just about having somewhere to skate, they are essential in combatting social and health issues that threaten the lives of Navajo people.

​“When we first built it, I thought it was just for the kids,” Deal continues. ​“Now, it has become an intergenerational gathering place. You’ll see grandparents, parents and babies, as well as the kids skating.” 

The Diné first arrived in the American Southwest around 1300 AD, migrating south from what is now western Canada. They developed a society organised around clanship, with cultural identity rooted in spiritual beliefs and land-based traditions.

But that way of life was violently disrupted by colonisation. In 1864, the United States government forced the Nation’s people from their homeland, marching them east to Bosque Redondo in what became known as the Long Walk of the Navajo. Thousands died from starvation, disease, and harrowing conditions. 

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Though the Diné were eventually allowed to return to a portion of their land and a reservation was established, their oppression was continued under the guise of education. For decades, children were taken from their families and placed in government and church-run schools by US authorities, designed to ​“assimilate” them into western culture. Many were punished for speaking their language, with the practice only being put to an end in the ​’70s after decades of resistance from Native American leaders and communities. 

​“Many of our relatives or elders were put in boarding schools,” Amy explains. ​“One of those is in Two Grey Hills. They’ve been converted into regular schools that are run by the Bureau of Indian Education, [but] we’re still dealing with that circular pattern of trauma.”

For Amy, who herself was adopted away from her community before the Indian Child Welfare Act ensured protection of Native American children, the heavy weight of history is personal. Yet it also drives her to help better the lives of Diné people with the Skate Garden Project. One particular avenue comes via mentorship and skate lessons provided by Native skaters.

​“We’ve started programmes with a Diné mentor, Shawn Shine Harrison,” Deal says. ​“So learners can see themselves in that role in the future, as a leader, as a teacher. It’s something in our own language, with our culture integrated into the lessons.” 

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Harrison introduces himself with a traditional Navajo greeting. He gives the name of his mother’s clan, his fathers clan, and his grandparents’ clans. ​“I just want to state that’s who I am. That’s where I’m from. Those are my ancestors.” 

Like many others of his generation Harrison became infatuated with the sport over 20 years ago, inspired by Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and its window into skate culture. Guided by his older brothers, he built his first ​“Frankenstein set-up” and was ready to go.

“We started in the trailer court,” says Harrison. ​“It was pretty ghetto. There’s not a lot of architecture, but we had this wooden picnic table. I would just go into my mad imagination, I thought I was already pro. I’d jump from the picnic bench on my board.” 

Now, through the Skate Garden Project, he offers people of the Navajo Nation a radically different introduction to skateboarding. ​“We’ve been doing the skate class for two and a half years. It’s not just kids, adults come down and shred too. It’s any age, any level. The most I’ve had in one class is 21 people, it was chaos.” 

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He’s already seeing the benefits, getting people active and engaged outside of their homes. ​“Skateboarding is a form of discipline,” he continues. ​“It benefits them to interact in a social setting, gets them off their phones and participating in a physical activity. We’re working on developing the skate garden in other places. It’s definitely been a blessing.” 

Since first launching their mission, Amy and her team have distributed more than 8,000 skateboards and helmets to the people of the Navajo Nation. ​“The look on their face when you give it to them,” she says. ​“They’re like: ​‘I really get to keep this?’ It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.” 

The impact is as clear as the summer skies above Navajo Nation, not just for the kids who get a free skateboard and a park in which to use it, but for the growing community of family members and friends that gather. Parents linger. Elders watch. The park has become a meeting ground in a place where isolation is the norm.

In June of 2025, the project was granted $500,000 by the New Mexico Outdoor Recreation Division, which will be matched by donations and funding. This year, the project will begin to invest into the expansion of the Two Grey Hills Skatepark and its facilities.

“In the Navajo Nation, there’s lots of issues with being connected to water and utilities,” Amy says. ​“So that’s our first step. We’re adding solar lights so the kids can skate later in the summer, shade structures, and barbecues. We want to make it a more robust space for family events and gatherings.”

Support from the likes of Tony Hawk through The Skatepark Project and singer Jewel helped bring the park into fruition and give it exposure in its early days, but for Amy, Two Grey Hills is just the start. With new funding secured, she’s already exploring future locations across the Navajo Nation.

“We’re in meetings with the president of the Navajo Nation,” she says. ​“Dr Buu Nygren has been an avid skater since he was a kid — he was out there popping ollies with Tony Hawk when we opened.”

The possibilities seem limitless. ​“I’m looking at an Olympic training centre in the future,” she adds. ​“These kids are getting better and better. It’s just a matter of keeping up with them.”

For now, though, the true success of the Diné Skate Garden can’t be measured in funding or expansion plans. It lives in the small moments: a disbelieving smile as a kid is handed their first deck, a grandparent watching them land their first ollie, a community reclaiming its power through a sport they never thought would be on their doorstep, way out in the New Mexico desert.

As Shawn Shine Harrison says: ​“You can be the outcast of all outcasts, but with skateboarding you’ll still be accepted. Skateboarding never says no. It only tells you to go and bomb hills!” 

Tyrone Bulger is a freelance journalist. Follow him on Instagram.

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