For Navajo and Hopi Tribes, There's No Time Like the Present
Melissa Blackhair isn’t eager to spring forward on Sunday.
“I’m dreading it. I just don’t want to see how much we have to adjust,” Blackhair said while sitting in her home office in Tuba City, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation, the only area in Arizona that follows daylight saving time.
With her husband working during the week in Phoenix, their clocks will vary.
“Everything in our house is set to daylight saving time,” she said. “It just kind of is an inconvenience because I am having to remember which car is on daylight and which is on standard time. My husband will not change our time in our apartment (in Phoenix).”
Those who live on the Arizona portion of the Navajo Nation — the largest Native American reservation in the United States, comprising about 25,000 square miles — endure mind-bending calculations every March through November.
The Navajo Nation, which also stretches into Utah and New Mexico, will re-set clocks for one hour later despite being situated between two territories that remain on standard time: the rest of Arizona and the neighboring Hopi reservation.
It’s made for a unique situation with the Hopi reservation, which is landlocked within the Navajo Nation and goes by standard time year-round. A stretch of U.S. Route 160 in Tuba City is the de facto border between the two reservations and two time zones.
Reva Hoover, longtime manager of the Bashas’ supermarket along U.S. 160 on the Navajo side, says Sunday inevitably will be chaotic. Despite posting reminders in the store’s locker room, employees who live on both reservations likely will arrive late.
Tourists might not be aware. Guests staying at the Moenkopi Legacy Inn & Suites on the Hopi side across the street who come into the grocery store at what they think is 8:30 p.m. would have only 30 minutes to shop before it closes, Hoover said.
“In reality, it probably would be a lot easier for everybody if we all stayed on the same time. But I take it as being unique,” Hoover said. “Where else can you say that? ‘Oh, they’re on a different time across the street.’”
Deannethea Long, the hotel’s general manager, agrees it makes for an interesting talking point with guests. The hotel, which is on standard time, does little things such as have one wall clock per time zone in the lobby.
“We have in-room notices to know when stores close, understanding your time zones. We explain it at the front desk, too. It can get very confusing,” Long said.
Kimberly Humetewa lives on the Hopi side in Moenkopi, but her children attend school and other events on the Navajo side. The time change is hard on them, she said. They have to get up earlier, and she has to stop and calculate the time for almost everything.
Most of the essentials — the post office, the grocery store, Tuba City’s only hospital — are on the other side of the highway, where everything will be on daylight saving time.
“Since everything’s on this side, everybody changes the time, unlike us on the Hopi reservation,” Humetewa said. “It’s a little tough, but sometimes we just manage to deal with it.”
The time change permeates Blackhair’s work and home life. The graphic artist often advises clients to specify on announcements or invitations which time zone the event is recognizing. She also has to make sure she’s not late for medical appointments in Flagstaff, Arizona, which isn’t on either tribe’s reservation.
One time, she miscalculated when to leave for her son’s football game on the Hopi reservation and arrived when it was over. Her mother-in-law’s home is a half-mile but one time zone away. So, for the months that Blackhair is on daylight saving time, her family doesn’t visit her for long on school nights.
Arizona lawmakers passed legislation in 1968 cementing standard time after the federal government attempted to make daylight saving time the norm nationwide. Arizona tried daylight saving the previous year, but residents living in sweltering summer heat complained about having to wait through an extra hour of sunlight.
Arizona and Hawaii do not change their clocks.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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