Cecilia Sandoval
Cecilia Sandoval. Born to Cecil Sandoval and Augusta Mitchell, Cecilia is a Navajo of the Kinyaa’áanii Clan—"Towering House People." Her grandfather, Frank Mitchell, was a renowned medicine man who also helped the tribe in negotiations with the US government. In 1965, she traveled with family friends to France where she attended school, graduating in 1968 from Vaucresson, an American high school in Paris. After returning to the States in 1970, she was invited by Professor David McAllister to Wesleyan University where she assisted her cousin, Douglas (Doogie) Mitchell, with the American Indian music program in the university's acclaimed World Music Department. During this time, she became acquainted with artists Alvin Lucier, Mary Lucier, Shigeko Kubota, and Nam June Paik, and performed in Paik's video production Global Groove. She was invited to participate with Kubota, Mary Lucier, and Charlotte Warren in forming the multicultural feminist performance group, Red, White, Yellow, and Black in two events at The Kitchen on Mercer Street in 1972 and 1973. Most notably, in 1973 she collaborated with Lucier on a mixed-media work titled The Occasion of her First Dance and How She Looked, based loosely on a surreal dream she described to Lucier and which they recorded on audiotape. Elements of this dream, embodied in video, slides, costumes, and text were incorporated into a performance with Lucier reciting the text while Sandoval enacted various episodes on stage and interacted with the audience. Eventually, members of the group went their separate ways and Sandoval made the decision to join the US Air Force and pursue nursing, which became her career. Following active duty in 1988, she worked at VA Medical Centers in Florida and San Diego until retiring in 2018, when she returned to the reservation in Chinle, Arizona. There she began work with various Navajo Veterans agencies, focusing on the concerns and needs of Navajo women veterans. She has been instrumental in helping to raise essential donations on behalf of tribal veterans and campaigned with others for $29 million from Tribal Headquarters to build the Navajo Veterans Nursing Home in Chinle. She is President of the Board of Directors of the Navajoland Nursing Home. She lives in Lakeside, Arizona. (2023)