FBI Outreach Includes Navajo-Language Posters

FBI investigations into missing and murdered indigenous persons include an initiative to translate the Bureau’s iconic posters into Navajo.


Video Transcript

[Background audio: Radio announcer reading from FBI poster in Navajo]

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A Navajo radio station in New Mexico began broadcasting FBI posters in the Navajo language in 2020.

The first poster was for Wilson Joe Chiquito, who was killed in his home in Counselor, New Mexico, in 2014.

The FBI recently added Navajo to the scores of languages it officially translates.

FBI offices in Albuquerque and Phoenix have translated more than a dozen posters into Navajo.

The goal is to make information more accessible to people who need it or are most likely to help.

The effort dovetails with a broader federal initiative aimed at missing and murdered indigenous persons.

Navajo Police Chief Phillip Francisco called FBI Albuquerque’s outreach work “a huge benefit.”

“This will hopefully lead to resolutions that our people really so desperately want,” he said.

“Getting that word out to people in the community will hopefully get us some tips to solving these cases.”

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