Southwest Region

SOUTHWEST REGION

Chenoa Scippio, Southwest Regional Representative

National UNITY Council Executive Committee

southwest@unityinc.org

Welcome to the Southwest Regional UNITY Page: UNITY’s Southwest Region consists of New Mexico and Colorado. The Southwest is rich in culture, languages, and history, as well as natural and historic sites, parks, and forests. Sites of interest in our beautiful region include Dinosaur National Monument, Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, Yucca House National Monument, Arapaho National Forest, Gila, Puye, and Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings, Cibola National Forest, Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, White Sands National Monument, El Morro National Monument, and Pecos National Historic Park, among so many other breathtaking locations. Colorado is home to two federally recognized tribes, Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute, although our Apache, Comanche, and Shoshone relatives have historically belonged to Colorado lands. 23 Indigenous nations call New Mexico home including nineteen Pueblos: Acoma, Cochiti, Isleta, Jemez, Laguna, Nambe, Ohkay Owingeh, Picuris, Pojoaque, Sandia, San Felipe, San Ildefonso, Santa Ana, Santa Clara, Santo Domingo, Taos, Tesuque, Zuni and Zia; two Apache Nations: Mescalero and Jicarilla; the Navajo Nation with bands in Alamo, Rahma, and To’hajiilee; and one sister Pueblo in Texas, Ysleta del Sur. Languages in our region include Ute, Keres, Tiwa, Tigua, Tewa, Towa, Navajo, Zuni, and Apache. Our Indigenous communities value education and place high importance on learning our languages. There is at least one pre-school or day care program in each community that is taught in that respective language. In our region, you can find language immersion schools and tribal colleges and universities. Scholarships make higher education possible, and we are proud to be the home region of the Cobell Scholarship and the American Indian Graduate Center, both of which provide hundreds of thousands of dollars to Indigenous college students every year.  

Biography of Southwest Regional Representative, Chenoa Scippio

Chenoa Scippio is enrolled with the Navajo Nation and is also affiliated with the Pueblo of Santa Clara. She is currently a full-time fourth-year undergraduate student at The University of New Mexico (UNM) double majoring in Population Health and Native American Studies. She serves as the Southwest Regional Representative on the National UNITY (United National Indian Tribal Youth, Inc.) Executive Committee. 

Chenoa is a Cobell Scholar, American Indian Graduate Center Scholar, Chief Manuelito Scholar, and a two-time Udall Foundation Undergraduate Honorable Mention. She has also received the Honor Roll award four consecutive semesters and recently had an article published in the Albuquerque Journal.

On and off campus, Chenoa is involved in a variety of student organizations and programs dedicated to service and giving back to the greater Albuquerque community. She is Co-President of KIVA Club, Treasurer of Native American Studies Indigenous Research Group (NASIRG), fourth year American Indian Student Services Ambassador, and third year New Mexico Health Career Opportunities Program Ambassador. With skills learned in her degree program and extracurricular activities, Chenoa aspires to achieve social justice in Indigenous communities as a public health professional concentrating in community health and health behavior interventions. After graduation, she plans to pursue a Master of Public Health at UNM.