Evangeline Parsons Yazzie (c. 1952 – May 22, 2022) was a Navajo educator and author of the first textbook adopted by the U.S. public education system to teach the Navajo language.
Yazzie received a Master of Arts degree in Bilingual Multicultural Education and a Doctorate in Education from Northern Arizona University (NAU) where she taught Navajo language courses for 24 years until 2014. In 2007, Yazzie co-authored a textbook for teaching the Navajo language titled Diné Bizaad Bínáhooʼaah: Rediscovering the Navajo Language along with Margaret Speas, a professor of linguistics at the University of Massachusetts.[1][2] In 2008, New Mexico adopted the textbook making itself the first U.S. state to officially use any text for teaching the Navajo language in its public school system.[3]
Following her retirement in 2014, Yazzie authored several novels about a fictional family's experience of the Long Walk of the Navajo.[4][5] Yazzie died on May 22, 2022, at age 69.[6]