Samantha Honani Molina was about 20 when KUYI-Hopi Radio first came on the air. She was attending college, hours and miles from her home village, and every time she tuned in she felt connected, hearing her community’s songs and language.
“I was struggling to find my place, because when you’re coming from the [reservation], you’re trying to find your space in a city or town and there’s nothing of who you are and where you come from. You feel the sense of, not lost, but just uncertainty, and missing home and stuff like that,” said Molina. “By hearing language on the radio, it brings the sense of cultural identity that almost highlights and strengthens that no matter where you are, even here at home. If you don’t hear yourself represented in large spaces, you’ll just get enveloped and folded into the mainstream.”
After graduating, Molina returned home and later became the general manager of KUYI-Hopi public radio, a position she’s held for three years. Previously, she was the program director for the Hopi Foundation, the station’s radio licensee and parent nonprofit, which provides several year-round programs on topics ranging from youth leadership to community development. The station, located in Lower Sipaulovi, below Second Mesa on the Hopi Reservation in northern Arizona, made its on-air debut in 2000 and began broadcasting online in 2010. It is the only news outlet of its kind that focuses on the Hopi community and uses the Hopi language, Hopìlavayi.
And now, as it celebrates its 25th anniversary, KUYI has to contend with the reality of losing a significant portion of its funding, possible cuts, and changes to the ways it operates.
Currently, 42 western radio stations are considered vulnerable because over 30% of their annual funding comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Twenty of those stations serve Indigenous communities, and they are located in the rural reaches of reservations and Alaska Native villages.
In May, President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending CPB’s congressionally approved funding of National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). NPR, PBS, and various local stations filed lawsuits in response. In early June, Trump asked Congress to claw back the $1.1 billion it had already set aside for public media. The United States House of Representatives narrowly approved that legislation, which the U.S. Senate approved in mid-July despite receiving pushback from both Democrats and Republicans.
Molina said that the bill would be “devastating” to KUYI.
“KUYI radio capacity is at a place where we’re able to provide all these avenues of service, which is safety, education, and entertainment. We’re finally just beginning to really explore its possibilities,” Molina said. “If pulling public media funding is done, it would destabilize not only the progress made, but also jeopardizes the essential safety and cultural services we provide daily.”
The station, which has five full-time staff members and a newly built modular studio, broadcasts at 60,000 watts across northern Arizona down to Winslow as well as online on its website. CPB funding accounts for over 48% of its operating budget, according to a June 30 letter the Hopi Tribe sent to the U.S. Senate, urging it to preserve funding for public media.
Native Public Media and the National Federation for Community Broadcasters have held summits over this, and Molina said that many broadcast organizations are already planning for cuts, regardless of whether the legislation is ultimately passed.
The immediate and significant budgetary impacts are obvious, but the long-term losses and their ramifications are incalculable. Stations like KUYI provide more than news and information: they’re community hubs where Indigenous languages can thrive, a space to preserve and grow Indigenous peoples' connection to their culture and their own place within the world.
At KUYI, volunteer DJs host music and news segments, often providing bilingual weather and community updates, even a “Hopi Word of the Day” that introduces new words and tells listeners how to use them in conversation — mavasta, for example, which means “to aim” in the Hopi language.
KTNN in St. Michaels, Arizona — “The Voice of the Navajo Nation” — not only broadcasts sports events and other announcements, it also delivered essential information during June’s Oak Ridge Fire, all in Diné Bizaad, the Navajo language.
In Utqiagvik, Alaska, the northernmost community in the United States, KBRW offers an hourlong five-day-a-week program called "Uqalugaat Inupiat Stories" that also teaches Inupiaq words and phrases. The late Fannie Kuutuuq Akpik-Piquk gave lessons on-air, explaining that misiġarriuq means “to make seal oil from blubber.”
Every day, the "Talking Drum and Language Hour" show on KWSO in Warm Springs, Oregon plays Indigenous drum music and offers language lessons featuring the Ichishkin, Kiksht, and Numu languages of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.
In 2024, the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) conducted a study recommended by the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. UNESCO’s report highlighted the need for developing accessible Indigenous-produced media that provides news, entertainment, and cultural programming. The report found that radio is the most widespread media and accounts for 34% of Indigenous media use. Indigenous media in general contribute significantly to the preservation and promotion of Native languages, cultural practices, and traditional knowledge, helping “foster a sense of belonging and recognition.” But there are still barriers to providing Native language content on the radio, including technical hurdles, programming quotas, and the heavy reliance on voluntary efforts that require long-term support.
Altogether, Indigenous radio and media help Indigenous communities engage and grow in their understanding of their language and show them how they can better connect with their culture.
Tiffany Lee, a Native American studies professor at the University of New Mexico, researches language reclamation and identity for Native youth. She promotes the benefits of immersive bilingual education for Indigenous students and adults, noting that having access to learning one’s language is key to revitalizing it.
“The number-one issue for language revitalization today is making sure our youth, our families, all have access to learning in some way and in multiple ways,” said Lee. “Just one isn’t going to work and isn’t always the best method for learning, so you need a diverse array of accessing the language and learning it.”
Indigenous language use on the airwaves bolsters the other places where Native languages are spoken, including schools and other immersion language programs. Examples in the Southwest include organizations like Saad K’idilyé — of which Lee is a board member — and Hopitutuqaiki, which teach Navajo and Hopi respectively in culturally relevant ways.
For Lee, learning one’s language is not just about being able to communicate within the community.
“I have this shirt that says ‘Indigenous language education is education,’ and I love that shirt and that saying because it’s so true,” Lee said. “It’s not just learning the mechanics of speaking your language — it’s an education unto itself. You’re learning your community and your culture’s worldview; you’re learning how language is tied to cultural practice, how it is cultural practice.”
No one understands the impact of sending Indigenous languages out onto the airwaves more than Navajo radio broadcaster L.A. Williams.
Williams, who’s been a radio broadcaster for 32 years, is widely known for reporting Phoenix Suns games in Diné Bizaad, providing play-by-play commentary and making the sport more accessible for people who speak only that language. Williams said that the language continues to thrive largely because of its continued use.
“We’re not losing our language,” Williams said. “Our language is what puts us further in life as it makes us live longer into life by knowing the Navajo language.”
Throughout her career, Williams has seen broadcast opportunities as another way of encouraging use of Diné Bizaad at home, bridging the connection between Elders who are fluent and youth who lack full command of the language. This creates a connection between past and future, reminding people that tribal history and culture will continue.
Despite the national threat to public media and funding cuts’ impact on rural and tribal stations, Williams is confident of the persistence and resilience of Indigenous languages.
“As far as the language, the tradition, the culture, that goes on,” Williams said. “That life goes on into the future.”
Meanwhile, Molina and Lee remain hopeful that current U.S. policy, including proposed funding cuts to Indigenous public media, won’t derail the conviction and resilience of people who are determined to preserve and reclaim their traditional ways of life.
KUYI is working on seeking alternative funding and keeping stakeholders informed. And Indigenous public media organizations such as Native Public Media, Vision Maker Media, and Koahnic Broadcast Corporation attended the National Congress of American Indians mid-year conference, seeking support from the organization.
“Thankfully, we have a good parent organization, the Hopi Foundation, who is stepping up to see how they can supplement during this loss,” Molina said. “But they can’t carry us for that long. We’ll see what they’re able to do to help us fundraise or carry us for a little bit, but it’s not going to sustain — it won’t sustain.”
Despite the uncertainties and hardship, Molina said that it’s been humbling to witness the outpouring of support from other radio stations and their listeners. The station’s 25th anniversary in August serves as a reminder of what really matters.
“That’s a really pivotal point for us to reflect on,” Molina said. “Then go forward with strength and resilience, just like our people have always done. It’s an opportunity for us to really show what we can do to support something so important, and I’m really excited to see what that looks like.”
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This article appeared in the August 2025 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Indigenous languages on the airwaves.”
This article first appeared on High Country News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
