Coming Home with Navajo Designer Amy Denet Deal

What is home?

Is it the place we’re born—or the place our spirit finally settles, where clarity and purpose emerge? I’ve been thinking a lot about that question lately.  In this episode of Stories of Change and Creativity, I sat down with someone who has lived the answer in a profound way. 

Designer, community leader, and founder of 4Kinship and Indigenous Futures Forever, Amy Denet Deal made a decision to walk away from the life she knew to begin again on Navajo Nation. Her journey home offers lessons in identity, culture, and the transformative power of service.

This conversation was meaningful for me not just as a storyteller but as an adoptive mother of two Asian daughters. They are also exploring their own cultural identities. Sitting together in Denet Deal’s Santa Fe studio, our discussion became a reflection on belonging and what it means to come home.

Her Life - Far from Home

Denet Deal was adopted in 1964, a decade before the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed. Growing up in Indiana, she had almost no access to Diné language, culture, or community.

That changed in 2019.

With her daughter leaving for college, Denet Deal found herself facing a new chapter of her life. “As an empty nester, you can finally think about what’s next,” she told me. For her, “next” meant reclaiming a heritage that had always been out of reach.

So she did something bold:
She sold nearly everything, packed a U-Haul, and drove to New Mexico—ready to start from zero.

Returning Just in Time to Serve

Shortly after Denet Deal arrived in New Mexico, COVID-19 hit Navajo Nation hard. Her timing, she says, felt like more than coincidence. Drawing on her professional experience, she immediately began raising funds, coordinating aid, and helping families across 27,000 square miles of the reservation. This became her entry point into community life.  Many of the people teaching Denet Deal the Diné customs and language were decades younger than she was. But they acted as aunties and uncles, guides for someone beginning again at “one year old,” as she describes her early reintegration.

Returning home meant embracing the beauty of culture—and the realities of trauma, addiction and historical wounds.  Denet Deal also found many in Navajo Nation without basic infrastructure. She learned that the path home required both empathy and openness.

      “I don’t take anything personally anymore,” she said. “Most pushback wasn’t about me—it was about what I represented, and the pain that triggered.”

Holding space for both light and darkness became part of her healing.

Leaving Corporate Fashion to Build Something Better

Earlier in her career, Denet Deal was a design executive in the fashion world. She stepped away from corporate fashion to start her own sustainable consulting business—long before sustainability was trending. Her move back to Navajo Nation brought new clarity.  Sustainability is a cultural value rooted in reciprocity and responsible stewardship. Today, Denet Deal’s brand, 4Kinship, uplifts Indigenous artistry and reinvests resources back into the community.

Skateboards and Healing

One of Denet Deal’s most impactful projects is the Diné Skate Garden Project. In 2022, her team built a skate park in Two Grey Hills—an extremely remote part of Navajo Nation.

Skateboarding doesn’t require uniforms, schedules, teams, or fees. It’s accessible, healing, and empowering.

     “We’ve donated over 8,000 skateboards and around 5,000 helmets,” she said. “It’s long-term investment—fighting depression, addiction, diabetes, and isolation.”

Skateboarding is freedom. It’s therapy. It’s a lifeline.

Advice for Adoptees and Families Seeking Connection

For those raised away from their Native communities—or adoptive parents helping their children explore identity—Denet Deal shared powerful guidance:

Go to the land.
Physically go home.

“When I’m here, the clarity, the dreams, the messages… there’s something about my relatives’ DNA being in the land,” she said. “It creates a calmness I never felt before.”

Looking Ahead: Building for the Next Generation

Now in her 60s, Denet Deal is creating long-term structures that will leave a legacy:

• More skate parks and outdoor recreation spaces
• Modern trading posts run by Native entrepreneurs
• Creative pipelines in fashion, design, and the arts
• Eventually, a fiber farm that connects Diné and Scottish wool traditions

Her goal is simple yet powerful:
Use her skills, networks, and resources to build bridges for the next generation.

The Meaning of Home

Near the end of our conversation, I asked Amy Denet Deal what home means to her now.

     “Home is calmness,” she said softly.
     “Meeting my birth mother gave me that feeling. Coming back to Dinétah gave me that feeling. Now I know why I’m here and how I’m meant to spend the rest of my life.”

Home isn’t just geography. It’s a settling of the spirit. Maybe it’s a moment when the noise stops and purpose becomes clear.

A Closing Reflection

As we wrapped up our interview in Denet Deal’s Santa Fe studio, I noticed my daughters were sitting on the steps nearby listening to our conversation. I could see their curiosity—young women also navigating identity and the meaning of home.  After the interview, we all chatted for a few minutes about adoption. 

This interview reminded me that home is not always where we come from. Sometimes it’s where we finally feel grounded. Sometimes it’s a journey we’re still traveling.

What does home mean to you?
Is it a place, a person, a memory—or a path you’re still walking?

If this episode resonates, please share it with someone who might be navigating their own journey back home.

Thank you for listening,
Judy Oskam

Photo by Shaun Price