Native American girl doing daily chores with her grandmother on the reservation
Husi Cazares, an enrolled member of the Tohono O'odham Nation, grew up insouthern Arizona and has devoted his life to teaching and preserving his people'sculture, history, and language. He has taught Tohono O'odham culture as well asNative American history and culture at several colleges and universities. Husiholds an M.A. in Native American Studies from the University of Arizona and anM.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Saint Xavier University inChicago, Illinois. Husi is currently working as a trilingual speech-languagepathologist in southern Arizona where he just received a national 2026 Hero ofthe Year award from his employer, Bayada Home Health Care.
He remains deeply involved in language preservation and literacy initiatives withinhis tribe. He continues to write bilingual Tohono O'odham books for children andis currently working on an illustrated, bilingual, Tohono O'odham/Englishdictionary which will be available from Desert Ink Press in 2026.
