Tohe, Laura

Laura Tohe (born 1952) is a Native American author and poet. She is poet laureate of the Navajo Nation for 2015–2019, and is a professor emerita of English at Arizona State University. Tohe was born in Fort Defiance, Arizona, the daughter of a Navajo code talker. She grew up speaking both Diné bizaad/Navajo language and English and was punished in school for speaking her native language due to assimilation. She earned a B.A. from the University of New Mexico in 1975, an M.A. from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1985, and a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1993. She has been affiliated with Arizona State University since 1994.