Allie Young

Director, Protect the Sacred

Allie Young is a citizen of the Diné (Navajo) Nation from the Northern Agency of the reservation in Northern New Mexico. She is a storyteller and writer on a mission to increase the authentic representation of Native people in TV, film, and mainstream media by sharing the stories and traditions of her ancestors to help her community persevere in a world where they are largely invisible, underrepresented, and misrepresented. She founded Protect the Sacred—a program of culture change organization Harness—a program that focuses on educating and empowering the next generation of Navajo and Indian Country leaders and allies. Through Protect the Sacred, Allie makes certain Native voices are centered in culture and policy, especially the voices of Indigenous youth and womxn. It is her objective to ensure that the stories of her people are no longer history – the fabricated American narrative perpetuated in textbooks and Hollywood Westerns. Instead, they will be authentic and from the original peoples, the original storytellers of this land.