Early Life
Piestewa was born in Tuba City, Arizona, to Terry Piestewa and Priscilla "Percy" Baca. Her father is a full-blooded Hopi Native American, her mother is a Mexican-American. photo The couple first met in 1964 and married in November 1968.
The Piestewa family had a long military tradition; her paternal grandfather served in the U.S. Army in the European Theatre of World War II, and her father Terry Piestewa was drafted in the U.S. Army in September 1965 and served a tour of duty in the Vietnam War before he returned home in March 1967.
The Piestewa family resided in a trailer park in Tuba City, a town located on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Coconino County. As a child, she was given the Hopi name Qötsa-Hon-Mana (, White Bear Girl). Her surname is derived from a Hopi language root meaning "water pooled on the desert by a hard rain"; thus, Piestewa translates loosely as "the people who live by the water."
Read more about this topic: Lori Piestewa
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