AP PHOTOS: Emptiness sculpts everything from daily life to politics on Arizonas Navajo Nation [Video]

NAVAJO NATION (AP) — Emptiness paints the vast ranges and rugged mountains of 22 Native reservations speckling Arizona, sculpting daily life, culture and even politics in nearly a quarter of the state.

Reservations brim with culture as many carry on their ancestral traditions. Yet few opportunities, high rates of poverty, little investment by both tribal and federal governments, and limited access to water, electricity and education have left many reservations like the northern Navajo Nation frozen in time.

It’s fueled an emigration from Native lands, as young people study in boarding schools off the reservations and leave in soaring numbers to seek jobs in bigger cities. Among them is 20-year-old Tatum Grey who plans to leave her home in Chinle, Arizona in search of work.

“There’s no programs for the youth to get a job anywhere. You talk to restaurants, business and they all turn you down quick, so you have to look out in cities, and that …