[1] Ortiz's commitment to preserving and expanding the literary and oral histories of the Acoma people accounts for many of the themes and techniques that compose his work.

His father, a railroad worker and woodcarver, was an elder in the clan who was charged with keeping the religious knowledge and customs of the pueblo.

While frustrated with his situation, he became a voracious reader and developed a passionate love of language, reading whatever he could get his hands on — including dictionaries, which he felt let his mind travel within a "state of wonder."

Ortiz eventually saved enough money to enroll in Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, as a chemistry major with the help of a BIA educational grant.

While enthralled with language and literature, the young Ortiz never considered pursuing writing seriously; at the time, it was not a career that seemed viable for Native people; it was "a profession only whites did."

After spending three years in the U.S. Armed Forces, Ortiz initiated his literary career when he began to attend the University of New Mexico in 1966 with the intent to study English Literature and creative writing.

Due to his interest in the subject of ethnic writers, Ortiz discovered a new age of Native American authors arising during a renaissance of political activism.

Momaday's novel[4] House Made of Dawn (1968) expresses an original form of prose and innovative style that attracted a young Ortiz.

[5] In 1976, Ortiz enrolled in Evergreen State College's Independent Studies Program to conduct research regarding health hazards for people living near open-pit mines and mill-tailings ponds.