Tag Archives: languages

MAY SUMAK: Quichwa Film Showcase in NYC

May Sumak / Quichwa Film Showcase: Indigenous Media from the Andes and Beyond is coming to New York City this week (March 26-28, 2015). It’s really great to see that the screenings and discussions will be hosted not only in three boroughs (Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens), but also by several institutions: the National Museum of the American Indian, New York University, Lehman College of CUNY, and the Queens Museum. Please note that many of the films will be in Kichwa, the Ecuadorean dialect of Quechua, with English subtitles.

Star Wars in Navajo

If you are in the NYC or Washington D.C. area this week, you may want to check out Star Wars in a whole new light … or sound. The film has been dubbed into Navajo and will be showing at the NMAI in D.C. on Friday, November 1 at 7pm and at the NMAI in NYC on Sunday at 2pm. Also, if you dress as your favorite character at the NYC location, you may win a prize (call the Film and Video Center at 212-514-3737 or e-mail them at FVC@si.edu to place your reservation). Both screenings are free and open to the public, but those of you heading to the NYC screening should plan around the NYC Marathon that day!

 

Miss Navajo

Trailer for Miss Navajo

I finally caught the documentary Miss Navajo, directed Billy Luther (who also directed Grab). It has been on my list for some time and I thought I would have to request it from the library until I noticed it on my Hulu stream, along with Barking Water, a feature directed by Sterlin Harjo. (Thanks to my man and apparently secret faithful reader, who corrected me when I put down Netflix when it was actually Hulu.)

Miss Navajo primarily follows Crystal Frazier as she competes for the title of Miss Navajo 2005-2006. Crystal is not the typical beauty pageant contestant, but then again, this isn’t a typical beauty pageant. In fact, although the earliest Miss Navajos might have been picked primarily on the basis of their looks (and Crystal is indeed beautiful), the title has come to represent a woman of substance who lives in beauty, so to speak, through her awareness, knowledge, and respect for her culture. Candidates must perform a talent or skill before an audience; they must answer questions on Navajo culture and history in the Navajo language given by the winners of previous Miss Navajo competitions; and, they must butcher a sheep.

Although the sheep butchering scenes were memorable, it was actually the interviews which most stood out in my mind. This was because I saw how much the young women struggled to speak in Navajo. Besides the fact that I think language is an important way to live a culture, I know there is a lot of concern and discussion over language loss and recuperation in native communities. And yet, I also have questioned myself about how important language or other culture markers, like clothing, really are. While not in Navajo, Crystal’s answer to one of the questions demonstrates knowledge and respect for both her cultures, intelligence, and a clever mind. So, I think that this film would be of particular interest to any classes studying the importance of language retention. (I should note that after the contest, Crystal says that she has made more of an effort to learn Navajo and feels more confident in her language skills. It does not sound like she is fluent yet, but I just read that a few years ago, she was considering running for Navajo Nation president in the future.) The film would also be an interesting way to discuss gender, beauty, and cultural representation.

I think I enjoyed the film mostly because of Crystals’ down-to-earth way and because I appreciated the effort that Luther must have put in tracking down all the older Miss Navajos and getting their input. It was interesting geting to know Crystal, her competitors, and learn the importance of the contest from past winners, but I would have liked to have learned more about the previous winners. In particular, I would have liked to get a sense of what they thought of the candidates’ lack of language skills or how the ideal of a Navajo woman has changed over time. It was nice to see how supportive previous winners were of the runners up, but I wanted more of an impression of how this pageant fits into the concerns of Navajo peoples in general. But, overall, an interesting watch and good way to introduce a debate about the importance of language in culture. I have also read about beauty pageants among Otavalos in Ecuador with a similar emphasis on language and culture, so I guess such a pageant is not totally unique. But, it’s still pretty refreshing that I got through this post without using the words “make-up” or “nail polish.” (Although Crystal did wear heals, which was interesting on a few levels.)

Âs Nutayuneân / We Still Live Here

Âs Nutayuneân / We Still live Here trailer, with beautiful animation.

A month ago, I attended the NYC NMAI’s “At the Movies – in the Language” screenings on Native languages.

The first short, called The Amendment, set up the significance of language loss by highlighting the 1895 Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs, which refers to language as the thing that makes a community a people. As long as they know their language, it explained, they will not be assimilated. The Amendment asks viewers to consider what it means when four generations of a family progressively loses its language. Next came Our First Voices which included several shorts: Spelling Bee, which I especially appreciated because of the subtle way that spellers’ question about “word origin” indicates the historical breadth of Native languages; Airplane, which deals with the translation of the safety announcements on planes to Bella Bella; Earl Smith, about a man who, after 12 years of living in a boarding school, where students would be hit or have their mouth washed out with soap for speaking their languages, was unable to speak Chinook; and Mom N Me, about a woman with a linguist mother and monolingual mother who attempts to learn her native language. These shorts were followed by the award-winning short Horse You See,about a horse named Ross who shares his inner thoughts (in Navajo). The audience loved this one!

These shorts were followed by the full length documentary Âs Nutayuneân / We Still Live Here. It was probably not a coincidence that I watched this film with a colleague who practices the Yoruba Lukumi faith, which emphasizes individuals’ connection to ancestors and spirit guides. I am not always in circles where people feel or openly discuss this connection, and so her comment helped situate my mind in another concept of space and time (no small feat in this bustling city). It was almost like she opened a door to this film, where the protagonist, a Wampanoag woman named Jessie Little Doe, begins her quest to revitalize the Wampanoag language when her ancestors reach out to her through visions and dreams. They ask if she would intercede for them and ask her people if they would like to welcome their language back. The Wampanoag story of language loss goes back to the early colonization of the U.S., when war, yellow fever, Christianization, and displacement decimated their population.

Besides being the fascinating story of an inspiring woman, the film does a beautiful job of unpacking how much of a culture resides in language. Jesse Little Doe seems never to have had an interest in pursuing academics before, but goes on to pursue a doctorate in linguistics at the venerable MIT and leads her community’s effort at language revitalization. During a lesson on animate and inanimate nouns in the Wampanoag language, Little Doe notes that the categorization of the sun as inanimate shows that the Wampanoag knew that the world was heliocentric even before they were introduced to Europeans.

This film was made all the more memorable to me for its goose bump inducing ironies. Like her awkward first encounter with her future beloved mentor at MIT, Ken Hale. Or the fact that a translation of the Bible (and texts in related Algonquian languages), which wass originally used to colonize her people, is what she uses to figure out pronunciations in Wamponoag. Or the fact that Hale’s ancestor was one of the Puritans who originally colonized the area, showing how some things really do come full circle.

During the Q&A with Little Doe, director Anne Makepeace, and co-producer Jennifer Weston, who also works at Cultural Survival, Little Doe noted her community had initial trepidation about being filmed because they did not want their culture to be commodified or disenfranchised by the experience. Her community is not allowed to use the Wamponoag language on objects for sale or accept money for language classes.

One Wamponoag audience member asked Little Doe if their community had been able to use colonial documents in land reclamation efforts and she replied that the language used to describe land in these documents has helped them trace what the territory was at the time of Contact.

In terms of the future of the Wamponoag language, in the film we learn that Little Doe’s daughter, Mae, is the first native speaker in generations. During the Q&A, Little Doe notes that there has been a spike in pregnancies among language apprentices in her community so they will probably have more native language speakers soon. She also noted the importance of parents setting an example in this endeavor; even if children know Wamponoag, they will switch to English as soon as it is spoken among the parents.

I really enjoyed this film, which besides being a great story also employed animation in a beautiful and meaningful way. I think the film would be great for scholars interested in language revitalization, linguistics, colonization, women, commodification, and self determination.

For those of you interested, producers Weston and Makepeace created Our Mother Tongues (ourmothertongues.org), a website which highlights several Native American language revitalization projects in the U.S.

 

Reseña de Huichol Journeys

>> English <<

Este pasado jueves, asisti la proyección de “Huichol Journeys” en el Museo Nacional del Indígena Americano en la ciudad de Nueva York (NMAI NYC) donde Amalia Córdova, la gerente de programación del Programa Latinoameriacno del Centro de Cine y Video del NMAI, presentó las tres películas sobre el pueblo mexicano Huichol/Wixaritari. 

Yumakwaxa/The Drum Celebration es una animación hecha de arcilla por jóvenes estudiantes wixaritari en su idioma, wixárika, con subtítulos en inglés. La película demuestra cómo se da a cabo esta celebración del tambor. Aunque fue placentero, me pareció que la película se dirigía al pueblo huichol ya que no me recuerdo haber escuchado una clara definición sobre esta celebración. La clausura de la animación me pareció muy divertida  y demostro la creatividad de estos cineastas jóvenes. (Si les gusta animación y la cultura wixaritari/huichol tal vez les gustaría la siguiente animation.)

Flores en el desierto es un documental bello sobre el pueblo wixaritari de San José que emprenden una peregrinación al espacio sagrado llamado Wirikuta para encontrar peyote. Durante la charla que siguió la proyección, un señor que asistió dijo que se había sentido transportado por la película, como si la cámera se había desvanecido. Uno de los organizadores de la noche, Carlos Gutierrez de Cinema Tropical, le contestó indicando que el director de fotografía, Pedro González Rubio (cineasta de Toro Negro y Alamar), suele hacer esto.Los comentarios me sorprendieron un poco porque a pesar de la hermosa cinematografía, estuve muy conciente de la cámera no tanto en un sentido técnico si no mas bien en el sentido en que interpreté a la película, puesto que los miembros de la comunidad preguntaban cómo se debería llamar la película, que se tenía que incluir y tambien decían que la película era para su porvenir. Todos estos detalles me dieron a entender que el cineasta consultó con la comunidad para asegurar que la película compaginaba con su imágen de si mismos. Córdova dijo que los cineastas indígenas latinoamericanos suelen trabajar en colectiva y suelen buscar entrenamiento como en cinematografía despues de haber trabajado en algun proyecto. Algunas partes de Flores en el desierto fueron grabadas por la comunidad. Uno se puede dar cuenta de esto porque en una escena, alguien le está capacitando a una persona. Tambien, hay escenas que se ven mas pequeñas y tienen un color distinto al resto de la película que mas bien parece que fue grabado en los años 70.  Pensé que esto era por el uso de cámera de video o por falta de capacitación pero en realidad estas escenas fueron tambien bonitas y pienso que tal vez fueron hechas a propásito para evocar la idea de la memoria colectiva compartida entre los miembros de la comunidad. Que bueno que Córdova prognostico que no le sorprendería si estos pasos indican la germinación de una colectiva huichol.

El tema principal de Flores en el desierto fue la religión y la espiritualidad. En la película, se ve el sacrifico de un cordero, un toro y un benado que son actos dirigidos a establecer un balance en el mundo huichol.1 En la película se abre la posibilidad de un diálogo sobre la dificultad de practicar la religión indígena dado la dificultad de cazar a benados, que son sagradas para los huichol, en tierras ajenas y tambien el estigma del uso de peyote. Cuando una mujer hace una comparación entre la Biblia y el peyote, dando cuenta que el peyote ayuda al pueblo obtener sabiduría ancestral me recordé de una escena en la película The Border Crossed Us, cuando un jóven tambien compara como son vistas las religiones indígenas y occidentales. En Flores del desierto se ve que los huichol comen el peyote solamente despues de confesarse ya que de otra forma, esta planta les puede hacer mal. La espiritualidad asociada con el sacrificio tambien es manifiesto cuando una esposa dice que ella está en ayunas cuando su esposo caza benado porque ella sabe cuán dificil es el cazar a benados.

El documental In Defense of Wirikuta and the Sierra de Catorce trata sobre una compañía minera canadiense que está operando ilegalmente en Wirikuta, pese a que el gobierno lo ha prohibido desde 1994. Durante la charla, Jennifer Weston (Hunkpapa Lakota) de Cultural Survival dijo que a pedido de los huicholes, Cultural Survival inició  una campaña para protestar a la minería en este espacio sagrado. Las cortes han hecho un mandato para que no sigan la minería.

Otro tema sobresaliente durante la charla fue la revitalización de los idiomas indígenas. Alguien dijo que le gustó escuchar el idioma Wixárika pero se preocupo cuando uno de los niños huichol cantó una canción entera en español porque tal vez indica que está perdiendo su idioma ancestral. La respuesta de Córdova dio a lucir los matices de este tema puesto que aunque la pérdida de los idiomas indígenas es real, al mismo tiempo algunos pueblos indígenas pasan dificultades por no saber o no tener oportunidades de aprender el español. Gutierrez fue optimista sobre el futuro de la revitalización de los idiomas indígenas despues de un paseo a México donde vio varios comerciales para las elecciones que están a pundo de darse en varios idiomas indígenas. Weston dijo que en México, las cortes proveen interpretadores en 18 idiomas indígenas! Otra persona en la audiencia que trabaja con junventud mixteca y de otros pueblos mexicanos que han inmigrado al Bronx dijo que estos niños atraviesan la dificultad de aprender dos idiomas colonizadores: el español para poder hablar con sus compatriotas mexicanos y el inglés para poder existir en los EEUU. Este proceso tambien a complicado cómo ellos se identifican . Tanto Hortensia Colorado of Coatlicue Theater Company (quien reconocí por un evento que organizé en 1997) como Weston dijeron que muchos pierden su idioma por la vergüenza que les han hecho sentir por hablar su idioma y han tenido que aprender sus idiomas nuevamente. Weston aconsejó al hombre del Bronx que incentiva a los jóvenes que vivan sus culturas a través de sus idiomas y no solamente como traducciones del inglés. Esta charla nos quedó al pelo ya que el NMAI NYC va a proyeccionar películas sobre idiomas indígenas el 31 de mayo y el 1ro de junio (no veo información sobre las películas ahorita pero en cuanto las vea, les he de avisar).

(Por otro lado, en la charla me enteré de otras películas que pueden ser de interés: una rarámuri llamada Cochochi  y otra maori llamada Boy de Nueva Zelandia, que acaban de mencionar en el New York Times.)

Flowers of the Desert director José Alvarez’s new award-winning documentary entitled Canícula about the Totonac people.

Huichol Journeys Recap

On Thursday, I attended the NMAI NYC’s Huichol Journeys screening which featured three films by and about the Huichol/Wixaritari.  Amalia Córdova, Latin American Program Manager at the Film and Video Center of the NMAI, presented the films.

Yumakwaxa/The Drum Celebration is a claymation made by young Wixaritari students in their native language, Wixárika, with English subtitles. The film documents how this celebration is carried out. While anyone can enjoy the animation, it seemed possibly geared toward Huichol viewers since I don’t remember the purpose of the celebration being clearly described. And although the animation was very nicely done, I was even more impressed by the humor and sophistication the students displayed during the animation’s closing credits. (If you are interested in animation and Wixaritari/Huichol culture, you may also enjoy this animation I posted a while back which I appreciated even more after the benefit of having watched the three films screened on Thursday.)

Flores en el desierto (Flowers of the Desert) is a beautifully shot documentary about the Wixaritari of the town of San José who make a pilgrimage to the sacred space called Wirikuta in order to hunt for peyote. During the Q&A discussion after the film, one audience member commented that he felt  transported into the film, as if the camera had disappeared. One of the screening organizers, Carlos Gutierrez of Cinema Tropical, responded by praising the film’s director of photography, Pedro González Rubio (who directed the films Toro Negro and Alamar), who has a real talent for allowing the viewer to feel like an insider. This discussion was interesting to me because, although I, too, felt transported by the beautiful cinematography, I was also very conscious of the camera. I was mostly conscious of it not on a technical level, but on an interpretive one. At several points in the film, community members ask what the film should be called, what should be included in it, and they also note that the film is for their children – all indicating that they were actively consulted on how they were portrayed. Noting that indigenous Latin American filmmakers tend to work as collectives and that they seek training after actual experiences working on a film set, Córdova noted that a Huichol collective may not be far off. That said, certain sequences in the film are clearly shot by the community members. I say “clearly” because you hear them being instructed in how to record footage and the footage itself is shot in a different size frame and in a grainy way with a color scheme that is reminiscent of 1970s photography. At first I thought this may have been due to the use of a video camera or lack of training, but these shots were beautiful in their own way, and possibly used to evoke shared memory among the community members.

The film’s main theme was Huichol religion and spirituality. Flowers in the Desert included animal sacrifice and explained how it is used to establish balance in the Huichol world (a lamb, bull, and deer are sacrificed in this movie).1 The hunt for peyote and deer in particular, which are sacred to the Huichol, was contextualized by noting the complications which the community encounters as a result of hunting in other people’s property and their use of rifles and peyote. I was reminded of a scene in The Border Crossed Us, when a young man makes a strong comparison between how native and western religions are perceived, when a woman compares peyote to the bible, noting that eating it helps the Huichol gain wisdom and learn about their history. In fact, community members must confess before eating it because it may make them sick otherwise. And, a wife notes that she fasts while her husband hunts deer as a sacrifice because she knows the difficulty involved in the hunt.

The activist documentary In Defense of Wirikuta and the Sierra de Catorce deals with a Canadian mining company that is trespassing into Wirikuta despite the fact that the government has officially protected it since 1994. During the Q&A, Jennifer Weston (Hunkpapa Lakota) of Cultural Survival said that  at the Huichol’s request, Cultural Survival initated a Global Response Campaign Alert so that the public could protest the mining and ask that this sacred space be protected. There is currently a court injunction against the mining.

Another strong theme during the Q&A was the revitalization of native languages. One audience member noted that she was pleased to be able to hear the Wixárika language spoken but concerned that one of the Huichol children sang an entire song in Spanish might indicate a loss of native language. Córdova provided the necessary context and nuance in her reply, indicating that while loss of native language fluency is an issue, there are also areas where indigenous people feel disenfranchised by not knowing or being able to learn Spanish, which allows them to get by in the world. Commenting on the future of native languages, Gutierrez noted with optimism that last week in Mexico, he saw television ads in several different native languages. Weston noted that in Mexico, court interpretation is provided in 18 different languages. Another audience member who works with Mixtec children as well as children from other Mexican indigenous communities who currently live in the Bronx said that these children experience the added difficulty of having to learn two colonial languages: Spanish in order to communicate with fellow Mexicans and then English to exist here in the U.S. This process has led to difficulty with self identification. Both Hortensia Colorado of Coatlicue Theater Company (who I recognized in the audience from an event I put together way back in 1997) and Weston noted that many people lose their language as a result of the historical shame they were made to feel when speaking their native tongue and have later had to re-learn it. Weston’s advice to the man from the Bronx was that he encourage the children to live their cultures through their languages and not via translation from English. This discussion on language was very timely as the NMAI in NYC will host several language-related screenings on May 31 and June 1 (I don’t see them on their calendar but when I do, I will post the information here)..

(On a side note, I also learned about other films and events that I look forward to checking out: one is the Rarámuri film Cochochi and the other is the Maori film Boy from New Zealand, recently reviewed in the New York Times.)

1 Cuando Córdova nos avisó que veríamos sacrificios de animales, me puse a pensar en la delicadez de conversar sobre los temas de religión, cultura y los derechos animales especialmente cuando se trata de etnias minoritarias que han perdido tanto durante el proceso traumatizante de la colonialización. / This is somewhat off topic, but when Córdova let the audience know that the film contained animal sacrifice, I started to think of the complexity of commenting on the intersecting issues of religion, culture and animal rights, especially in regard to ethnic minorities which have already been made to lose so much as a result of colonization.

Sueños binacionales / Bi-National Dreams

Español abajo.

Sueños binacionales / Bi-national Dreams, directed by Yolanda Cruz, deals with the experience of two Mexican indigenous groups in the United States. The first part of the documentary focuses on the Mixtec.  One of the largest indigenous groups in Mexico, the Mixtec and have been traveling to the Fresno area for over 30 years. Two charismatic community leaders discuss how the Mixtec have rallied around social issues and how their effective communication and organization has helped them reach out to immigrants from various Mixtec towns who have settled in the Fresno area. Community members who are featured show a strong commitment to maintaining ties to their communities in Mexico, endeavoring, it seems, to live the film title’s bi-national dream.

The second part of the documentary is less upbeat and perhaps that is why it is more gripping. It focuses on the Chatino, one of the smallest indigenous groups in Mexico. Chatino immigration to North Carolina is more recent, having occurred largely in the past 10 years.

While the Mixtec portion of the video was in Spanish, large parts of the second version is spoken in Chatino which I liked because you do not always get to hear native languages spoken. Although westerners tend to focus on the practicality of acquiring or knowing a language, there is something to the idea that a language’s sound transmits not only communication but also energy. I am reminded of the Mapuche speaker on the indigenous panel in March who began his talk by playing a music instrument and saying how it was important to allow the audience to feel that vibration. An Otavalo friend (noticing that I would use my elementary Kichwa) once commented on the importance of hearing a language’s sounds.

The Chatino story was not as sanguine as the Mixtec one. About half the population of the town (I rewound the tape but don’t remember seeing it noted in the film) where the Chatino were concentrated had migrated, giving the impression that those migrants will not return, at least not on a permanent basis. One hotel worker in North Carolina says as much. Another community member in Mexico, who speaks Chatino with pride, noted that not everyone is carrying on the Chatino language. Also, one of the community members in Mexico notes how the money earned while Chatinos travel to the United States could be better spent. Although his tone is pretty somber (since no one seems to be taking him up on the idea), he offers a very good plan of action for how the community could become more self sufficient. I wonder if the video circulated among community members and anyone listened?

I thought this film was great the first time I saw it. I still think it is a great example of the heterogeneity of Latino immigration to the United States and of indigenous groups even within a single nation. It could be used for classes on immigration, identity and community organization.

My only small gripe is that I wish the video had more background information on the indigenous groups both in Mexico and those who traveled to the United States. My second viewing of the video was related to an exhibit I am working on about the changing patterns of Latin American and Caribbean immigration to the United States. I am specifically writing a section on Latin American indigenous immigrants. It would be nice to have had more figures or statistics on the communities. It would have also been interesting to see the dynamics between Chatino, Mixtec and mestizo Mexican immigrants and even between them and Americans. That would probably have been another film but I mention it because I am curious about those dyanmics as well. But this aside, it’s a very interesting film and I look forward to seeing Cruz’s other films. For more information on her work, including acquiring a copy of  Sueños binacionales / Bi-natinoal Dreams, visit Petate Productions.

Sueños binacionales / Bi-national Dreams, un video por la videoasta Yolanda Cruz, se enfoca en las experiencias de dos grupos indígenas mexicanos que han inmigrado a los EEUU. La primera parte del documental se enfoca en la comunidad mixteca. Son uno de los grupos indígenas mas grandes de Mexico y han inmigrado a la region de California conocida como Fresno por mas de 30 años. Dos miembros de la comunicad hablan acerca de cómo la comunidad mixteca se ha organizado al rededor de temas sociales y cómo sus redes de comunicación intercomunitarias les ha permitido comunicar con miembros de otros pueblos mixtecas en la área de Fresno y en Mexico. Los líderes que son entrevistados demuestran un fuerto compromiso con sus comunidades en los EEUU y en Mexico y parece que están logrando el sueño binacional del título del video.

La seguna parte del documental no es tan optímista pero tal vez por ese motivo, fue hasta mas interesante para mi. Se trata de la comunidad chatino, uno de los grupos indígenas mas pequeños de Mexico. Empezaron a inmigrar al estado estadounidense de North Carolina en los últimos diez años.

Aunque esta parte del documental esta en español, una gran parte de esta sección está en el idioma chatino. Me gusto este detallo porque no siempre se tiene la oportunidad de oir idiomas indígenas ya que se privilegia el español o inglés (me doy cuenta de la ironía ya que está sección en español esta debajo de la sección en inglés. En mi caso no es por etnocentricidad ? norteamericana sino porque hablo mejor en inglés que español). Aunque la gente blanca o mestiza suele enfatizar el aspecto práctico de la adquisición de un idioma, creo que es verdad que  el sónido de un idioma trasnmite energía. Me acuerdo del señor mapuche que hablo durante el panel en marzo que empezó su charla tocando un instrumento diciendo que es importante que el público oiga esa vibración. Un amigo otavalo (notando que a veces utilizo el kichwa básico que conozco) una vez hizo el comentario que los sónidos y tal vez las vibraciones del idioma son importantes oir tambien.

La parte chatino no fue tan optimista como la seccion mixteca. Mitad del pueblo chatino (retrocedí el DVD pero no pude encontrar el nombre del pueblo) han inmigrado a los EEUU. Esto da la impresión que los inmigrantes no van a regresar a Mexico, al menos no permanentemente. Una trabajadora de hotel dice que le sería difícil regresar a México. Otro miembro de la comunidad que vive en México que conversa orgullosamente en chatino hace el comentario que no todos están manteniendo el idioma chatino.

No he traducido la siguente parte todavía…

Also, one of the community members in Mexico notes how the money earned while Chatinos travel to the United States could be better spent. Although his tone is pretty somber (since no one seems to be taking him up on the idea), he offers a very good plan of action for how the community could become more self sufficient. I wonder if the video circulated among community members and anyone listened?

I thought this film was great the first time I saw it. I still think it is a great example of the heterogeneity of Latino immigration to the United States and of indigenous groups even within a single nation. It could be used for classes on immigration, identity and community organization.

My only small gripe is that I wish the video had more background information on the indigenous groups both in Mexico and those who traveled to the United States. My second viewing of the video was related to an exhibit I am working on about the changing patterns of Latin American and Caribbean immigration to the United States. I am specifically writing a section on Latin American indigenous immigrants. It would be nice to have had more figures or statistics on the communities. It would have also been interesting to see the dynamics between Chatino, Mixtec and mestizo Mexican immigrants and even between them and Americans. That would probably have been another film but I mention it because I am curious about those dyanmics as well. But this aside, it’s a very interesting film and I look forward to seeing Cruz’s other films. For more information on her work, including acquiring a copy of  Sueños binacionales / Bi-natinoal Dreams, visit Petate Productions.

2009 Native American Film + Video Festival

I attended the Native Networks Symposium held on Friday, March 24 at the 2009 Native American Film + Video Festival. Since this blog was born several months later, I am only just now posting my thoughts. I’ll put this out in three installments, one for each panel I attended and one for the film screening I was able to attend. But before I do, I’d like to wish the Film & Video Festival a very Happy 30th Anniversary!

The “Mobilizing for Survival” featured panelists Mario Murillo, of WBAI and associate professor at Hofstra University, who discussed ACIN, the Northern Cauca Indigenous Association and the Colombian government’s divisive tactics toward indigenous groups. As an example of the power of grassroots media, Murillo noted how community video broadcast on CNN countered governmental arguments that people were not getting killed during clashes in Colombia (see article and video at 46:23). There are 87 indigenous groups in Colombia.

Elias Paillán (Mapuche), who began his talk by playing a musical instrument and noting the importance of the Mapuche language and instruments as conveyors of information, spoke about invasions into Mapuche territory historically and the principles of duality/complementarity.

Paul M. Rickard (Cree), executive producer of the “Finding Our Talk” series discussed the importance of preserving native languages and how non-confrontational filmmaking on culture is also a way to make an impact. He noted that a 2001 study predicted that in a century, only 3 of 50 native languages would survive in Canada (Ojibway, Cree and Inuktitut). He discussed how difficult it is to get funding for programs on (not to mention official recognition of) native languages in the United States and Canada. One example of this is a Mohawk show that is dubbed, rather than subtitled, in English and French. He also acknowledged the difficulty of reaching a broad audience since shows are aired early in the morning. (This brought to mind how Latino shows on American television are also broadcast very early in the morning and how there is sometimes a call for more people to tune in in order to increase ratings and both maintain shows and bump them into better timeslots.)

Tonya Gonnella Frichner (Onondaga), President of the American Indian Law Alliance, noted how Canada supports native programming via funding more than the United States does. She also noted that the United States has a limited presence in the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (the Eighth Session was held this May 18-29, 2009). Mario Murillo noted that if the United States gives little, Latin American governments give no support to native programming. They are mostly funded from abroad.

Next time, I’ll post some thoughts on the “Creating the Alternative: A Conversation with Four Directors” panel.