Rights Reel: Young Lakota on Independent Lens

I've just started reading Louise Erdrich's The Round House (a Cleveland Rights Readers selection). This fictional narrative draws on realities like those described in the Amnesty International report, Maze of Injustice, about sexual violence against indigenous women, and institutional barriers to redress. Now I'm really looking forward to another look at gender issues and Native Americans in the up-coming PBS Independent Lens presentation of Young Lakota, 

South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation is no stranger to strife and heartbreak, stark realities, and inspired idealism. In Young Lakota, we are brought directly into the emotional and often uncertain journey of Sunny Clifford, her twin sister Serena, and their politically ambitious friend Brandon Ferguson, who all share the desire to make a difference for themselves and their community. 

Their political awakening begins when Cecelia Fire Thunder — the first female president of the Oglala Lakota — defies a South Dakota law that makes abortion a crime, even in cases of rape or incest. Fire Thunder takes a stand by proposing a women's health clinic providing abortions on the reservation but open to all local women. While Serena is unwed and with a toddler, and Brandon is raising two little boys, Sunny is just back on the reservation after two years in college. All three find themselves immersed in this political battle as they struggle between opportunity and principle.

The film comes from the team that made the excellent documentary, The Education of Shelby Knox.  Young Lakota premieres on November 25th.

While I'm at it, another Frontline/Independent Lens offering on these themes is last spring's Kind Hearted Woman, the film follows Robin Charboneau, a 32-year-old divorced single mother and Oglala Sioux woman living on North Dakota’s Spirit Lake Reservation.

Robin’s battles in tribal court with her ex-husband for custody of the children, even after he is convicted of abusive sexual contact with his daughter, illuminate how serious this problem is on the reservation. Her quest to heal her family, find a man worthy of her love, build a career, and fulfill her goal of returning to her reservation to help prevent the abuse of women and children, takes her on an intimate and inspiring journey full of heartbreak, discovery, and redemption.

The film is available to watch online at the PBS site, or you can download the audio on iTunes (a good way to work through it's full five hours). Both films are great companions to Erdrich's award-winning novel.

Louise Erdrich, The Round House and the Violence Against Women Act

A few years back we enjoyed reading and discussing Louise Erdrich's Tracks. Her latest book The Round House, which has already been nominated for a National Book Award, looks like a book we may want to be talking about in the future,

One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. In one day, Joe's life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared. 

While his father, who is a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own. Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning.

In this Chicago Tribune interview, Erdrich explains:

This is the first time I've written a book that was at once about human relationships, and yet very political, so I would encourage readers to look at the end. (An afterword discusses the 2010 Tribal Law and Order Act, which aims to reduce violence in tribal communities, and includes references to organizations working to advocate for Native American women.) When I started the book, I had the knowledge of this tremendously agonizing situation that is a truth on reservations, but as I wrote the book, it became an interior, psychological drama as I lived this boy's life. He was with me all the time.

When I heard about the book, I immediately thought of Amnesty International's 2007 report Maze of Injustice: Sexual Violence Against Indigenous Women in the USA and our work to pass the Tribal Law and Order Act. Untangling the jurisdictional 'maze' is an on-going process and will be helped by reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Voice your support for VAWA here.  Read the whole Trib interview for more and Minnesota Public Radio and NPR also have great audio interviews with the author. I especially like this quote via NPR: "Revenge is a sorrow for the person who has to take it on. And the person who is rash enough to think it's going to help a situation is always wrong." I am really looking forward to reading this book for a deeper understanding of these issues.

Thankful for Language Diversity

Watch We Still Live Here - As Nutayunean on PBS. See more from INDEPENDENT LENS.

We've explored the issue of endangered languages with a few books, mainly Mark Abley's Spoken Here. Travels Among Endangered Languages and Daniel Everett's Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle, recognizing language preservation as an important part of our shared cultural heritage. I recommend taking some time out from turkey and football over the long weekend to watch We Still Live Here (via PBS Independent Lens) about the efforts of a group of Wampanoag in Massachusetts working to revive their language over 100 years after the last native speakers died. The film will add new layers to your understanding of the cultural exchange between this tribe and the Pilgrims that we celebrate at Thanksgiving. Be sure also to explore the recommended Our Mother Tongues interactive website, to learn more about other Native American languages.

Hey, I'm not finished with your Thanksgiving assignment yet! Another excellent documentary available for online viewing from Twin Cities Public Television, First Speakers: Exploring the Ojibwe Language was a recent Upper Midwest Emmy winner. The film is narrated by another author, and language student, we love, Louise Erdrich (Tracks). The Ojibwe have the advantage of native elders who speak their language to guide them as they seek to develop immersion curricula for their schools. Both films are fascinating!

Round-Up: Familiar Authors in Unfamiliar Places

In our latest round-up, we find many of our authors stretching their wings in new genres and finding new audiences:

• Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is to be a movie directed by Wayne Wang.

• Film critic Roger Ebert is a fan of W.G. Sebald and shares some video tributes on his blog. Check out the one from the architecture students for an Austerlitz flashback.

• John Conroy (Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People) has converted his investigation of allegations of the use of torture by Chicago police officers into a play.  He described it for the NYT, “I wanted to indict the whole city of Chicago.”

• Meanwhile, Lone Star Opera (Fort Worth) has made Reinaldo Arenas' Before Night Falls into an opera.

• Louise Erdrich (Tracks) will participate in the PBS series Faces of America which explores the genealogical histories of a dozen prominent Americans.

• Helene Cooper (The House at Sugar Beach) takes time off from the White House beat to report on surfing in Liberia.
  

• Will Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children) pen a graphic novel?

• Ann Cummins (Yellowcake) reviews books for the Arizona NPR affiliate and she's got some interesting regional picks!

• Walter Mosley (Little Scarlet) and Roberto Bolaño (Amulet) show up on LA Laker coach Phil Jackson's gift list to players.

• At the New Yorker, you can hear Junot Diaz read and discuss Edwidge Danticat's story "Water Child" and Danticat discuss Diaz' "The Dating Game."
  

• The photographer Pieter Hugo has published a collection of photographs, Nollywood, about the Nigerian film industry.  Chris Abani (Graceland) and Zina Saro-Wiwa, daughter of Ken Saro-Wiwa supply the text.  Preview this striking collection here.
  

• Orhan Pamuk (Snow) explains how his latest book, The Museum of Innocence, lead him to curate an actual museum and the NYT provides a slideshow of some of its holdings.  Want more Pamuk? How about a stroll with him through downtown LA?: "I like it when there is history, when there is decay. I'm very much impressed that this city has a decaying face. I identify it with my own." And then compare that to Istanbul.  Not juicy enough?  How about this literary match: ‘No secret, Kiran’s my girlfriend’. 

• Finally, remember our exploration of afropop legend Fela Kuti when we discussed Uzondinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation?  Kevin Mambo, star of the Broadway musical "Fela!" and Larry Cox, Amnesty International USA's Executive Director discuss the musician's commitment to human rights (and Obama's Nobel speech) on WNYC. More from NPR here.

Rights Reel

Recently I've stumbled on some films that seem like good backgrounders for a few of the books we've read. I recently rented the HBO film, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a nice historical companion piece for the Louise Erdrich novel, Tracks, we read not long ago. For something completely different, there is Ten Canoes, an Australian fable told partially in an aboriginal tongue which brought me back to Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages. Unrelated to any reading we've done but providing a backdrop to our work on China and globalization there is the oddly beautiful and meditative documentary about the photographer Edward Burtynsky, Manufactured Landscapes. Last but not least, I am looking forward (next up in my queue) to viewing the film version of our February book The Yacoubian Building. Trailer (with the cheesiest voiceover ever) below:

Maze of Injustice

Before we move on entirely from our discussion of Louise Erdrich's Tracks and things Native American, we were interested to learn of Amnesty International's new report Maze of Injustice: The failure to protect Indigenous women from sexual violence in the USA.
From the press release,

Native American and Alaska Native women in the United States suffer disproportionately high levels of rape and sexual violence, yet the federal government has created substantial barriers to accessing justice, Amnesty International (AI) asserted in a 113-page report released today. Justice Department figures indicate that American Indian and Alaska Native women are 2.5 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than women in the United States in general; more than one in three Native women will be raped in their lifetimes.

Transcript of discussion with advocate Sarah Deer can be found here and you can take action here. NYT article here. NPR gave the issue some coverage too.

Earth Day Inspiration

Reprinting an illustrated version Stevi's inspiring column from our newsletter--


Greetings from Group 22 as Earth Day approaches!

Recently as I thought about writing this column, I found myself in Zion National Park in southern Utah. One of my favorite views in Zion is the panorama behind the museum. My first sighting of it this trip was from the Watchman Trail. To the left of it is West Temple, a broad flat mesa topped by a small caprock, both of which are sprinkled with evergreens. A red rock face shows the iron that leaches through the Navajo Sandstone. Black streaks remind me of the waterfalls that cascade down the face of the cliff during rainstorms. At the far right from West Temple and across the Towers of the Virgin, stands the Altar of Sacrifice, flat topped, white faced with wide streaks of red flowing down to make clear this formation’s name. When my gaze travels left to right from West Temple to the Altar of Sacrifice, I think of Amnesty International and the work its members do to lessen the suffering caused by human rights violations.

In this beautiful natural setting, I think of the individuals around the world who willingly sacrifice their time, their safety and, yes sometimes, their lives, to protect the dignity of the human family and, in some cases, the very environment that sustains life.

This month Group 22 takes part in two Earth Day celebrations. One is Friday, April 20 at Caltech, from 11:30 AM to 1 PM. The other is Saturday, April 21, at Memorial Park in Pasadena, from 10 AM to 4 PM. Please, join us. Stop by for some information, good conversation, an action to support, and an opportunity to get involved with our group.

On April 6, some of us from Group 22 went to Vroman’s Bookstore to hear Kiran Desai speak about her book THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS, our February book. What a delight to hear her, especially as she carefully explained her ideas concerning the first world, and her case the upper class in India, verses the developing world during the Q&A. This month we read the environmentally-themed TRACKS by Native American author Louise Erdrich and move onto a Pulitzer-winning book about the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya next month. Consider joining our book group for interesting reading and lively discussion.

Since I believe everyday is Earth Day and the April event is a simple reminder, let’s all remember Earth Day’s three Rs. Recycle, of course; Reuse, yes; Reduce, let’s work at it because,

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” -Chief Seattle, 1855

Happy Earth Day!

White Earth Land Recovery Project

Given that food or the lack of it is one of the themes in Louise Erdrich's Tracks, I encourage a visit to the White Earth Land Recovery Project website where you can learn about various programs from alternative energy and traditional agriculture restoration that aim to create an environment-friendly sustainable community. I found the project to encourage diets of native foods as a part of diabetes prevention particularly interesting. For more on White Earth, here is an NPR report from their "Hidden Kitchens" series, Ricing Time, which includes a gallery of pictures and recipes.

(Yeah, that's me, gathering wild raspberries and blueberries in the rain as part of camp breakfast.)

Louise Erdrich: Poet

April is National Poetry Month, so aren't we fortunate in choosing a fiction writer this month who is also a poet. The Poetry Foundation has a selection of Louise Erdrich's poems. For one relating to our discussion of Tracks, try "Windigo."

Ojibwe Artists

In Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country, Louise Erdrich shares her love of a few contemporary Objibwe artists who are influenced by traditional petroglyphs (see below). I've tracked down some samples of their work online. First, Joe Geschick-- note his book cover art for Erdrich's works. Then there is Blake Debassige. Here is the seasonally appropriate Tree of Life (click on image for a larger version) and another by this artist can be found here. Finally, there is Norval Morriseau. The National Gallery of Canada has a nice selection and Macleod and Kinsman Robinson Galleries have sizable online collections (be sure to hit the arrows to scroll through all). Background on Morrisseau's painting can be found here.

Books and Islands

I assigned myself a little extra credit work for our discussion of Louise Erdrich's Tracks and read her Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country, a nonfiction account of her journey through Southern Ontario to visit sacred rock paintings, and other connections between the land and reading and writing. In the book she reflects on her study of Ojibwe language. You can get a taste of this from this New York Times article, Two Languages in Mind, But Just One in the Heart,

How do you go back to a language you never had? Why should a writer who loves her first language find it necessary and essential to complicate her life with another? Simple reasons, personal and impersonal. In the past few years I've found that I can talk to God only in this language, that somehow my grandfather's use of the language penetrated. The sound comforts me.

The language geeks amongst us may wish to explore this Ojibwe Language website. It will remind you of the Mohawk chapters in Mark Abley's Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages.

Of further interest to our Loyal Readers, Erdrich takes W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz, with her for pleasure reading on her travels, the novel's theme of the search for identity paralleling her own journey. Here's some of what she says about the book,

Page after page is about how history sinks into the mind, tormentingly sometimes, and what arrests and disturbances truth causes until finally the human heart can accept its sorrows, heal itself by enduring the unendurable and go on beating...

Like Austerlitz, I too feel as though I've seen the vanished people walking, felt their eyes upon me, and that when I stare down into the opaque water, they are somehow calmly looking up from their ordinary tasks, which they have carried on, below us, for thousands of years. (p. 96-7)

The traces of a vanished people evident in the photo at top come from looking up from the water to a cliff face, from a canoe actually, in Ojibwe country very close to the Minnesota/Canadian border.

Ojibwe Oral Tradition

Nanabush, Mishipezheu, Windigo... a few of the figures from Ojibwe oral tradition that Lousie Erdrich plays with in Tracks. The Milwaukee Public Museum has a nice overview of this tradition and these pivotal trickster and monster figures with additional stories from the tradition here and here. Enrich your read!

More Background for Tracks

Ojibwe: Waasa-Inaabidaa is the website for a public television series about the Ojibwe people that includes some useful references such as an historical timeline in charting the encroachment of treaty followed on treaty on native rights, maps of historical migrations and present day reservations. Best of all though are the many historic photos charting traditional Ojibwe life, some from the era covered in Lousie Erdrich's Tracks.

Another resource for your questions about Ojibwe culture and history can be found here.

Our April Author: Louise Erdrich

A few preliminary links for our discussion of Louise Erdrich's Tracks:

First, here's a brief biography (a more extensive one here) and a Smithsonian interview focusing on the author's upbringing in North Dakota and here are excerpts from a couple of other interviews. Erdrich owns a bookstore in Minneapolis if you're ever in the neighborhood: Birchbark Books. More interesting links to come!

For April: Louise Erdrich's Tracks

We have selected Louise Erdrich's Tracks for our April 15 meeting,

Set in North Dakota at a time in this century when Indian tribes were struggling to keep what little remained of their lands, Tracks is a tale of passion and deep unrest. Over the course of ten crucial years, as tribal land and trust between people erode ceaselessly, men and women are pushed to the brink of their endurance--yet their pride and humor prohibit surrender. The reader will experience shock and pleasure in encountering a group of characters that are compelling and rich in their vigor, clarity, and indomitable vitality.