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.

Our May Author: David Treuer

Watch Writer David Treuer on PBS. See more from Tavis Smiley.

This month we are reading Rez Life: An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life by David Treuer. You can start to get to know the author at his website davidtreuer.com. Here are a few more tips:

The 12 minute video above serves as a good intro to the book. You can also listen to Treuer discuss the book on Talk of the Nation and while you are on the NPR site follow-up with this 2008 Fresh Air interview with this brother Anton about Ojibwe language preservation, a favorite topic here at Rights Readers.  Slate also has a good audio interview about the book plus  a series he wrote in 2009 about Indian casinos.

In this Los Angeles Review of Books interview, Treuer talks about the book's balance of memoir, journalism and history, and fiction vs. nonfiction,

A lot of my fiction was trying to destabilize our thinking about Native people. The confidence with which people said we meant this or that. I wanted to wreck that confidence (with my novels). But with Rez Life I wanted to see what a good hard look at power would do to our ideas. Why do reservations exist? Why do we have casinos? When exactly did that happen? Why? Where and when did boarding schools exist? Why are there so many Indian kids not living with their parents? What do reservations mean? How did they get to be the way they are? So the nonfictionness of Rez Lifeis meant to help answer those questions. What can we see if we look closely? What can we see if we look carefully? What happens when I strip away all surface style? What happens to our vision then? Ironically — I think we see much more of the plurality, the multiplicity, the fecundity, the sheer range of Indian life. It isn’t one thing. Or two things. Indian life is blessedly diverse and complex and vibrant. That’s what life is after all — multiplying forms. And that, above all, is what I was trying to show: life gets bigger the more you look at it, the more you live it.

Our resident language geeks might want to check out this 2009 On Being story and this essay in the Washington Post. And from the NYT, here are some tips from Treuer on planning your canoe trip in Ojibwe country.

Finally, if you're curious about Treuer's fiction, you can get a taste from this reading. It had me intrigued!

For May: Rez Life by David Treuer

For May we have chosen David Treuer's Rez Life,

Celebrated novelist David Treuer has gained a reputation for writing fiction that expands the horizons of Native American literature. In Rez Life, his first full-length work of nonfiction, Treuer brings a novelist’s storytelling skill and an eye for detail to a complex and subtle examination of Native American reservation life, past and present. 

With authoritative research and reportage, Treuer illuminates misunderstood contemporary issues like sovereignty, treaty rights, and natural-resource conservation. He traces the convoluted waves of public policy that have deracinated, disenfranchised, and exploited Native Americans, exposing the tension and conflict that has marked the historical relationship between the United States government and the Native American population. Through the eyes of students, teachers, government administrators, lawyers, and tribal court judges, he shows how casinos, tribal government, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs have transformed the landscape of Native American life. 

A member of the Ojibwe of northern Minnesota, Treuer grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation, but was educated in "mainstream" America. Treuer traverses the boundaries of American and Indian identity as he explores crime and poverty, casinos and wealth, and the preservation of his native language and culture. Rez Life is a strikingly original work of history and reportage, a must read for anyone interested in the Native American story.

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!

Alaska Action

Fresh off our most recent discussion (and what a handsome group of discussants!) of Fifty Miles from Tomorrow: A Memoir of Alaska and the Real People by William L. Iggiagruk Hensley, Amnesty International has joined with Defenders of Wildlife to urge the Obama administration to rescind offshore drilling leases in the Chukchi Sea:

The people of Alaska's Inupiat Eskimo communities have lived in relative harmony with nature for centuries. Their hardscrabble existence is dependent on hunting and fishing. It's how they support their families.

The Inupiat way of life - and the delicate balance of nature that supports it - could soon fall victim to the same sort of offshore drilling disaster now occurring in the Gulf of Mexico.

Shell Oil wants to make millions of dollars from these pristine waters. But there's a cost to that greed.

A spill in the Chukchi - even the day-to-day damage done by offshore oil drilling operations in these waters - could spell disaster for the people, polar bears, whales and other wildlife that rely on the Chukchi to survive.
The Inupiat lead a subsistence lifestyle that depends on their ability to hunt bowhead whales, walrus, seals, beluga whales, polar bears, birds, and fish, all of which depend upon the health of the Chukchi Sea ecosystem.

Shell's drilling plans could decimate Chukchi ecosystems - and the communities that rely upon them to survive.

Any day now Shell will start to send ships up to the Chukchi. Under the oil company's plan, huge 514-foot-long drill ship and an armada of support vessels and aircraft would patrol the waters of the icy Arctic Ocean -- generating industrial noise, and emitting tons of heat-trapping gases and both air water pollutants.

The catastrophic oil spill that is devastating the Louisiana Gulf Coast right now is truly a call to action. As we send this out to you the horror of the Gulf disaster is spreading and oil is decimating fisheries and dependent communities. We need to make sure that the same does not happen to the Inupiate people of Alaska.

The last time a disaster of such proportions hit Alaska was the Exxon-Valdez spill in 1989. To this day, human and wildlife communities have not fully recovered.

Thirty years later, there's still no effective, proven technology to clean up oil spills in broken sea ice conditions, such as those found in the Chukchi Sea - that means an oil spill could doom rare arctic whales, threatened polar bears and other wildlife to extinction and destroy Inupiat communities if drilling proceeds.

The Inupiat communities -- like the wildlife of the Chukchi Sea -- are unique and irreplaceable. Please take action today to protect them.

Our May Author: William L. Iggiagruk Hensley

This month we read Fifty Miles from Tomorrow: A Memoir of Alaska and the Real People by William L. Iggiagruk Hensley.  As usual we have a few links to supplement our up-coming discussion. The author has his own website where you can find additional photos and a blog of links to events, reviews, interviews and other writing such as this NYT Op-ed, In Alaska, Qiviters Never Win, published at the time of Sarah Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska or this remembrance of Stewart Udall.  You may also wish to browse the website of the First Alaskans Institute, where he is chair of the board of trustees. Hensley participates in an interesting discussion spurred by the 50th anniversary of Alaskan statehood at NPR's On Point.

Here is a brief interview with Audubon magazine: 



Also of general interest is this recent NPR report on Rosetta Stone's efforts to aid Native Alaskan's in saving Inupiaq.  And remember that film from Inuit film from a few years back, The Fast Runner?  Apparently it's part of a trilogy which I plan to investigate, especially the last, Before Tomorrow, in the series (trailer) which the NYT describes as "the only film in this series to focus on women’s roles as storytellers and repositories of folk wisdom; its perspective might be described as Inuit feminist." The makers of the film have created an Inuit and Indigenous multimedia forum, IsumaTV, which includes videos exploring indigenous languages, Inuits and climate change and native justice issues.  It looks like a fun place to browse and expand your worldview! 

Mr. Hensley has kindly dropped by this blog once already (thanks!), so who knows, he may be back in comments with his own favorite links...

For May: Fifty Miles from Tomorrow by Willam L. Iggiagruk Hensley

For May we have selected Fifty Miles from Tomorrow: A Memoir of Alaska and the Real People by Willam L. Iggiagruk Hensley:

Born twenty-nine miles north of the arctic circle, William L. Iggiagruk Hensley was raised to live the seminomadic life that his Iñupiaq ancestors had lived for thousands of years. In this stirring memoir, he offers us a rare firsthand account of growing up Native Alaskan, and later, in the lower forty-eight, as a fearless advocate for Native land rights. In 1971, after years of tirelessly lobbying the United States government, he played a key role in a landmark victory that enabled the Inupiaq to take charge of their economic and political destiny.

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.

Spoken Here: Mohawk

Time to visit Canada on our Spoken Here journey. Start with Omniglot's Mohawk page or links from Native American Langage Net. Here's a cool idea-- Mohawk lessons via podcast. Or visit the Kahnawake Language Center. Recommended features: Photo archive and radio, just to hear what the language sounds like. There's also a bit of Mohawk in this audio documentary about Mohawk ironworkers who worked on the World Trade Center from Lost and Found Sound.