Don't Miss DisOrient Asian American Film Festival, April 17 -19

DisOrient Asian American Film Festival (disorientfilm.org) will be April 17 - April 19 at the Bijou Art Cinema in Eugene on 13th and Ferry. It is a jewel of a festival! Jason Mak, "daddy" of the Festival was inspired by the big ones he experienced down in LA while he was an ethnic studies graduate student and falling in love with independant filmmaking.

DisOrient is in its fourth year now and has graduated from a small room in the corner of the Asian American Film Festival, to a quiet little theater in neighboring Springfield with an angry antique dealer next door who didn't want any cars parking on "his street" to the Bijou. We love the Bijou, friendly staff, pop corn with nutritional yeast and real butter (a Eugene addiction), and their mi casa tu casa welcome to our festival. During the festival, the Bijou allows us to turn their own little space for relaxing into our Green Room where local Asian restaurants donate food for the presenters and VIP guests. They turn a blind eye to the fact that 100 DisOrient filmgoers are not buying their special popcorn, and instead, join as we all dig into samosas, or chowmein or Steve Mah's special barbecue pork. You get the picture.

I'm saying our festival because this will be my second I'm on the committee.

I call it a jewel of a festival because like the big Asian American film festivals, the producers, directors and filmmakers often come with their films with great Q & A's afterwards. These guests, like the artists of our community who have preceded them are generous and open people -- as grassroots as the people who put on these efforts or come to see the independent films. It's the closest to the phenomena many of us experienced during the beginnings of the Asian American youth movements when people wrote their own books, made their own music, learned to taiko and went up and down I-5, even into Canada, from Seattle to LA carrying their stories, their ancestor's stories with them. It was like a justice underground, stopping in Eugene or Ashland or Mt. Shasta -- all the little towns w/Asian population in between the metro areas. Everytime someone came through they would be the event. In Eugene, it meant all the students of color and communities would show up and there would be this massive party at my lucky house afterwards, people spilling out into the yard, front and back. I-5 dropped into my street and I had hardly any furniture. Every room could be turned into a place to crash and whenever necessary cleared away for a party crowd.

Like the artists, poets, political activists, taiko drummers, musicians of that time independant filmmakers have that same spirit, at least the ones I've met. They bring their passion for film, their varied philosophy of their life and art, traveling up and down I-5 and beyond, and are willing to share all of it with us. When Curtis Choy was 22 back in '73, beginning to recognize injustice in its many forms, he picked up a camera instead of a shotgun. He will most certainly still be shooting as long as he has life in him and tell those true stories which wake up our humanity -- for as long as we still have it. DisOrient I showed Choy's "What's Wrong with Frank Chin," DisOrient 3 showed his film on Lt. Ehren Watada and Frank Emi and this year we will show "Manilatown is in the Heart" through the POV of the biggest heart, Al Robles, poet. These emotionally powerful films prove why documentary filmmakers are a breed to themselves -- THEY WERE THERE! And Choy was there getting to know the icons during critical times, getting to know the heart of all the stories and the people we would want to be passed on to the next generation. Justin Lin refuses to be boxed as an Asian American filmmaker and acts out his belief that an Asian filmmaker can make any kind of film and proves it with his "Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift" series with fast cars, Hollywood actors, and the Asian "buddy" even dies before the end. The spectrum of what makes a person pick up that camera is that broad.

But one thing all have in common -- they will answer every question anyone who comes to see their films will ask, they will mentor the next generation, they will accept homestays knowing we're grassroots and on a shoestring budget and appreciate the opportunity to connect, they will stand with us, small as we may be, and encourage other filmmakers to send their film to DisOrient. What they all have in common is that they will do whatever it takes as indendent filmmakers to make films, show film, and to promote indie film. It's the opposite of the ego thing. They promote indie film by mentoring the young. They expand the audience by expanding their own personal community. They show their films AND themselves. I'm sold. I have become an avid independant film goer and festival patron as much as it is possible to be.

So come to DisOrient! This year's program is on the website disorientfilm.com. The festival is shorter by a day because some of our filmmakers could not finish their film when things turned crazy economically. One of the first to feel economic crisis is always the artist -- and the independent filmmaker, even more than others.

Curtis Choy will be our family's guest this year. He is coming with his documentary "Manilatown is in the Heart." I've blogged about it much earlier when we were previewing films and advocated with all my heart to anyone who would listen -- and as it turned out I probably didn't have to. His reputation, of course, is solid.

I did not sit on the program committee this year so I don't know about the other films. I do believe the excitement each has generated with the work of Rose Pergament whom Jason Mak describes as irreplaceable and the best programmer he has ever known. Check out the program she has put together as well as a workshop by JP Chan, filmmaker of the "Uses for a Knife" trilogy (the third playing at the festival.) The youngest filmmaker of this program is 15, our students from the Rites of Passage program mentored by Jason Mak and filmmaker Will Lu who flew to Eugene just to be with our summer program after meeting us at DisOrient III. There are films by about and for a diversity of Asian Pacific experience. Some tell the truth. Some mess with your mind. Some will offend. Some will inspire you to do something you wouldn't have it you didn't go to DisOrient. Last year, Steve Wake brought his documentary "Under the Same Moon" about Japanese Americans going to Cuba to do a joint oral history project and cultural exchange with Japanese Cubans. Inspired, my husband Will and I are going this summer with the Tsukimikai III group! We do homework (lots of reading and writing and sharing) and meet through Skype every other Sunday for hours to prepare for the trip. When I look at the moon nowadays, I feel anticipation for "our family" in Cuba!

Don't miss DisOrient IV! Check out the Nolan's website. Get a VIP pass and receive Dana Valdez' festival t-shirt and Laura Fong's souvenier festival program. You'll be able to go to the parties arranged by hospitality chair Marvy Schuman with a lot of effort from Pam Quan, MiMi Nolledo and Mike Takahashi. Enjoy conversing with presenters in the Green Room staffed by Jeannie Mah and others. If there is a festival it is because of Jo Kingman, Joe Jiang and the tech crew. Joe also did our trailer. If you need a ride back to your hotel, just ask Remie Calalang and Anselmo Villanueva and they'll find someone for you or do it themselves. If you're flying in, probably Linda Liu got you your ticket. You'll meet her taking your ticket and can tell her about your flight. And please don't throw your popcorn box on the floor in the theater (we recycle) because Paloma and I are pushing the broom between programs.

Asking for Your Support

On March 6, Toby McCleod, (producer of "In Light of Reverence" a Sundance Film Festival winner, which showed the Winnemem Wintu's successful battle to stop the building of a ski resort on the sacred Mt. Shasta and prevented the desecration of their Sacred Spring by condo developers) was the first to sign the Support Justice for the Winnemem Wintu Tribe on line petition. Three weeks later, there are 411 signatures many with comments from all around the nation, and also internationally demonstrating to Senators Boxer and Feinstien that the Winnemem do not stand alone. If you haven't signed yet, please take some time today:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/support-justice-for-the-winnemem-wintu-tribe

If you have already signed, thank you! If you go to the site and you haven't visited in awhile, it's very heartening to see how far and wide supporters are and to read some of their heartfelt comments. Please pass this information on to your friends, family and organizations.

At the end of March, the Winnemem tribe will be moving forward and will need as much support as possible. A thousand signees onto their petition would be nice! Please sign the petition and be counted! Thank you, Misa

Keeping the Faith After "Doubt"

We went to see "Doubt" tonight. Each of us had our own point of view -- substantially influenced by our own life experiences. Two former Catholics -- one East Coast New Englander; the other Venezuelan; one Japanese American retired school teacher; and two with experiences which they did not refer to in relation to the movie, so I can't say for sure.

Any analysis of "Doubt" in the end, as in reality, says more about the observer than the observed.
My own life experience has rendered me a person with no doubt. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it would feel earth shaking for me to be otherwise.

1. The priest was just a priest, being a priest as he believed he should be. Was he gay or straight? I don't know. What I do know is that his life experience led him to feel compassion for the African American gay child entering into puberty, and fear for him in the restricted, homophobic, racist society he had been born into. He felt protectiveness and accepted him for who he was. I had no doubt that his love for William was a nurturing love -- a love of a teacher, a preacher, a parent. Perhaps, then, he was gay to have such understanding of William and what he would be going through but we don't know. For sure, though, he was not a pedophile.

2. The young Black and gay student entering into adolescence may have had a crush on his priest -- as young people often do, of teachers, and adults they look up to. He did not have a father who understood or loved him or accepted him for who he was, a father who did not see the beauty he brought into the world.

3. Remember Nun Aloysius asked the mother accusingly, "what kind of mother are you?"
The mother may not have understood her son's sexual identity but she loved her son. The mother would rather his son passed into highschool, that his son was cared about by a significant adult, that her son could survive no matter what and that he was happy.

4. The Nun, Aloyisius, we all have experienced the hand of the Nun/schoolteacher/preacher/maybe even parent, so sure of what was natural and what was not that they would take radical measure to be right. Otherwise their world would come tumbling down. We know the person who would bully those they feared (fearing they might shake their control -- teens, authority, other points of view). Often these bullying people showed such contradictory nurturing to the helpless -- the elderly, the ill, those who did not shake their world. It's amazing how often people like these are put into positions of middle power, closest to the rank and file. Those in power would not put them with the children. Parents would be continuously complaining. And would not place them with themselves in their administrator's club.

5. The teacher, the Nun ________________, saw the priest hug the young student and it scared her. This child had no fatherly hug in his life. This child deserved to be hugged. This child needed a hug especially on the day he began to be seen as a problem child -- stripped of being an alter boy, harassed and humiliated, sent to the principal. We can remember even now, can't we, how a day like that made us doubt ourselves? But the Nun was afraid of the hug. She could only see it in the sordid light of her Catholic fear, homophobia, racial tension, and the sexual repression of the Fifties and Sixties. After the hug, she became the teacher authoritarian, bullying and humilating the young African American gay student for daydreaming, silencing another student for being excited to share the answer, sending him to the principal for answering her question, screaming at him, deriding him when he came back until he quaked in fear. "This is my classroom," she shrieked. And felt the loneliness and wrongness of a teacher who owned the classroom by herself.

It was perfect that the film was set in the 60's. We remember the Sixties. There was a revolution in the schools. Teachers were hugging their kids. They were teaching everyone's history. They were bringing relevance, interaction, play into thei classroom. Out went the texts. In came paperbacks, simulations, art. Down came the walls. Now, of course, teachers in the US are told not to even touch their students or they might get into trouble.

6. The day dreamer, the alienated student may not have heard the question or known the answer of Patrick Henry saying "Give me liberty or give me death" or FDR's "There is nothing to fear but fear itself" but he certainly knew it with every cell, living in a fearful world -- where a father loathed who he was, beat him, where he had to hide his true self or be beaten, where only one teacher loved him for who he was and cared what happened to him, even gave him that second chance, and that teacher left.

7. The teacher left because it is hard to teach with compassion in a toxic, fearful, dangerous environment. In fact, impossible because in the end, the children will be the victims of the hate which falls all around you. It stops if you leave for most students -- and for the few for whom you made all the difference in the world, they will be sacrificed, of course, and it will weigh on your heart.

8. Why did the child with the nosebleed smirk at the end? The priest had a weakness. He did not love all his student and picked on the manipulative boy who bullied others and made wisecracks. Picked on him about his dirty fingernails. All the students deserve to have some love, even those one finds unloveable and coach the bully, the manipulative student, to believe in the power of respect and saying what's true. And that proved to be his Achilles heel. The nun who disliked them all saw the reaction of the one student he did not nurture and treated with dislike, and used that student to brand him guilty for loving a student, whom perhaps she did not find loveable. Understand I am saying with a nurturing love of a parent, an uncle, a teacher.

9. The teacher Nun who inspired the story, I hope. became the teacher she truly was as the priest with all his heart and emotion counseled her to be rather than to be another Sister Aloysius.

10. And I hope Sister Aloysius felt doubt enough times that she became human and did not continue to cross boundaries with parents, her colleagues, and the children. My experience says, unfortunately, that would not be the case. Perhaps, an enjoyable retirement to a place she can't hurt anyone and can simply be nice to those who do not prove a threat to her -- the elderly, the sick.

11. My total lack of doubt might seem extreme, but I always look at the child, and William missed his priest and was heartbroken, according to the teacher. He was not a victim, but lost the only adult whom he knew to believe in him. That's my take on it -- 33 years of teaching -- i.e., being taught, and influenced by adolescents in a society not too different from that of the film. It's not an accident it was set in the 60's when education was under great change from the restrictive, propogandistic, segregated schools it had been for decades, and student teachers were reading Paolo Freire, Jonothan Kozol and others and opening free schools, some of which exist still today, schools in which the children are hugged by all of their teachers.

Forgive me. I'm not proofreading and will probably come back and change this many times. But tonight I came home from the movies and a great conversation which strengthened my faith more than doubt.

THE WINNEMEM SUPPORT PETITION TO BOXER AND FEINSTEIN IS AT 338!! PLEASE SIGN ON! THANK YOU

The Love Bug Strikes!

I've often written about Mom who's become the "Little Love Bug" of Southtowne, how she goes up and gives a little peck on the men's bellies, and on days we smear on her signature Revlon "Fire and Ice" lipstick during our visit, the med aides reports there are bright red kisses on all the foreheads of people in wheelchairs. They say she is always helping. I once found her in the laundry room where she had helpfully pushed a friend on a chair, and didn't know how to get out. I have no idea how she got into the locked laundry room.

I dropped in yesterday to check how she was doing after my morning visit because she seemed a little anxious. "Oh, she's happy today!" Debbie, the med aide, answered. "She ate 100 percent of her lunch and is helping everybody."

"Great!"

"In fact, she helped Tom so much she almost killed him. We had to do the Heimlich!"

Apparently Mom was sharing her sandwich with Tom, breaking off a little piece for herself, then for Tom, "One for me; one for you." Sweet picture except for, according to Debbie, "Tom is Puree." I guess the medaides noticed his blue coloring and ran over and picked him up. Mom kept insisting, "It's ok. He likes thinks it's good."

I was horrified, but Debbie just shrugged like it was another regular day at Southtowne saying, "Your mom wouldn't leave Tom's side until she was sure he was alright. She stood looking after him for quite awhile!'

WW/ The Case for Winnemem Restoration

Here is a video which features Winnemem Wintu tribal leaders -- Caleen Sisk-Franco, Chief; and Mark Franco, Headman -- who tell of broken treaties and violated sovereignty that their people have endured, and outline their efforts to regain federal recognition of their tribal status.


Restoration -- The Time Has Come from Moving Image on Vimeo.

AJR39

It was suggested by a good friend to copy AJR39 for people "to provide a powerful and persuasive explanation of the decades of injustices endured by the Winnemem Wintu people." I'm doing that here (with the apologies for having mis-named it AJR38) It took a legislator independent of the influence of the Congressman from the Shasta Lake dam area and who believed in justice to introduce it. The hope is the Senators Boxer and Feinstein will do the same, choose justice over politics and if not they, someone else in the House or Senate.

Here is the link to the online petition to the Senators:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/support-justice-for-the-winnemem-wintu-tribe

California Legislature—2007–08 regular session

Assembly Joint Resolution No. 39
Introduced by Assembly Member Huffman
August23, 2007
Assembly Joint Resolution No. 39—Relative to the Winnemem
Wintu Tribe.
Legislative counsel ’s digest AJR39, as introduced, Huffman.

Winnemem Wintu Tribe: federal reaffirmation.
This measure would memorialize the President and Congress of the United States, and the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in the United States Department of the Interior, to reaffirm that the Winnemem Wintu Tribe possesses full federal recognition and all the rights and privileges that arise from that status.

WHEREAS, The Winnemem Wintu Tribe is a sovereign Indian
Nation, located in Shasta and Siskiyou Counties in California, and
consists of 122 enrolled and documented members, with its tribal
headquarters located in Jones Valley, California, on the site of the
Wintu Village named “Tuiimayallii”; and

WHEREAS, The leaders of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe met
with representatives of the United States for treaty negotiations,
and a treaty was signed by both the tribal leaders and the United
States at Reading’s Ranch on August 15, 1851; and

WHEREAS, The Winnemem Wintu Tribe was thus recognized
by the United States Government as early as 1851; and

WHEREAS, The Winnemem Wintu Tribe again conducted
negotiations with the federal government in 1889 through the
presentation of a letter known as the “Wintu/Yana Petition” to
President Benjamin Harrison; and

WHEREAS, The result of that petition was the sending of special
Indian agents from the Department of the Interior to California
who were given the task of securing land for landless and homeless
Indians, particularly the Winnemem Wintu; and

WHEREAS, Special Indian Agent John Terrell conducted a
census of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe in 1915 for inclusion in the
government land purchase efforts; and

WHEREAS, The federal government failed in its mission to
secure land for the Winnemem Wintu Tribe as a whole, and instead
granted individual land allotments to some tribal members
(Allotment, non-Reservation Indians), in areas known at the time
to be in danger of inundation by the rising waters of the planned
Shasta Dam, as cited by Special Indian Agent John Terrell in his
correspondence to the Department of the Interior; and

WHEREAS, During the years 1935 to 1943, inclusive, the
federal government began removing tribal burials for reinterment
in the United States Government Shasta Reservoir Indian
Cemetery, held in trust status by the United States; and

WHEREAS, Up through 1985, the Winnemem Wintu Tribe
received federal education, housing, and health services offered
through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the United States Forest
Services, and the United States Fish and Wildlife Services, to
federally recognized Indian tribes and bands; and

WHEREAS, Title to at least some of the allotments issued to
Winnemem Wintu tribal members as recorded in the 1915 census
created by United States Indian agents are still held in trust on
those members’ behalf by the United States, and the United States
continues to forward trust income to some members in
acknowledgment of those relationships, demonstrating that the
special trust relationship between the United States and the
Winnemem Wintu Tribe and its members has never been
terminated, only misplaced; and

WHEREAS, Since 1985, the Winnemem Wintu Tribe has not
been listed as an Indian tribe by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, even
though it was never officially terminated as one and although it
continues to have land held in trust by the United States on its
behalf and have government-to-government relations with other
agencies of the federal government; and

WHEREAS, Due to the tribe’s omission from the list of federally
recognized tribal entities, members of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe
have been denied access to federal services such as education,
housing, and health services under federal programs established
for federally recognized Native American tribes, and the tribe does
not receive the protections provided by Congress for members of
federally recognized tribes; and

WHEREAS, Numerous state and federal agencies have
recognized or currently recognize the Winnemem Wintu Tribe,
including, but not limited to, all of the following:
(1) The California Native American Heritage Commission,
which lists the Winnemem Wintu Tribe as a legitimate California
tribe.
(2) The United States Bureau of Reclamation, which issued the
Winnemem Wintu Tribe a permit to hold traditional ceremonies
on the Shasta Dam.
(3) The United States Forest Service, which signed a
memorandum of understanding committing to consult with the
Winnemem Wintu Tribe when working in traditional tribal lands
and managing sacred sites.
(4) The United States Forest Service, which has posted
information about the Winnemem Wintu Tribe at interpretive
facilities at Fowlers Campground, Middle Falls, and at the entrance
to Panther Meadows on Mount Shasta.
(5) The Department of Transportation, which signed a
memorandum of understanding with the Winnemem Wintu Tribe
to consult with the tribe when transit projects encroach upon tribal
land.
(6) The federal government, which signed the Cottonwood
Treaty of 1851 that was not ratified, but has never been withdrawn.
(7) Until the mid-1980’s, members of the Winnemem Wintu
Tribe received United States Bureau of Indian Affairs housing,
health care, and educational assistance available only to members
of recognized tribes; and

WHEREAS, The Winnemem Wintu Tribe can document
injustice at the hands of the federal government since the 1851
treaty to recognize the tribe was signed by the United States
Representative but lost prior to registry in Washington D.C.; and

WHEREAS, The Winnemem Wintu Tribe is an historic and
traditional band of California Indians whose people are the keepers
of their religious places and practices and upon whose shoulders
is placed the burden of carrying forward the religion, traditions,
culture, and teachings of and for their people and who seek
restoration of their federal recognition for cultural purposes, not
for Indian gaming purposes; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Assembly and the Senate of the State of
California, jointly,That the Legislature respectfully memorializes
the President and Congress of the United States, and the Assistant
Secretary for Indian Affairs in the United States Department of
the Interior to reaffirm that the Winnemem Wintu Tribe possesses
full federal recognition and all the rights and privileges that arise
from that status, including immediate inclusion of the tribe in the
list published in the Federal Register under the relevant provisions
of Title I of the Federally Recognized Indian Tribe List Act of
1994 (Public Law 103-454); and be it further
Resolved,That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies
of this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United
States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to each
Senator and Representative from California in the Congress of the
United States, and to the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in
the United States Department of the Interior.

Today is a Good Day for Justice!

I got so excited when I saw that 94 people have signed the Winnemem Restoration petition thus far and wanting to reach that 1000 mark, even exceeding it, so Senators Boxer and Feinstein will take notice. Check it out!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/support-justice-for-the-winnemem-wintu-tribe

Grassroots support such as this have been key in supporting the Winnemem Wintu people of Northern CA to bring back their coming of age ceremony, in their efforts to stop the further raising of Shasta Lake Dam, and for their continued struggle to gain restoration of their tribal status. The great victory last August, CA legislators passing AJR38 supporting restoration of the Winnemem has been sent to the US Congress by the Legislature. However, Senators Boxer and Feinstein are in a "wait and see mode."

Today, a few days after women around the world have been celebrated for their grassroots work (International Women's Day) please stand in solidarity with this courageous woman Chief of the Winnemem Wintu, Caleen Sisk Franco -- a woman who follows another remarkable and strong woman leader and doctor Florence Jones, and who took part of the UN Human Rights Declaration for Indigenous People and won the support of indigenous leaders around the world, a woman leader who led the War Dance at Shasta Lake Dam, brought back the Coming of Age Ceremony for her young daughter, a woman leader who stands without hesitation and for as long as it takes to protect the sacred places, the salmon, water, the right for her people to exist against all odds, in the face of dams, water bottling multinational corporations, genocidal US Indian policy. Please take just a few seconds to get on the webpage below and sign the petition for the restoration of the Winnemem Wintu and let Senators Boxer and Feinstein know that today is not a day to "wait and see" but the day to do the right thing for justice too long delayed! In solidarity, Misa

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/support-justice-for-the-winnemem-wintu-tribe