Malcolm X

This is the philosopher, world political leader, who had the most influence on our generation, Malik el Shabazz, Malcolm X.

Sagoroe

I had forgotten Will made this short video when we went to Glen Cover, Sagoroe Te, to join the encampment there to save the shell mounds and protect that sacred area on the Vallejo Bay and estuary of our salmon:

Winnemem Ghost Tribe

Tonight, late at night, I'm looking through videos of the Winnemem to find one which Chief can use when she comes to Eugene to keynote for the Women of Color Conference January 25.  She will be speaking in classes, speaking at a keynote of women of color leadership on campus and she will be giving a keynote.  Caleen likes to show video and speak because it is hard to convey accurately who the tribe is and what our struggle to resist extermination of our way of life is to a crowd unfamiliar with the Winnemem without taking them through video to the place and among her people.  Without the technology people would not have reason to care if we exist or not.

I found this film and I want to save it here.  It was put together by California Watch, and it is about restoration.  Will and Toby McLeod have done films about salmon, ceremony but their documentaries have not focused entirely on restoration.  For good reason.  People's eyes glaze over as soon as that word is mentioned.  This weekend I told two friends, tribal, and people who care about the Winnemem that no matter how condensed, when I talk about recognition or restoration, people's eyes glaze over.  They were surprised.  I started one sentence, and their eyes glazed over.  Not easy to do.
But with the magic of video images, this little film is not so painful, especially since there are so many scenes of the village life and the beautiful sacred sites, the ceremony, the dances, the Chief and tribe.  So I'm thinking this should be added to the list of "Dancing Salmon Home" and "Ceremony is not a Crime."

What do you think?

Lyla and Paige Traveling Through

Today is a special day.  Lyla and Paige are traveling through on their way up to Portland!  We had a dinner of vegetable stew and dumplings, Will's wonderful green salad, smoke salmon dip from Alaska from Katie, and corn bread finished by goatcheese and cherry frozen dessert -- like ice creme but doesn't make us sick.  We had wonderful conversations -- even while Lyla washed dishes.  Tomorrow before they leave we will go to Off the Waffle with Steve Morozumi.  Life is perfect!

Segorea Te

Corinna Gould, Ohlone leader, and good friend of Chief Caleen Sisk of the Winnemem Wintu, speaks here about the precious estuary and cove, called Glen Cove by the media, and Segorea Te by the Ohlone and their allies.  This is the very place where the Sacramento River goes into the ocean and where our salmon would go from the sweet river waters to the estuary to grow up and then to the salty ocean.

Injunuity: Buried from Adrian Baker Animation on Vimeo.

This is the area that people tried to protect with the encampment at Glen Cove for months over a year ago. They seemed to win the battle, but were tricked. All the indigenous medicine plants gone. It's like a lawn there. WRONG!!!! And this area will be gravely impacted if and when Governor Brown surrounded by bad advisors, even those who claim to know about tribes and the issue, builds the peripheral canal which diverts all the water of the Sacramento south. The bay, our salmon's estuary, here in this place Corinna talks about will be gone.

"Dancing Salmon Home" honored by SFAIFF

At the Awards Night of the 37th Annual San Francisco American Indian Film Festival, an old and respected film festival, Chief Caleen Sisk accompanied with family and tribal members accepted the Best Documentary Award for the film.  Will and I found out when we saw the almost real-time post uploaded by cell phone by nephew Jesse Sisk, our tribe smiling ear to ear with the Chief in the center holding a humongous sculpture fashioned by Rance Hood, called "Film Indian." 

"Will, you won!!" I screamed from the office (really it's Jesse's bedroom when he gets here to go to LCC Culinary School.)  He ran in from his computer in the dining room.  We were online because the tribe was uploading as they could -- scenes of the venue, the winner of the music video category, then the long silence.  "That must be why they weren't posting anything," I said as he bent over my screen to see what his brain could not process -- the big lump the Chief held in her hands.  Yep!  Film Indian!

He could not believe it, stuck as the film was at the festival on a Tuesday noon.  Bad slot, but made even worse this year because it was Election Tuesday.  But people had come, and stayed put through 4 hours of other films for "Dancing Salmon Home."  Will asked the Chief to come up with him for the Q and A.  Lots of interest.  Lots of new learning about what happened in California to the tribes during the recent Reagan Era.  Crime.

On Tribal Ground was present at the SFAIFF, and the Chief gave an interview.  They will probably upload photos and the interview on their link.

On Native Ground

I tried to post their link on my link faves, but for some reason it does not receive youtube links.  It's mostly visual.  But now I've decided to write and post a blog about "Dancing Salmon Home" and Will, filmmaker and husband.    Catch up on films, music, and interviews of entertainment in Indian Country.

I want to take a moment to talk about Will because he does not think to talk this way about himself.  He's pretty special as a filmmaker.  He literally sees himself as an extension of the equipment.  Not diminishing himself.  As he says it, he has skills.  There is no god-like view of a talented man who calls his artistry skills.  I'm here to attest that his skills include his perspective on himself and his gift he brings into the world.  The power of the film is that the people (English word is "subject") in the film are portrayed by skillful editing in full power, their OWN power.  All documentary filmmakers can make powerful films.  But you must see the film to know what I mean.  He catches on film, moments which make it seem he is invisible.  And he is.  I've seen him.  Or more, I haven't seen him.  He's there but unnoticeable.  And for the interviews, maybe it's because he has been with the tribe so long and been teased by the young ones so long, but even then he almost gets away with the camera unseen.  Most of all, he "follows the people."  He picks up on them more than he looks at himself.  When he says (what he says often) "It's their film" he is being very accurate and when he says it is their film, he is not distancing himself as filmmaker.  He is moving closer and following, and with abandonment most directors and filmmakers don't do, he gives to the people, to the spirit and humbly follows.  Nothing in the way between him and them -- especially his ego.  He is one with the equipment.

Grandma blessed his camera and him a long time ago at her fire.  And he has not wavered from the purpose the Fire and his first Chief gave him.

Cuba Impressions

In 2009, Will and I went on a trip which changed us.  It put things into perspective.  When living here, one can easily slip into the idea that this is the reality.  However, less than 100 miles of the coast of the United States is an Island Country, Cuba, which still exists free of the colonization of Spain, France and the United States -- the latest being the sugar industry and mobsters turning Cuba into their playground.  Cuban people have seen the worst of the worst empires have to offer.  In the Sixties, I remember the Cuban Missle Crisis, hearing about it in my Government Class.  Later in the late Sixties, I began to study about Cuba.  It became a role model country as America began to reveal itself in the youth revolutions around the war in Viet Nam.  It was a role model because it successfully waged a revolution and freed themselves from the bonds of colonialism.  Cuba is intriguing to our generation.

In 2009, we learned through Steve Wake's Documentary Film about a Nikkei group which visits Nikkei in Cuba.  Check out "Under the Same Moon."  That is a Japanese phrase which alludes to family, or deep friendships, separated by miles, and the steadfastness and longing of that separation, to be together, gazing up at the moon, and comforted, and hopeful for reunion -- under the same moon.

Will and I are going to be talking about our Cuban experience and our Cuban familia in our friend Jim Garcia's class.  At the same time, our good friend Noboro Miyazawa, has invited us to Cuba in 2014 to celebrate with the nation the first Japanese to reach Cuba, 400 years ago before it was blasted open and forced to live in a Western dominated era. 

Here is Cuba Expressions, and if you peruse earlier blogs, I have written about Cuba with longing and love.

vimeo.com/9090821