Film Fest Honors Native Americans

Kicking off the 1998 Native American Film Festival, 40 students and community members gathered yesterday at the Graduate School of Education (GSE) to watch the documentary Surviving Columbus and to engage in a dialogue on the current status of Native Americans.

Surviving Columbus was produced to commemorate the quincentennial of European presence in America, and traces the often-tumultuous history of the Pueblo Indians in the southwestern United States.

The film shows the hardships endured by the Pueblo Indians following the conquests of Coronado in the early sixteenth century, the cultural change forced upon them by the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries and their struggle to preserve Pueblo language and religion into the 21st century.

Following the film, the crowd heard from Blaine C. Favel, former grand chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and current Canadian counselor for international indigenous matters.

Favel spoke for about 10 minutes and discussed the "key issues" of preserving native language and culture in order to maintain a Native American identity.

Favel also said violations of Native American's human rights are not merely a thing of the past as exemplified by the massacre of Indians in Chiapas, Mexico three months ago.

Following Favel's remarks, members of the audience discussed their reactions to the film as well as their views on the current status of Native Americans.

According to Danielle R. Lansing, a student at GSE and one of the organizers of the film festival, the post-film discussion was something she hoped would continue beyond the event itself.

"We wanted to start a dialogue to the issue we face as educators as well as native people," Lansing said.

Lansing and the other organizers of the film festival, Maya F. Durrett and Rebecca S. Sockbeson, are all students in GSE's Risk and Prevention program. This film festival is an outgrowth of their class, "Issues in Contemporary Native American Education."

Durrett said that while all members of the public are warmly welcomed at the film screenings, the festival is primarily targeted for GSE students.

"We want educators to know our [Native American] issues and know our history so they can better serve our children," Durrett said.

Durrett, Lansing and Sockbeson are all Native Americans--from the Lakota, Navajo and Penobscot Nations respectively.

The three stressed their long-term hope that promoting awareness of Native American issues would lead to the appointment of the first Native American to a tenured Faculty position at Harvard.

The film festival will continue with film screenings at 7:00 p.m. every Thursday night in April in GSE's Gutman Library. The next film, Dance Me Outside, is a portrayal of Canadian Aboriginal youth, and will be shown on Thursday, April 16.