Changing the way we see Native Americans | Matika Wilbur | TEDxTeachersCollege

my prayer is that this experience stops my dream is that our children are given images that are more useful truthful and beautiful respectfully I ask that you take this image instead smiling incredible Indian Anishinaabe Pina Lummi beautiful culture bearing activists and the 1491 grandma grandpa aunty cousin president halloa clink it Zuni Pechanga persevering thriving Baha Joni peaches Brandon and royalty musician PhD elder and fashionista loving serving Havasupai - Layla Crowe entrepreneur filmmaker scholar prayerful fisherman attorney fierce veteran linguist husband and wife we you and I the five fingered beans have so much in common we might look different on the outside but on the inside we feel the same we want the same things and together I believe that we can change the way that Native Americans are viewed in massive media we can make a conscious choice to reshape the way that we imagine Indian country in my work I seek and photograph positive indigenous role models from this century and today I'd like to share some of those stories with you this is Gloria grant she's a associate superintendent from the Chinle Unified School District which is in the Navajo Nation the land of the denied people its High School is the largest primarily Native American public high school in the United States ninety seven percent of the students are Danae and I loved visiting with Gloria she reminds me of my auntie and my mom and my cousins all wrapped up into one lady and one thing that I love about a bajos is the way in which they always introduce themselves they say she says I'm from the deny nation I am born for the total Cheney people the bitter water people the kyani's which is the wind clan when you introduce yourself like this it humbles you to recognize any of those people who have come before you it is also recognizing those sacred elements that make us up of who we are keeps us in line that we are humble people made up of these substances of the earth that is Who I am for 15 years Gloria worked on creating a relevant Navajo curriculum at the Chinle Unified School District she candidly reflected upon the experience I worked with nothing but medicine men spiritual men women and herbalist s-- these were the people that we should stand in awe of they know so much my academic degree was nothing compared to their knowledge they know the songs the prayers they know the ceremonies they had wisdom I have a degree actually I have a couple of degrees there's a difference you could have all the knowledge in the world but it's wisdom that makes change you need to believe in what you're doing this is my good friend desi small Rodriguez her Cheyenne name is mu cute which means bearment woman and she's a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe and OH does he's fierce really it fears she has a master's degree in from Stanford and sociology social stratification and inequality and she worked as a senior policy analyst in research and statistics at the Ministry of Maori development this April she goes back to New Zealand to finish her PhD and one of the questions that I ask all of my participants is if there are any interesting details about their tribes they would like to share maybe some details that aren't written down in the history books she says as a young person it's hard to tell the history of the tribe we're really taught as young people that we should listen more than we talk they call us the fighting cheyenne and they call us the fighting cheyenne because we fought for everything that we have here today i've grown up knowing that we are here because 300 300 of our people made it back from oklahoma they escaped in the middle of winter after being forced into Indian territory they were dying of famine and disease and so two of our Chiefs stole knife and little wolf decided that they were going to make a run for freedom and if they died along the way at least they died trying to get home is this really amazing tale of survival of what a people would do to get back home they were chased by the cavalry the entire time that's a reality that our people still live with it's not something that's written down in history books it shapes your entire life knowing every day that my ancestors died for us to be here that that really tells the strength of the Cheyenne people Gail small is desease beautiful mother she's an attorney and she worked for the people for many many years and when I talked with Gail she told me something that really stuck out to me she told me that the Cheyenne people will always bring their people home but after they pass away even if they've been living off the reservation for many years maybe they're living here in New York City they will pay to bring them home for a Cheyenne funeral because that is where they belong at home with the land and you know when I ask you what it means to be Indian enough she said that measurements of blood quantum do not define who we are it is through our connection to the land connection to the spirit infection to our people that we become who we are and that is who we will always be this is John's Adele Jonna Santee Sioux and he's an artist in longtime American Indian Movement activist he was a spokesperson for the Indian takeover of Alcatraz from 1969 to 1971 and he later served as the chairman of aim and I was super excited to get to meet John because you know you you hear about these rebel activists and I was like a little kid knocking on his door I was really excited and I I didn't even know how to approach him properly but I asked him you know what he learned from the civil rights movement from his time from his activism and he said I would have encouraged I wouldn't have encouraged native pride so much I would have encouraged the gratefulness and humility more something like Native and grateful or Native and thankful pride is not our word we're not Indians we're not who are the human beings and all the tribes that you go to none of them will identify as Indian they will identify as the name of their tribe and that name usually means the human beings and our own language and identity as human beings the basis of the whole thing is humility Raymond Matz is one of my heroes I didn't know it until I met him I didn't realize is that the sacrifices that he'd made had already impacted my life you see he was arrested 19 times while fishing on the Klamath River he was the first Native American to take his his fishing rights case all the way to the Supreme Court and he told me this story about how their setnet was out and they could tell that it was full of fish when a net full of fish it will Bob and the feds were there with their big guns as were the reporters with their cameras and he knew that if he went out and checked his net he'd be arrested again so they're standing on the shore and there was all this commotion he didn't know what to do and his grandma goes off I'll do it and so she she found it out on her little two-man canoe singing in it singing an honor song and picked the net and the reporters came and took pictures and the cops came with their guns and that went on the cover of a magazine and then they won their court case they won half of the fishing game in wildlife at the Yurok tribe and then that set the precedence for the judge bolt decision and the judge bolt decision gives us half of the fish and game in wildlife in Washington where I'm from and my parents are commercial fishermen as is my brother and my cousins and most of the people from my village so I was really honored to get to have the opportunity to thank him personally this is one of my favorite Cherokees of all time her name is Adrian Keane and she's a fierce educator doctoral student in culture communities and education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and she's the author of native appropriations which is a blog that's dedicated to talking about native representation and I'm going to read you one of my favorite quotes from her blog post entitled why Tonto matters we are taught everyday explicitly in classrooms and implicitly through messages from the media that our culture's are something of the past something that exists in negative contrast to Western values and something that can be commodified and enjoyed by anyone with twenty dollars to buy a cheap plastic headdress these stereotypical images like Johnny Depp's Tonto feed into the ongoing cycle and until we demand more our contemporary existence and therefore the real problems in Indian country simply don't exist in the minds of the dominant culture how can we expect mainstream support for sovereignty self-determination nation-building tribally controlled education health care and jobs when 90% of Americans only view people my people as one-dimensional stereotypes situated in the historic past or even more situated in their imaginations I argue that we can't and that to me is why Tonto matters this is Stephen small salmon he works at the inclusive Salish immersion school in pend oreille in northeastern Montana he began working at the immersion school ten years ago because in his lifetime he saw the fluency fall from 100 percent to 10 percent their goal is to bring the language back to the Salish Kootenai people he says I did the language all my life I went to boarding school but my mom dad and grandparents all talked Indian to me when I came home so I was honored for that I have a drummers group I dance to honor the elders that came before me I enjoy working with kids especially the little ones they're really happy all the time I never did think we would lose our language today I can truly say that we almost did and so today we do our best to save it Tatanka means is Iguala Lakota Omaha and Navajo from Chinle Arizona he is the son of the late Russell Means I met Tatanka last year when I was in Albuquerque and my good friend Valerie said you have to meet Tatanka he's a great leader and I was and I have to be candid with you I was like you know I just didn't think that a 28 year old actor it was a leader and you know what I was wrong I really was there's just something about certain people I don't know if it's the legacy from their family or just who they are inside but Tatanka just transmits inspiration and he doesn't really identify as an activist he he considers himself an actor a stand-up comedian and a moment motivational speaker and he says if you ever get caught in a room full of Indians and you really aren't sure if you've said the right thing maybe you asked you know should I call you an Indian should I call you a Native American maybe you asked if you know you were kissing your cousin I heard about that on the reservation you can always just go hey that's an Indian joke for you you can use that on the res this is Winslow nosey he is the former chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe and a great spiritual leader for his people two weeks ago I was visiting him in San Carlos Apache in Arizona he took me to the prisoner of war camp that held the Apache people for many years and that is where I took this photo and when I went there I was you know I I was overwhelmed by the same feeling that I got when I was in Auschwitz and mr. nosey wanted to have his picture taken hearing embrance of the hollow ground formerly known as hell's whole 40 and we had a long conversation about the people about the work he had done the struggles he has encountered to protect sacred sites traditional life ways and serving his people and when I asked him about how we recover from these historical traumas he said we have to remember that in the very beginning there were four blessed gifts to the world and those are the four colors of people if we go back to the ancient ways the people who are white black and yellow they are our relatives that's why an Apache there is really no word for other races except Tookie Tookie meaning that they are a relative of us so you have to go back to the very beginning and that beginning is when we knew about harmony we knew that all that god created on the earth has a spirit and when we all knew that and we were all in sequence together we treated each other like brothers and sisters I've been traveling shooting and collecting stories for over a year now and the experience has changed me I I'm really not the same as I was before and the road has been hard on me I've slept on people's sofas and I've grown tired and I've had to push through my homesickness and my relationship loss fear lack of comfort no juicer and I just came from Louisiana where I photographed the Choctaw Kuna couple oak see and crew shot ax in the bayou like a couple of out I came you know like yesterday by the way of nineteen tribes in the desert in Arizona and tomorrow we're headed to upstate New York to photograph some tribes around here so you know my feet are on the ground I'm the war Pony is moving and I've taken in the stories of those who trusted me with their truth I felt the struggle and I've been lifted up by our human desire to endure and so it is with these stories and images that I'd like to share some medicine with you a new system of knowing a new way of thinking a new way of loving and appreciating and valuing you know and I just felt like this was something I should do you know it's it's in my traditional way I was this one omission Tulalip woman to offer closing prayers one amongst large groups of people so I hope that you'll take that you'll indulge me as I take a moment to do this to the creator grandmothers and grandfathers and the people of this place and those that came before me and walked here we'd like to ask for your special blessing today I'd like to say a prayer for healing for our minds and hearts and for all of you here today I'd like to say a prayer for the two-legged the four-legged the winged beans the sea creatures for the water I'd like to ask you to open up our minds and hearts to take away our fear take away our struggle and give us the courage to find a new way to respect one another a new way to honor one another so for all of you and for all of my relations I offer this humble prayer and I apologize for anything that I that I didn't say or should have said I'm young and I'm still yearning learning and I hope that you'll take pity on me for that and so with that I say teak wheat seed I raise my hands to you thank you all for being here

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 295,537

Keywords: tedx talks, tedx talk, ted talks, United States, tedx, ted, TEDxTalks, ted x, Social Justice, ted talk, English, Art, Culture

Id: GIzYzz3rEZU

Length: 19min 44sec (1184 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 23 2014