Russell Means has forged dual identities as an actor and an activist. Both will be celebrated this weekend at the sixth American Indian Stories N’ Motion Film Festival held at Haskell Indian Nations University.
As the Lawrence (Kan.) Journal World reports here (click on the link for a Q&A with Means):
Actor and American Indian Movement activist Russell Means leading a protest at the 2007 Columbus Day parade in Denver. (AP photo)
The 70-year-old first came to the public’s attention in the 1970s as a leader of the American Indian Movement, taking part in many of the decade’s most prominent national protests: at Alacatraz, Mount Rushmore, the Mayflower and the 71-day armed occupation at Wounded Knee.
To modern audiences he’s more familiar for his acting career. Roles include playing Chief Chingachgook in “The Last of the Mohicans,” the Medicine Man in “Natural Born Killers” and the voice of Chief Powhatan in Disney’s “Pocahontas.” Most recently, he appeared in the adventure “Pathfinder” and as Wandering Bear in an acclaimed episode of TV’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
“I’ve made a difference in everything I’ve participated in,” Means says.
Means will present and discuss his indie movie, “Rez Bomb,” which is set on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
The journey is as improbable as the title of this documentary – a swim across San Francisco Bay from Alcatraz Island, home of the infamous prison.
It’s made on behalf of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation by a Bay Area pediatrician who worked for a time on the reservation, and was moved to do something about conditions she saw there.
“Pine Ridge has the lowest life expectancy in the Western Hemisphere except for Haiti,” Dr. Nancy Iverson tell station KCBS, here.
Now Iverson takes people from Pine Ridge and brings them to the Bay area, where they train for the 1.2-mile swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco. The idea is to learn about healthy living, and also self-empowerment.
She’s run the nonprofit Pathstar program for seven years now and has made the documentary, “From the Badlands to Alcatraz” as a result.
Iverson says it takes some people nearly two hours to make the swim.
It’s extraordinary what each one of them did!” she says.
Native actors go beyond Westerns to … werewolves?
Well, werewolves, in the case of Taylor Lautner, who stars in “New Moon,” the just-released second movie in the teen hit “Twilight” series. Lautner says he recently discovered Potawatomi and Ottawa roots; what’s more important, according to this opinion piece in the Wichita Eagle-Beacon, is that director Chris Weitz insisted on using actors of Native descent for the “Wolf Pack.” Spencer is Lakota (Sioux), Meraz is Purepecha (Tarasco), Gordon is Hualapai and Pelletier is Cree-Metis. The piece is by Rod Pocowatchit is from the Pawnee, Comanche and Shawnee tribes.
Indians back on Alcatraz Island after 40 years
Four decades after Indian people occupied Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay – in part to call attention to the woeful treatment of the nation’s tribes – they were back. Yesterday, according to this San Francisco Chronicle story, some of the initial occupiers, as well as others, returned with the government’s blessing. Now, says Howard Levitt, chief of education for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, “the occupation is considered to be a milestone in the self-determination and civil rights movements. We honor that.”
“Fried bread, sweat lodges and Nintendo Wii”
That headline in the Sioux City Journal grabbed us. What the heck was it all about? Turns out to be this story about students at the Augustine Indian Mission School on the Winnebago Indian Reservation south of in Sioux City, Iowa. They were talking about how they’d celebrate Thanksgiving.
Tribes see loss of oil, natural gas royaltiess Here’s a worrisome Bloomberg News story that says: “plunging oil and natural gas prices and a drop in revenue from lease sales cut the money sent by the United States to tribes, states and the Treasury Department by more than half in fiscal 2009. “Lower energy prices drove down royalties and sapped industry demand for leases,” it says.
McK'la Gonzalez
Flathead Reservation resident is barrel racing champ
McK’la Gonzalez, a 15-year-old barrel racer from Elmo on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana, took first place in National Barrel Horse Association Montana State Championships, youth category, in Great Falls last month, the Char-Koosta News reports here. Her aunt, Bernadine Tenas, says Gonzalez has been barrel racing since she was seven and has three championships buckles. She now qualifies for the World NBHA championships.
“Forty years ago Friday, dozens of Native Americans – mostly California college students – boated to the largely abandoned island in San Francisco Bay, starting an unarmed occupation that lasted nearly 19 months and captured the attention of media around the world,” says this CNN report.
“We changed the whole course of history, not only for the island, but for the government and its relationship with the Indians,” Adam Fortunate Eagle tells CNN.
The group’s ideas were both lofty – they wanted to call attention to persistent mistreatment of Native people – and practical. They also sought to use the abandoned facilities on Alactraz for, among other things, a replacement for an American Indian center that had burned down.
Among the occupiers was Benjamin Bratt, now a television and film actor. His mother, a Quechua Native from Peru, brought him and his siblings there as children.
“Forty years later, Native people still recognize the occupation for what it was and re-mains: a seminal event in American history that brought the plight of American Indians to the world’s attention,” Bratt and his brother Peter said in a statement.
