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.
