SUNDAY NOVEMBER 21
FOCUS ON INDIGENOUS VOICES
OUR VOICES, OUR STORIES
OUR VOICES, OUR STORIES 39 minutes directed by Barb Cranmer
In this film, the Namgis First Nations people share, in their own voices, their stories of personal trauma and the first hand accounts of the Indian Residential School in Alert Bay, BC. At the school, students were prohibited from speaking their language, were kept away from their families for years, and underwent physical and sexual abuse.
In February 2015, church leaders, First Nations, politicians and former students attended a healing/cleansing ceremony hosted by the ‘Namgis First Nation to mark the demolition of the closed school’s building.
Judy Hoffman, Dr. Dorene Weise and Sandy Grande
JUDY HOFFMAN has worked in film and video for over 35 years. She was active in the Alternative Television Movement of the early 1970’s, experimenting in the use of small format video equipment. Hoffman played a major role in the formation of Kartemquin Films, working on many of their film productions and was the Associate Producer on Golub, which debuted at the New York Film Festival. She is still an active member of Kartemquin.
A major focus of her work has been with the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation of British Columbia, producing films and videotapes about the reclaiming of Native culture. She was the Associate Producer on the award-winning Box of Treasures, a film tracing their efforts to repatriate cultural artifacts. For over ten years Hoffman directed a video training program on the N’amgis Reserve so that the Kwakwaka’wakw could make their own tapes, and she continues to work with them on their projects.
DORENE WIESE is an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. She is the founding President of the American Indian Association of Illinois and the current President of Native American Educational Service, Inc. In 1972, Wiese founded the first American Indian Adult Learning Center in Chicago to teach American Indian people, literacy, the GED, American Indian issues, and Native life skills. Her University of Chicago, MA thesis describes this program development and her NIU dissertation research focused on American Indian traditional ways of teaching and learning through elders.
SANDY GRANDE is a Professor of Political Science and Native American and Indigenous Studies at the University of Connecticut with affiliations in American Studies, Philosophy, and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Across her work, she aims to produce more nuanced analyses of the colonial present. She was recently awarded the Ford Foundation, Senior Fellowship (2019-2020) for a project on Indigenous Elders and aging. Her book, Red Pedagogy: Native American Social and Political Thought was published in a 10th anniversary edition and a Portuguese translation is anticipated to be published in Brazil in 2021. In addition to publishing numerous articles and book chapters, she is a founding member of New York Stands for Standing Rock. As one of their projects, they published the Standing Rock Syllabus. In addition to her academic and organizing work, she has provided eldercare for her parents for over ten years and remains the primary caregiver for her 93-yr. old father.