Whenever I reflect on Charlie Hill’s legacy, I remember the 2013 AIHEC student conference held in Green Bay. The famed comedian and Oneida Nation of Wisconsin tribal member took the stage for a hilarious show that would be one of his final performances. While Hill delivered a memorable set that night, setting the stage for the 1491s to do the same the following year, the story I like to share takes place in the hallway of the conference center. I had known Hill for years when we stopped to chat that day, having had the pleasure of him visiting my classrooms and theater productions at College of Menominee Nation (CMN). He was humble about his talent and gracious with his time, always excited to talk with me about his pre-fame days performing with the Native American Theatre Ensemble.
A month before COVID ran rampant in the United States, fans of Native film had reason to celebrate. What now seems like years ago, Maori filmmaker Taika Waitiki took the stage on February 9
th, 2020, at the Academy Awards ceremony to accept the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. Set in Nazi Germany in the waning days of WWII, the winning film,
Jojo Rabbit, was justly lauded for conveying a cathartic message of hope and humor during a time of unspeakable horror. Yet it’s the message Waitiki spoke from that elite podium that resonates loudest. The first Indigenous person to be nominated and to win the award, Waitiki stated before an international audience of television viewers, “I dedicate this to all the Indigenous kids that live in the world who want to dance and write stories. We are the original storytellers and we can make it here as well.” Native filmmakers are telling stories that run the gamut of emotions, employing both new technology and ancient wisdom to create cine
A month before COVID ran rampant in the United States, fans of Native film had reason to celebrate. What now seems like years ago, Maori filmmaker Taika Waitiki took the stage on February 9
th, 2020, at the Academy Awards ceremony to accept the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. Set in Nazi Germany in the waning days of WWII, the winning film,
Jojo Rabbit, was justly lauded for conveying a cathartic message of hope and humor during a time of unspeakable horror. Yet it’s the message Waitiki spoke from that elite podium that resonates loudest. The first Indigenous person to be nominated and to win the award, Waitiki stated before an international audience of television viewers, “I dedicate this to all the Indigenous kids that live in the world who want to dance and write stories. We are the original storytellers and we can make it here as well.” Native filmmakers are telling stories that run the gamut of emotions, employing both new technology and ancient wisdom to create cine
Last year was unlike any other in recent memory, as our communities were devastated by the deadliest pandemic in a century. For most people, 2021 could not have come soon enough. Besides contending with the pandemic, 2020 also brought a slew of changes to
Tribal College Journal. We bade farewell to our longest serving employee and good friend, publisher Rachael Marchbanks, and moved out of our old office in Mancos where TCJ had been rooted for over 20 years. Through it all, we somehow managed to maintain our regular publishing schedule, hold one of our most competitive creative writing, art, and film contests to date, forge ahead with our online auction, and even expand our editorial offerings.
How will we remember 2020? It was a year unlike any other in our lifetime one where the burdens and the blessings seemed to resonate more than we expected. While I don’t have the words to comfort all of the hardships we each faced, I know the value of escaping into a book. This year was a watershed year for Native publishing, with more wonderful texts coming to market than I can list in this column. Yet, what follows are the books I feel fortunate to have discovered, and ones I am certain you will come to treasure.
When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through is the most important book published this decade. Edited by Joy Harjo (Muscogee), LeAnne Howe (Choctaw), Jennifer Elise Foerster (Muscogee), and others, this enthralling anthology collects 161 Native poets who speak to the resilience of Indigenous voices through the generations. It’s divided into geographic regions, with poets listed chronologically according to their birth. The stanzas run the gamut of e