Suggested Readings & Films

Articles • Books • Documentaries • Movies • Podcasts • TV Series

ARTICLES

• Decolonization is not a metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang
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• Dioxin, Incinerators and Breast Milk by Winona LaDuke  
  • From the Winona LaDuke Reader: A Collection of Essential Writings 
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• Indigenous Peoples of North America Environmental Exposures and Reproductive Justice by Elizabeth Hoover et. al 
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• Intersectional Alliances in Soledad Prison: The Exemplary Life of John Brown Childs by Laura Corrdai 
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• The Indian Health Service and the Sterilization of Native American Women by Jane Lawrence
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• The Lost Generation - American Indian Women and Sterilization Abuse by Myla Vicenti Carpio 
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• Reproductive Justice, Sovereignty, and Incarceration by Stephanie Lumsden
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• Sovereignty of the Soul by Sarah Deer 
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• Valentin Lopez, Healing, and Decolonization: Contesting Mission Bells, El Camino Real, and California Governor Newsom
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• We Are a Part of the Land and the Land is Us: Settler Colonialism, Genocide & Healing in California by Dr. Kaitlin Reed 
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• What Standing Rock Teaches Us About Environmental Justice by Jaskiran Dhillon 
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BOOKS 

• An Indigenous People's History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
  • An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is a book written by the historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and published by Beacon Press. It is the third of a series of five ReVisioning books which reconstruct and reinterpret U.S. history from marginalized peoples' perspectives.
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• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer 
  • Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants is a 2013 nonfiction book by American professor Robin Wall Kimmerer and published by Milkweed. The book is about alternative forms of Indigenous knowledge outside of traditional scientific methodologies.
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• In Search of April Raintree by Beatrice Mosionier 
  • Two young sisters are taken from their home and family. Powerless to change their fortunes, they are separated, and each put into different foster homes. Yet over the years, the bond between them grows. As they each make their way in a society that is, at times, indifferent, hostile, and violent, one embraces her Métis identity, while the other tries to leave it behind. In the end, out of tragedy, comes an unexpected legacy of triumph and reclamation.
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• Indeh: A Story of the Apache Wars by Ethan Hawke and Greg Ruth
  • Based on exhaustive research, this graphic novel offers a remarkable glimpse into the raw themes of cultural differences, the horrors of war, the search for peace, and, ultimately, retribution. The Apache left an indelible mark on our perceptions of the American West; Indeh shows us why. Indeh captures the deeply rich narrative of two nations at war — as told through the eyes of Naiches and Geronimo — who then try to find peace and forgiveness. Indeh not only paints a picture of some of the most magnificent characters in the history of our country, but also reveals the spiritual and emotional cost of the Apache Wars.
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• Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future by Melissa K. Nelson
  • Original Instructions evokes the rich indigenous storytelling tradition in this collection of presentations gathered from the annual Bioneers conference. It depicts how the world’s native leaders and scholars are safeguarding the original instructions, reminding us about gratitude, kinship, and a reverence for community and creation. Included are more than 20 contemporary indigenous leaders—such as Chief Oren Lyons, John Mohawk, Winona LaDuke, and John Trudell. These beautiful, wise voices remind us where hope lies.
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• Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance by Nick Estes
  • In 2016, a small protest encampment at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, initially established to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, grew to be the largest Indigenous protest movement in the twenty-first century. Water Protectors knew this battle for native sovereignty had already been fought many times before, and that, even after the encampment was gone, their anticolonial struggle would continue. In Our History Is the Future, Nick Estes traces traditions of Indigenous resistance that led to the #NoDAPL movement. Our History Is the Future is at once a work of history, a manifesto, and an intergenerational story of resistance.
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• Research of Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods by Shawn Wilson
  • Indigenous researchers are knowledge seekers who work to progress Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing in a modern and constantly evolving context. This book describes a research paradigm shared by Indigenous scholars in Canada and Australia, and demonstrates how this paradigm can be put into practice. Relationships don’t just shape Indigenous reality, they are our reality. Indigenous researchers develop relationships with ideas in order to achieve enlightenment in the ceremony that is Indigenous research. Indigenous research is the ceremony of maintaining accountability to these relationships. For researchers to be accountable to all our relations, we must make careful choices in our selection of topics, methods of data collection, forms of analysis and finally in the way we present information.
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• Sea of Grass: A Family Tale from the American Heartland by Walter R. Echo-Hawk 
  • For readers in Native American Studies (including Indigenous Culture, History and contemporary Literature) or those readers simply in search of  a good story well-told, this novel tells the story of ten generations of the Echo-Hawk family. It is a novelized account of the lives and times of real people whose lives were shaped by the land, animals and plants of the Central Plains and by the long sweep of Pawnee history in the grasslands. Their trials and tribulations are a stirring tale of resilience and survival that captures the human spirit in Native North America. The book will inspire Native America to find its own voice and tell its own story; and encourage all readers to research their family roots and tell the powerful story of their ancestors. 
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• Sharing the Skies: Navajo Astronomy, A Cross-Cultural View by Nancy C. Maryboy Ph.D. and David Begay, Ph.D. 
  • Open these pages to explore ancient history, modern science and the skies above. For the first time, traditional Navajo Astronomy is explained as it relates to the Navajo worldview. The discussion of this rich and ancient culture is accompanied by paintings of Navajo constellations and the Navajo Universe, painted by a traditional Navajo artist.
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• The Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley 
  • Debut author Angeline Boulley has crafted an immersive and heart-stopping thriller told through the eyes of 18-year-old Daunis, a biracial, unenrolled member of the Ojibwe tribe. With crystal meth abuse on the rise in her community, Daunis uses her knowledge of science and native medicine to go undercover as a confidential informant with the FBI, but what she uncovers makes her question everything she’s ever known. 
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• The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson 
  • A haunting novel spanning several generations, The Seed Keeper follows a Dakhóta family’s struggle to preserve their way of life, and their sacrifices to protect what matters most.
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• The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen by Beth Dooley and Sean Sherman
  • Sean Sherman, the Oglala Lakota chef and founder of The Sioux Chef, dispels outdated notions of Native American fare; no fry bread, dairy products, or sugar here. The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen features healthful plates that embrace venison, duck, blueberries, sage, amaranth, and abundant wildflowers. This volume is a delectable introduction to the modern indigenous cuisine of the Dakota and Minnesota territories. 
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• There, There by Tommy Orange 
  • There, There is the first novel by Cheyenne and Arapaho author Tommy Orange. Published in 2018, the book follows a large cast of Native Americans living in the Oakland, California area and contains several essays on Native American history and identity.
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• We Are Dancing for You: Native Feminisms and the Revitalization of Women’s Coming-of-Age Ceremonies by Cutcha Risling Baldy 
  • “I am here. You will never be alone. We are dancing for you.” So begins Cutcha Risling Baldy’s deeply personal account of the revitalization of the women’s coming-of-age ceremony for the Hoopa Valley Tribe. At the end of the twentieth century, the tribe’s Flower Dance had not been fully practiced for decades. The women of the tribe, recognizing the critical importance of the tradition, undertook its revitalization using the memories of elders and medicine women and details found in museum archives, anthropological records, and oral histories.
  • Deeply rooted in Indigenous knowledge, Risling Baldy brings us the voices of people transformed by cultural revitalization, including the accounts of young women who have participated in the Flower Dance. Using a framework of Native feminisms, she locates this revival within a broad context of decolonizing praxis and considers how this renaissance of women’s coming-of-age ceremonies confounds ethnographic depictions of Native women; challenges anthropological theories about menstruation, gender, and coming-of-age; and addresses gender inequality and gender violence within Native communities.
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DOCUMENTARIES 

• HONOR THY MOTHER (2021)
  
  • HONOR THY MOTHER tells the untold story of the Indipino community in Bainbridge Island. Descended from Aboriginal mothers and Filipino fathers, the Indipinos reflect on their lives growing up mixed race with no sense of belonging in either culture. Their stories reveal the effect historical trauma had on their childhood as the children of mothers who attended Canadian Indian residential schools.
  • The film as awarded the Audience Choice Award Short Documentary, at the 2022 Port Townsend Women & Film Festival, the Special Jury Award for Indigenous Short at the 2021 Bend Film Festival and the Indigenous Futures Award at the 2021 Social Justice Film Festival. They also received powerful reviews in B.C. Studies and in the NAIS Journal.
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• Dawnland (2018)
  • In Maine, a historic investigation—the first government-sanctioned truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) in the United States—begins a bold journey. For over two years, Native and non-Native commissioners travel across Maine. They gather testimony and bear witness to the devastating impact of the state’s child welfare practices on families in Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribal communities. Collectively, these tribes make up the Wabanaki people.
  • The feature-length documentary DAWNLAND follows the TRC to contemporary Wabanaki communities to witness intimate, sacred moments of truth-telling and healing. With exclusive access to this groundbreaking process and never-before-seen footage, the film reveals the untold narrative of Indigenous child removal in the United States.
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• LaDonna Harris: Indian 101 (2014)
  • LADONNA HARRIS: INDIAN 101 from Comanche filmmaker Julianna Brannum, chronicles the life of Comanche activist and national civil rights leader LaDonna Harris and the role that she has played in Native and mainstream America history since the 1960s. In this new verite style documentary, Brannum, the great niece of Harris, celebrates her life and the personal struggles that led her to become a voice for Native people and her contemporary work to strengthen and rebuild indigenous communities and train emerging Native leaders around the world.
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• LN3: The Seven Teachings of the Anishinaabe Resistance (2019)
  • A 38-MINUTE FRONTLINE DOCUMENTARY ON THE EFFORT TO STOP FOSSIL FUEL EXPANSION AND ENCOURAGE REAL ENERGY SECURITY.
  • Predatory industry hijacked the US regulatory system in 2019, placing ancient food systems and a fifth of the world’s freshwater in imminent danger. LN3 features indigenous firebrands Winona Laduke, Tara Houska, and poet-hip hop artist ThomasX, as they lead an alliance to take on Big Oil and their enablers at the institutional level, and on the frontlines. This is the battle for Earth.
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• Miss Navajo (2007)
  • Conceived as a “celebration of womanhood” by filmmaker Billy Luther—whose mother, Sarah Johnson Luther, was Miss Navajo Nation 1966–67—MISS NAVAJO offers a different take on what it means to be beautiful, exploring tradition in Diné, or Navajo, culture through one woman’s quest for the Miss Navajo Nation crown.
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• Once Were Brothers (2020)
  • A confessional, cautionary, and occasionally humorous tale of Robbie Robertson's young life and the creation of one of the most enduring groups in the history of popular music.
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• Reel Injun (2009)
  • Reel Injun is a 2009 Canadian documentary film directed by Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond, Catherine Bainbridge, and Jeremiah Hayes that explores the portrayal of Native Americans in film. 
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• Rising Voices: Hótȟaŋiŋpi - Revitalizing the Lakota Language
  • Florentine Films/Hott Productions, in association with The Language Conservancy, presents a new documentary project: Rising Voices/Hótȟaŋiŋpi. Five years in the making, this multi-platform project tells the story of a powerful threat to a Native culture. This threat is an insidious, impersonal villain – one that comes through TV sets and social media sites, through Tweets and comic strips and the daily news. The menace is the English language, and the victim seemingly marked for extinction is the Lakota language itself – the language of the Lakota nation, once usually called the Sioux. For the Lakota people, it’s a local problem, but it’s just one instance of a massive global one – a worldwide epidemic of language extinction.
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• Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World (2017) 
  • Filmmaker Catherine Bainbridge examines the role of Native Americans in contemporary music history. She exposes a critical missing chapter, revealing how indigenous musicians helped influence popular culture.
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• The Walker Water (2019)
  • This documentary follows teenaged Anishinaabe water activist Autumn Peltier as she travels to the UN to preserve the future of Indigenous communities.
  • At 15 years old, Autumn Peltier has become a powerful advocate for clean drinking water in Indigenous communities around the world. The Water Walker documents Peltier’s powerful journey from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory to New York City as she prepares to speak in front of the United Nations with the hope of preserving the future of Indigenous communities for generations to come.
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• This May Be The Last Time (2014)
  • Filmmaker Sterlin Harjo's grandfather disappeared mysteriously in 1962 and the community searching for him sang songs of encouragement. Harjo explores the origins of these songs.
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• Trudell (2005) 
  • Filmmaker Heather Rae documents the life and work of American Indian activist John Trudell. In the late 60's, John and a community group occupied Alcatraz Island for 21 months, bringing international recognition to the American Indian cause. In 1979 John burned a U.S. flag on the steps of the FBI headquarters in Washington DC and within hours his family perished in a suspicious fire. He spent several years wandering the country until he found a new way to present his ideas through music.
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• Warrior Women  
  • In the 1970s, with the swagger of unapologetic Indianness, organizers of the American Indian Movement (AIM) fought for Native liberation and survival as a community of extended families. Warrior Women is the story of Madonna Thunder Hawk, one such AIM leader who shaped a kindred group of activists' children - including her daughter Marcy - into the "We Will Remember" Survival School as a Native alternative to government-run education. Through a circular Indigenous style of storytelling, this film explores what it means to navigate a movement and motherhood and how activist legacies are passed down and transformed from generation to generation in the context of colonizing government that meets Native resistance with violence.
  • Read more about The Warrior Women Project. 
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•  We Shall Remain  
  • We Shall Remain is a five-part, 7.5-hour documentary series about the history of Native Americans in the United States, from the 17th century into the 20th century. 
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MOVIES 

• One Word Sawalmem (2020)

  • In his uplifting and internationally-acclaimed short film One Word Sawalmem, Michael “Pom” Preston of the Winnemem Wintu tribe of Mt. Shasta, California gives us a rare look into the life of local Native wisdom keepers – people who hold humanity’s most intimate knowledge about how to live in balance with the Earth and how to thrive with the natural world. The film invites us  to consider how the healing of the planet could be facilitated by shifting our relationship with the Earth – from the current mainstream economic one based in exploitation and domination, to the type of relationship that human beings have held dear for tens of thousands of years - a sacred one that is based in respect and reciprocity.

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• Smoke Signals (1998)
  • Arnold (Gary Farmer) rescued Thomas (Evan Adams) from a fire when he was a child. Thomas thinks of Arnold as a hero, while Arnold's son Victor (Adam Beach) resents his father's alcoholism, violence and abandonment of his family. Uneasy rivals and friends, Thomas and Victor spend their days killing time on a Coeur d'Alene reservation in Idaho and arguing about their cultural identities. When Arnold dies, the duo set out on a cross-country journey to Phoenix to retrieve Arnold's ashes.
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•  Turquoise Rose (2007) 
  • Raised in the suburbs of Phoenix, a Navajo college student must choose between a vacation in Rome or moving to the reservation to care for her ailing grandmother.
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• Powwow Highway (1989) 
  • Two Cheyenne friends with very different outlooks on life set off on a road trip. Philbert Bono (Gary Farmer) is a spiritual seeker trying to find the answers to life's questions; his pal, Buddy Red Bow (A Martinez), is a realist who sees the world in black-and-white terms. When Buddy's sister is jailed in Santa Fe, N.M., the mismatched duo hit the highway in Philbert's dilapidated 1964 Buick and experience wild twists and turns on their journey of self-discovery.
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• Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015)
  • Johnny and his sister Jashuan live with their single mother on a reservation. When their absentee father dies, Johnny feels compelled to strike out for a new life in LA, but fears leaving his sister behind.
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•  The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019)
  • After a chance encounter on a busy street, a woman decides to bring a pregnant domestic abuse victim home and encourages her to seek help to navigate the aftermath of the traumatic event.
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• Monkey Beach (2020)
  • A young woman with supernatural abilities reflects on profound events in her life as she awaits news of her brother, who has gone missing at sea under questionable circumstances.
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• Little Chief (2019)
  • The lives of a Native woman and a troubled young boy intersect over the course of a school day on a reservation in Oklahoma.
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PODCASTS

• An interview with Chairman Valentin Lopez of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band - Sheltered Spring by UC Santa Cruz Campus Natural Reserve
• The Pandemicine Project - Episode 1: Kim TallBear and Jessica Kolopenuk on Indigenous Led Techno-Scientific Innovation
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• Stolen: The Search for Jermain 
  • In 2018, a young Indigenous mother named Jermain Charlo left a bar in Missoula, Montana, and was never seen again. After two years and thousands of hours of investigative work, police believe they are close to solving the mystery of what happened to her. We go inside the investigation, tracking down leads and joining search parties through the dense mountains of the Flathead Reservation. As we unravel this mystery, the show examines what it means to be an Indigenous woman in America.
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• Red Lips & Eye Rolls Podcast, Episode 56: TAKE THE BURDEN OFF OF US with Corinne Rice-Grey Cloud 
  • In this episode host Katara McCarty chats with Corinne Rice-Grey Cloud about her life and her passion to educate people on Indigenous culture and the importance of dismantling systems of oppression. 
  • Corinne Rice-Grey Cloud is Mohawk and Lakota, and lives on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in Mission SD. She is a journalist with Powwows.com, the Executive Director of the Buffalo Project, and was previously the Program Coordinator for the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition under their Federal Sex Trafficking grant. She currently provides education nationwide on culture and Land Back movements and has spoken at Google, Facebook, Walmart and Universities across the nation. She is a voice in the community working to raise awareness on Human Trafficking in Indian Country, and has spoken on Human Trafficking panels regarding MMIW. She’s 34 years old and she and her fiancé Greg Grey Cloud live on a small ranch with their two kids Hunter and Emma. 
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TV SERIES 

• Basketball or Nothing (2019)
  • Follow the Chinle High basketball team in Arizona's Navajo Nation on a quest to win a state championship and bring pride to their isolated community.
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• Chambers (2019) 
  • After having a heart attack, a teenager gets a heart transplant to survive. She subsequently becomes consumed by the mystery surrounding her life-saving heart. As she gets closer to uncovering the truth about her donor's sudden death, she begins to take on the characteristics of the deceased donor, including some that are troublingly sinister. Creator Leah Rachel describes the series -- which stars Oscar nominee Uma Thurman -- as "a psychological horror story that explores the different ways we metabolize trauma."
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• Rutherford Falls (2021) 
  • Two lifelong best friends, Nathan Rutherford and Reagan Wells, find themselves at a crossroads -- quite literally -- when their sleepy town gets an unexpected wake-up call.
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• Reservation Dogs (2021)
  • From Co-Creators and Executive Producers Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi, Reservation Dogs is a half-hour comedy that follows the exploits of four Indigenous teenagers in rural Oklahoma who steal, rob and save in order to get to the exotic, mysterious and faraway land of California.
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• Trickster (2020) 
  • Jared, an indigenous teen struggling to keep his family afloat, meets a mysterious stranger, who turns his whole world upside down.
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• Your Name Isn’t English (2018) 
  • Tazbah, a young professional and Native American woman, educates her rideshare drivers on the importance of representation, stereotypes, and colonialism. It's a lesson they won't soon forget.
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