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Today we listened to Joe Parker talk to us about Idle No More. Through the lesson, I was happy to learn more about the Idle No More and learn when and how it all started. Also today I felt very honored to listen to Saginaw Grant share his inspiring story with us. His story made me truly believe we can achieve any goal as long as you try you best. An issue that I am passionate about is animal abuse. I would love to put a stop to animal abuse or try my hardest. All lives matter

Today a lot of interesting things happened; talks, structures, and writing. Joe Parker talked about Idle No More. I liked how the indians never gave up and wanted their rights, plus the flash mobs. Saginaw Grant talked to us about him and his acting career. I liked his stories and wise teachings; start every day positive and do not rush through life. An issue I am concerned about is environmental destruction, I hope for deforestation to slow down in the world. I feel we need to embrace nature more because it seems we are not really caring for it and valuing it. Nature is beautiful, why destroy it? Also today was fun looking at different colleges and working on our writing for common application. The pictures were a good exercise for a essay. Also theatre was fun today with the structures. And I caught a lot of pokemon.

Today was interesting and it was a lot to take in. The Joe Parker talk was interesting because we got to hear how the “curtain” didn’t close and the natives are still speaking out against the wrong doings. The talk Saginaw Grant gave was one of the most influential talks I have ever heard because he shared his wisdom on how us native youth should live. He discussed that we should have what makes us comfortable and not to be jealous or want more than what we are already fine with. A change I would like to see is the end of racism, even though it’s a long shot I think humans have what it takes to end hate groups such as the KKK, Neo-Nazis, and black panthers. If we didn’t have labels and stereotypes everyone would learn to love and accept each other regardless of ethnicity and religion.

Our time with Joe Parker taught me that Mexico and Canada have common problems that their governments do things without their permission. My time with Saginaw Grant taught me that traditions NEED to be passed down. Be proud of your culture and of who you are. I believe that the world needs to change how we take care of our oceans. Dumping garbage, nuclear waste, and other wastes is unacceptable. We think in the moment that, “Hey, dumping our wastes in the ocean NOW isn’t going to harm us!” Well unfortunately, that isn’t true. Our fish that we eat are getting mutated and killed by the thousands. Their ecosystems are being thrown off balance due to there not being enough predators, prey, or producers. We may not see the effect to us now, but it’s better to stop it now instead of wait to see what it does to us. I strongly believe that we could change this. Starting with the youth we could stand up to all the plants and corporations polluting our waters.

1. Reflect on the talk today  by Joe Parker on Idle No More
2.  Reflect on the talk by visiting elder Saginaw Grant
3.  What is an issue that you are passionate about and what is the change that you would like to see (in yourself, in your community or in the world)?

Hi everyone – If you were interested in the talk that Tory Mudd gave  yesterday about images of Native Americans in Hollywood movies – you should watch Neil Diamond’s film,”Reel Injun”.  One of the ways we can counter mis-representations of Native Americans in film and the lack of Native representation in films is to seek out films by Indigenous directors and filmmakers. Neil Diamond is Canadian from the Cree  community of Waskaganish.  I am posting a trailer of his film here – enjoy 🙂 (We have a full Copy of the film on dvd)

Hey, Tina again. So today was crazy exciting. I’m actually shocked at how much we did today. It’s unreal. Okay, so this morning we woke up at 6:30 and it was funny because I remember waking by hearing Alysha knocking on the door and Chemoa was still sound asleep so I decided to go back to sleeping…NEXT THING YOU KNOW it’s 6:50 and i knew we had to meet at the clock tower by 6:55. So i wake Chenoa up and we speed walk over. But it was funny because when we got there, we see that not a lot of people were there yet. What a relief. The instructor, Hector taught us so much this morning. We learned self-defense and how to turn other’s energy back at them. To me, it was refreshing and calming, yet energizing and insane. All i can say is that i am so excited for tomorrow morning. Anyways, after the class we made our way to breakfast. Nick and I filled up big time. After our meal, we went to the academical writing with Mrs.Hurley and we discussed our experiences with college applications and our background with those experiences. Something that opened my eyes is we were showed a graph and on it I saw that the White/Asian students fill up the population way more than the Native American/African American/Hispanic for college students. So I’m thinking “Great. I don’t have a chance.” But then it occurs to me that i WILL get into college and i WILL kick butt. So take that! After that, we drove to Pamona College and learned about a worm and how the little organism’s brain is similar to a human’s. Crazy, right? We also did a really cool lab experimenting with them. We then had lunch. After that, we drove to Pamona Museum where we met Rick and Steve, two non-native workers at the museum whose knowledge on native peoples amazed me. Lori showed us how to weave baskets (I decided to give it to my grandma). Later, we did images of Indians with Pamela Peters. It was kind of like film analysis. It really opened my eyes. After dinner, We had theatre and did all of these cool exercises and improv. My second day was amazing! 

SUUHH dudes

Today was a decent day:) we all woke up like around 7 to do martial arts and stuff. I got to learn things that i never new to do, we all so had this circle that we smudged ourselves it was really nice. We all went to Pomona Museum after to do baskets, and i really liked mine basket and everyone’s.

Visit with Elder Lori Sisquoc:

One of my thoughts on the archive of artifacts was learning about a different representation of story telling. On the surface of the artifacts it may seem that the pictures and patterns that were put on there to make the artifacts look nice and beautiful. But the drawings are actually telling a story and have memories and moments captured and are kept sacred by ancestors. I learned that our ancestors left many presentations of their legacy and the artifacts I witnessed today were one of them.

I had had a wonderful time learning how to create traditional indigenous baskets and painting on cloth with paint that were made different trees and plants. I also had a lot of fun in theater that had different activities that brought the whole group together and form unity. Overall I had a great first day.

Hi again,

Today was an okay day for me. I felt really sick for the most part so that kind of sucked. I thought that the martial arts was really cool to watch but I couldn’t fully participate because of how sick I felt. I liked the basket making that we did because I really like working with my hands in a relaxed setting so that was my favorite part of the day.

I also really enjoyed the work with the worms and the video that came with it because I didn’t know that the c. elegans shared similar chemicals and nervous system as us humans, and I thought it was really interesting that we can learn so much from something that so many people don’t even know about.

When we visited the museum I was saying it was sad that we had to look at ourselves through a glass case and how it was scary because we are going extinct. The guy that was having everyone talk said that it was a misconception but I don’t think he really understood what I was saying. We as native people are losing out bloodlines because of reproduction with other races. Not that it’s bad or anything; it’s just something that’s happening. And another thing that I meant by going extinct is that we have native in our blood, but we don’t have it in out minds or our hearts… our culture isn’t sticking with people and continuing onto future generations and I feel scared because I don’t want us to die out and forget who we are.

The last video that Pamela Peters shared, which was her new poetry video, actually made me feel pretty emotional because I was thinking about how much we used to have and how much has changed since settlers came. I was thinking about all the hardships and all the pain that our ancestors have gone through and the video also made me very happy because I was seeing empowered women that are willing to embrace who they are. And I enjoyed our theater class with Rose more today than I did yesterday because I felt more comfortable and excited so that was another good part of my day. And yeah, bye again. 🙂