How did you cope with making a movie with so much history and meaning behind it?
What kind of content might be addressed in films you will be making in the future?
And thank you for putting the subject of Boarding Schools out there! It was portrayed in the best way so that people who may not understand the concept previously could.
– Elka
1. Was there a lot of pressure when making this movie?
2. What inspired you to start making movies?
3. Have you ever had any bad experiences for being native american?
— Fabian
Today was pretty good! Last night we were playing around in Native Narnia and having a blast. Later in the day we had 2 classes. One was meeting some students from San Manuel (sorry if I spell it wrong 😦 ) and we played a game together and had a sort of writing exercise. our next class we had a guest speaker, his name was Deron Marquez, and he talked a lot about sovereignty……i was really confused, but i learned a lot at the same time :D. and now i am blogging haha.
Oh, and since the actress/director, Georgina Lighting, wasn’t able to come but is able to view our blog, i have some questions for her!
First, How did you get into the acting career ?
Second, Did you always wanted to be an actress/director?
And Third, Do you have any pets?
– Christa
when i saw this movie it reminded me about my papa (great grandfather) because i remember him telling me he was forced to go to Sherman in his teen years, and it was a struggle to stay alive. he doesn’t really like to talk about it but when he does he only talks about how he was treated. he would tell me that he was spit on, slapped, and was always called names. but he said no matter how hard they tried they never broke him and he never gave in. the biggest struggle that him and his family had was food. (this is my favorite story) when him and his brother were kids they would go into the watermelon patch and lay flat as they can and eat watermelons. but the people who grew the watermelons had shotguns and would shoot any one who would trespass. so once they here the gun click they would shove watermelons down their shirts and run smiling till the people stopped tracing them. the same with cows, at night they would go into a farm and just take a cow and have it for dinner the next night. and to think he risked his life just to eat. my papa is still alive he is about 79yrs old and i hope to get more stories from him because even if they bring bad memories he would still laugh and say “damn i was crazy, i don’t know how I’m still alive” and it would make me laugh because hearing the stories he was crazy. there’s this one story where him and his brother tried to fly a cardboard box airplane off a 2story house with them sitting in it. my papa is a very interesting man and is the best story teller.
-skyla
One of these experiences here at Pitzer College is the movie that we saw yesterday was called “Older than America” that was a pretty intense film! Made by a young Native American named Georgina Lightning. The film touched me…. and… the boarding school they built for the Native Americans…. was horrific! I cried! It made me sad of what these Europeans did to our family members, I mean it was just… in the 1970s and that, to me, was not too long ago. I am proud to be Native Hawaiian and Native American. And I am happy to be here. This is amazing for me. I’mma sure that you’ll enjoy and experience here at Pitzer College and learn ’bout the Native American culture and experience the culture! Learn more ’bout yourself! Learn more ’bout your ancestors and what they did and have been through. Be proud of you and your culture. Be who you really are. 🙂
For more information about the movie visit the website. 😀
-Jana Lyn Chang
nativeyouth2college.org 