An Indigenous household, life-altering tragedy, and the neighborhood that helped them reconnect with their Lakota heritage.
On this movie we meet the Hole Horn household from Albuquerque, New Mexico – grandmother Sally, her daughter Alice, and her grandson Andrew – initially of Andrew’s senior 12 months of highschool within the autumn of 2019.
Andrew, quickly to be the primary male within the household to complete highschool, excitedly explores school choices and anticipates senior 12 months milestones like his final basketball season and Feast Day, an annual competition the place he and the opposite seniors can be honoured for his or her achievements.
However the household’s journey to this pleased inflection level has been lengthy and fraught with issue.
Andrew was an elementary scholar when his grandfather, patriarch of the Hole Horn family, drank himself to dying, leaving Andrew’s single mom and widowed grandmother to lift him.
Estranged from their Indigenous roots by a historical past of aggressive Christian proselytising and crammed with grief, the Hole Horns turned to an upstart constitution faculty with a radical schooling mannequin.
The Native American Neighborhood Academy (NACA) operates on the positioning of the previous Albuquerque Indian College which was a part of a nationwide system designed to “assimilate” Indigenous kids and eradicate their cultures. Right now, the varsity serves college students from greater than 60 tribes with an emphasis on language, tradition, wellness, neighborhood and tutorial rigour.
At NACA, the Hole Horns discovered greater than a supportive setting for Andrew – they discovered an prolonged household of tribal affiliations from throughout the nation. There, Andrew’s confidence and sense of identification blossomed.
In his Indigenous male instructors, he found the position fashions he lacked as a toddler. And a fateful school-sponsored journey to South Dakota gave him perception into his tribal historical past that profoundly affected his complete household, serving to them discover closure and a way of peace of their loss.
Credit:
A movie by: Scott Faris & Meg Griffiths
Producer: Alaa Alhussan
Credit score to Sinte Gleska College for the archive footage and a particular because of the Hole Horn household.