People's Video Network Youth trips
Oklahoma visit teaches youth people Native history
Special to Workers World
Workers World interviewed Sara Catalinotto, one of the
parents who helps organize the People's Video Network Youth
Camp, about the group's activities, including the summer 2004
trip to Oklahoma.
WW: What is the PVN Youth Camp?
SC: The People's Video Network Youth Camp consists of
activist families taking summer vacations--and some smaller
field trips--together since 2001. The youth learn video skills,
and everyone learns some of the struggle history of each place
we visit. We have had participants from eight cities so
far.
Why Oklahoma?
Oklahoma was the ending point of the forced relocation of
Native and other peoples who had been living and often
prospering in the southeastern U.S. in the 1830s. This
relocation is also known as the "Trail of Tears."
The PVN Youth Campers had been studying Native history for
the past year. Plus we had some exposure to Seminole history
around our 2001 trip to the Gullah Islands off Georgia. This
was a way to learn more, and to break media stereotypes about
the West by seeing for ourselves Native institutions, Black
cowboys and cowgirls, and more.
What were the most interesting moments of the
trip?
We met Louis Johnson, a leader in maintaining the Seminole
culture, who led us in a tour of their mus eum in Wewoka. The
links between Native and Black people on both ends of the
"Trail of Tears" were empha sized throughout the tour--and in
fact, three of this year's campers had African and Seminole
ancestors.
We met four generations of a Black family in Muskogee who
run a restaurant but also do their own farming, metal work,
blacksmithing, etc. We interviewed Marcus, a young member of
this family who rides horses and bulls for work and for sport.
On his advice, we went to a Saturday night rodeo in the
historic all-Black town of Tullahassee.
We visited two other museums: the Museum of the Five
Civilized Tribes, which has a lot of information and artwork
submitted by the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cher okee, Seminole and
Creek Nations; and the Green wood Cultural Center in Tulsa. The
Greenwood area was known as "Black Wall Street" until jealous
racists burned it down and murdered many residents in 1921.
And one camper got to see a play about the Trail of Tears,
at the Cherokee Heritage Center in Tahlequah, done by a
predominantly Native cast with a woman director.
In our travels we met and learned of cultural organizations
that have done or will be doing video work to raise the
consciousness of school children, similar to what we do.
What do you think the young people learned from
the trip?
Eighteen-year-old Eliyaas said, "They didn't teach us
anything about Native Americans in high school." He later
concluded, "All of 'American history' is a lie."
Lobi RedHawk, a PVN Youth teacher who is of Choctaw
heritage, noticed that the highway signs had Native names for
every little town and creek. She knew that these names in many
cases must have been tribes or leaders who were destroyed by
colonialism.
On the other hand the local Indian newspapers we read showed
that the struggle continues. Issues of sovereignty and calls
for freedom for political prisoner Leonard Peltier made
headlines. Enterprises to create jobs, all social services
including government-funded programs, and in one case a bank
providing home loans--these are run by the Nations themselves.
There are tribal courts that handle criminal and civil
matters.
What is the PVN Youth Camp doing to follow up on
this trip?
We hope to bring out what we experienced and learned in a
new short video. In New York City we will be having a
multi-media presentation on Nov. 6 at 39 W. 14 St., Room 206,
at 6:30 p.m. Your readers can check the Web site
www.wwpvnyouth.homestead.com or call 212-633-6646, extension
24.
We are asking our campers to come out to National Day of
Mourning in Plymouth, Mass., on Nov. 25, sponsored by United
American Indians of New England. And we're still promoting the
video "Native History for Today's Youth." To order, see PVN
Youth Web site.
What are your plans for future summers?
In 2005, the PVN Youth Camp goal is Egypt. Then, some other
year, we definitely want to go back to Oklahoma.
Reprinted from the Oct. 28, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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