Celebrate Native American Heritage Month with stories from native communities this November on PBS and WORLD Channel. PBS, in partnership with Vision Maker Media, WORLD Channel and POV/American Documentary, is celebrating Native American Heritage Month online using the hashtag #NativeInspired. Join the conversation on Twitter and add your voice. Here are some more ideas for how you can celebrate Native American heritage with us:
Watch: These films are streaming online throughout Native American Heritage Month.
Kivalina (broadcast Nov. 1): A rare and cinematic portrait of life lived on a disappearing Arctic island from the perspective one of the Inupiaq people.
Yellow Fever (broadcast Nov. 29): Get inspired by young Navajo veteran, Tina Garnanez on her journey to investigate the history of the Navajo Uranium Boom, its lasting impacts in her area and the potential new mining in her region.
Screen: These films are available for free from the POV Lending Library for community or classroom screenings. Register your screening with us to borrow these (and many more) films for free. Visit our Educators Page for access to standards-aligned lesson plans and streaming clips for use in the classroom. POV films span a range in topics from cultural preservation and tribal sovereignty to cultural taboos and exploring identity. Here are some recommended titles:
In the Light of Reverence is a beautifully rendered account of the struggles of the Lakota in the Black Hills, the Hopi in Arizona and the Wintu in California to protect their sacred site.
Standing Silent Nation, a film that explores what happens when federal agents raid a family’s industrial hemp farm, sweeping the Lakota Nation into a Byzantine struggle over tribal sovereignty, economic rights and common sense.
Sun Kissed, in which a Navajo couple uncovers a hidden link between their children’s rare genetic disorder and the American government’s conquest of their tribe, forever changing their lives.
Up Heartbreak Hill, a sweeping story following two Native teens over the course of two years as they are torn between the lure of opportunities outside their remote reservation community and the cultural ties that bind them to home.
Engage: These films are broadcasting during Native American Heritage Month on WORLD Channel.
By Blood (broadcast Nov. 15): the story of American Indians of African descent, or Freedmen, as they battle their own tribes and the federal government to regain their tribal citizenship.
Children Of The Arctic (broadcast Nov. 22): A coming-of-age story of five Native Alaskan teenagers growing up in Barrow – the northernmost community in the United States. They are the twenty-first century descendants of a culture that has endured for millennia on this isolated, but rapidly changing tundra.
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