Washington State University Vancouver is offering a Native American Film Series April 4–6 in the Dengerink Administration building, room 110. The series is free.
Each evening of the series will begin at 5:30 p.m. with a guest lecture, followed by the film screening at 6 p.m. The films address experiences with Native American boarding schools, to which children were sent regardless of their families’ wishes.
• April 4: “Older Than America.” Speaker: Georgina Lightning, the film’s director and actress.
In this contemporary suspense drama, a woman’s haunting visions reveal a Catholic priest’s sinister plot to silence her mother from speaking the truth about the atrocities that took place at her Native American boarding school.
• April 5: “Our Spirits Don’t Speak English: Indian Boarding School.” Speaker: Jacqueline Peterson, WSU Vancouver professor emerita of history.
This documentary uncovers the dark history of U.S. government policies that took Indian children from their homes, forced them into boarding schools and enacted a policy of educating them in the ways of Western society.
• April 6: “The Only Good Indian.” Speaker: Grace L. Dillon, associate professor of indigenous nations studies at Portland State University.
In early-1900s Kansas, a teenaged Native American boy is taken from his family and forced to attend a distant Indian “training” school to assimilate into white society.
The Native American Film Series is presented by the History Club, the River Cities Anthropology Society, the Latina Student Association and the Native American Club/sponsored by ASWSUV and the Diversity Council.
For more information about the Native American Film Series, please call Steven M. Fountain, visiting assistant professor of history, at 360-546-9738.
WSU Vancouver is located at 14204 N.E. Salmon Creek Ave. Parking is available at parking meters or in the Blue Daily Pay lot for $3.
