Native Narratives: The Representation of Native Americans in Public Broadcasting

¹ This exhibit covers public radio and television programs about Native Americans that currently are part of the AAPB collection. There have been many additional public media programs relevant to Native Americans that are not yet included in the AAPB collection and thus, not discussed in this exhibit. For an annotated list of documentaries in Library of Congress collections on Native Americans, see https://www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/findaid/indian2.html. For an annotated list of silent films in Library of Congress collections with substantial Native American content, see https://www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/findaid/indian1.html. For information on the 2018 PBS four-part series Native America, see https://www.pbs.org/native-america/home/.

² Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian, Native Knowledge 360°, Frequently Asked Questions, https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/faq/did-you-know#topq7.

³ Michael Hilger, From Savage to Nobleman: Images of Native Americans in Film (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1995), 3.

⁴ IAIA Institute of American Indian Arts Library, “Welcome to the Seeing Red Audio Archive!” https://iaia.libguides.com/iaia_archives/seeingred. The LibGuide includes links to more than 50 recordings from the Seeing Red series.

⁵ Ken Belson and Kevin Draper, “Washington N.F.L. Team to Drop Name,” New York Times, July 13, 2020, updated Sept. 10, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/sports/football/washington-redskins-new-name.html.

⁶ Barack Obama, Remarks on Presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom, November 24, 2014, in Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/308638.

⁷ Stephanie Greco Larson, Media & Minorities: The Politics of Race in News and Entertainment (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), 48; Hilger, From Savage to Nobleman, 2.

⁸ Carole Gerster, "Native Resistance to Hollywood’s Persistence of Vision: Teaching Films about Contemporary American Indians," in Native Americans on Film: Conversations, Teaching, and Theory, ed. M. Elise Marubbio and Eric L. Buffalohead (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2013), 146.

⁹ Ruth M. Underhill, An Anthropologist’s Arrival: A Memoir, ed. Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Stephen E. Nash (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2014), 206.

¹⁰ Redman's America; 1; “How They Came,” American Archive of Public Broadcasting program summary, derived from National Educational Television records, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-52-36h18dhz.

¹¹ Wacipi-Powwow, 1995, 95093 DCT, 1995 Peabody Awards entry form, George Foster Peabody Awards records, ms 3000, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Peabody Awards Collection Archives, http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/peabody/id:1995_95093_dct_1.

¹² Our Stories, [1998-05-12], Healing Woods (Indian Township, Maine), 98087 DCT, 1998 Peabody Awards entry form, George Foster Peabody Awards records, ms 3000, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Peabody Awards Collection Archives, http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/peabody/id:1998_98087_dct_1.

¹³ Daisy V. Domínguez, "Building a Library Collection: Fifty Years of Native American Athletes, Sports, and Games on Film," in The Native American Identity in Sports: Creating and Preserving a Culture, ed. Frank A. Salamone (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2013), 19-20.

¹⁴ Jim Bickal and Sara Porter, “The Fight for Native Fishing Rights in Minn., Wis.,” MPR News, July 11, 2017, https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/07/11/history-fight-for-native-fishing-rights.

¹⁵ S. Doc. No. 794, at 48 (1953).

¹⁶ Margret McCue-Enser, “Ada Deer and the Menominee Restoration: Rethinking Native American Protest Rhetoric” Argumentation and Advocacy 53, no. 1 (February 2017), 59, doi:10.1080/00028533.2016.1272899.

¹⁷ Roberta Ulrich, American Indian Nations from Termination to Restoration, 1953-2006 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010), 45, 18.

¹⁸ Ulrich, American Indian Nations, 53, 60.

¹⁹ Ulrich, American Indian Nations, 52, 60.

²⁰ Ulrich, American Indian Nations, 22-23.

²¹ Ulrich, American Indian Nations, 21-45.

²² Mary Ann Weston, Native Americans in the News: Images of Indians in the Twentieth Century Press (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996), 112-14.

²³ Laura M. Furlan, Indigenous Cities: Urban Indian Fiction and the Histories of Relocation (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017), 14-16.

²⁴ Donald Fixico, “From Tribal to Indian: American Indian Identity in the Twentieth Century,” in Native Diasporas: Indigenous Identities and Settler Colonialism in the Americas, ed. Gregory D. Smithers and Brooke N. Newman (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014), 483.

²⁵ Ulrich, American Indian Nations, 19.

²⁶ Ulrich, American Indian Nations, 148.

²⁷ Ulrich, American Indian Nations, 144-45.

²⁸ Ulrich, American Indian Nations, 147.

²⁹ Ulrich, American Indian Nations, 147.

³⁰ McCue-Enser, “Ada Deer,” 59.

³¹ Käri Knutson, “Ada Deer: A Lifetime of Firsts,” University of Wisconsin-Madison News, December 18, 2018, https://news.wisc.edu/ada-deer-a-lifetime-of-firsts/.

³² Monika Bilka, “Klamath Tribal Persistence, State Resistance: Treaty Rights Activism, the Threat of Tribal Sovereignty, and Collaborative Natural Resource Management in the Pacific Northwest, 1954-1981,” Western Historical Quarterly 48, no. 3 (Autumn 2017), 266, DOI: 10.1093/whq/whx037.

³³ Ulrich, American Indian Nations, 70.

³⁴ Bruce E. Johansen, Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement (Santa Barbara: Greenwood, 2013), 23-28.

³⁵ Michael C. Keith, Signals in the Air: Native Broadcasting in America (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995), 18.

³⁶ Larson, Media & Minorities, 180.

³⁷ Johansen, Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement, 21.

³⁸ Weston, Native Americans in the News, 139; Larson, Media & Minorities, 180.

³⁹ Weston, Native Americans in the News, 140.

⁴⁰ Johansen, Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement, 21.

⁴¹ Larson, Media & Minorities, 180; Keith, Signals in the Air, 19; Donald R. Browne, Electronic Media and Indigenous Peoples: A Voice of Our Own? 1st ed. (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1996), 24.

⁴² Johansen, Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement, 256.

⁴³ Steve Talbot, “Free Alcatraz: The Culture of Native American Liberation,” Journal of Ethnic Studies 6, no. 3 (1978), 90, quoted in Larson, Media & Minorities, 180.

⁴⁴ Johansen, Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement, 26-27.

⁴⁵ Johansen, Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement, 65.

⁴⁶ Johansen, Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement, 118.

⁴⁷ Johansen, Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement, 234-38.

⁴⁸ Johansen, Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement, 28-29.

⁴⁹ Johansen, Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement, 104, 189.

⁵⁰ Johansen, Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement, 30, 32.

⁵¹ Tim Baylor, “Media Framing of Movement Protest: The Case of American Indian Protest,” Social Science Journal 33, no. 3 (July 1996). 241-55.

⁵² Weston, Native Americans in the News, 143, quoting Edward Justin Streb, “The Rhetoric of Wounded Knee II: A Critical Analysis of Confrontational and ‘Media Event’ Discourse” (PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1979), 119-28.

⁵³ Weston, Native Americans in the News, 146-47.

⁵⁴ Johansen, Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement, 31, 211-16.

⁵⁵ Johansen, Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement, 31.

⁵⁶ Larson, Media & Minorities, 115.

⁵⁷ Indian Country Today, https://indiancountrytoday.com/; Larson, Media & Minorities, 116-17.

⁵⁸ Keith, Signals in the Air, 12.

⁵⁹ Keith, Signals in the Air, 12.

⁶⁰ Native American Calling: Your National Electronic Talking Circle, https://nativeamericacalling.com/about/.

⁶¹ Quoted in AAPB, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_116-22v41qrg. AAPB includes programs in the series from the 1980s and 1990s.

⁶² Learning the White People Way, 1991, 91006 EDR, 1991 Peabody Awards entry form, George Foster Peabody Awards records, ms 3000, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Peabody Awards Collection Archives, http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/peabody/id:1991_91006_edr_1.

⁶³ The Dakota Conflict, 1993, 93109 DCT, 1993 Peabody Awards entry form, George Foster Peabody Awards records, ms 3000, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Peabody Awards Collection Archives, http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/peabody/id:1993_93109_dct_1.

⁶⁴ Bemidji Race Relations, 1990, 90018 PSR, 1990 Peabody entry form, George Foster Peabody Awards records, ms 3000, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Peabody Awards Collection Archives, http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/peabody/id:1990_90018_psr_1.

⁶⁵ Michelle H. Raheja, Reservation Reelism: Redfacing, Visual Sovereignty, and Representations of Native Americans in Film (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010), 194.

⁶⁶ Leighton C. Peterson, “Made Impossible by Viewers Like You: The Politics and Poetics of Native American Voices in US Public Television,” in How Television Shapes Our Worldview: Media Representations of Social Trends and Change, ed. Deborah A. Macey, Kathleen M. Ryan, and Noah J. Springer (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014), 251.

⁶⁷ Keith, Signals in the Air, 23.

⁶⁸ Keith, Signals in the Air, 10; “Peggy Berryhill,” https://www.peggyberryhill.com/about; National Federation of Community Broadcasters, “Peggy Berryhill,” April 18, 2017, https://nfcb.org/peggy-berryhill/.

⁶⁹ Keith, Signals in the Air, 19.

⁷⁰ Keith, Signals in the Air, 22, 53-55.

⁷¹ Gary Fife, quoted in Keith, Signals in the Air, 12.

⁷² “About Native Voice One/NV1,” https://www.nv1.org/about/.

⁷³ For more information about the evolution of Native radio, see Peggy Berryhill and Nan Rubin, with Fatima Mahdi, “Native Radio,” August 2013, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian, https://americanindian.si.edu/explore/film-media/native-media-topics/native-radio.

⁷⁴ “Warm Springs Program; General Council Meeting: Sovereignty (Part 1),” December 21, 1991, KWSO-FM, AAPB, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-204-451g1psd; Native American Film + Video Festival 2003, https://americanindian.si.edu/sites/1/files/pdf/festival/2003.pdf.

⁷⁵ Nathan Dinsdale, “Radio Free RezRadio Free Rez,” Willamette Week, April 29, 2003, https://www.wweek.com/portland/article-1993-radio-free-rezradio-free-rez.html.

⁷⁶ Quoted in AAPB, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_116-22v41qrg.

⁷⁷ Quoted in Steven Leuthold, “An Indigenous Aesthetic? Two Noted Videographers: George Burdeau and Victor Masayesva,” Wicazo Sa Review 10, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 40, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1409308.

⁷⁸ Raheja, Reservation Reelism, 247.

⁷⁹ Beverly R. Singer, Wiping the War Paint off the Lens: Native American Film and Video (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 49; Elizabeth Weatherford, “Starting Fire with Gunpowder,” Film Comment 28, no. 3 (1992), 65, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43454938.

⁸⁰ “About the Filmmakers,” Upstream Productions, http://upstreamvideos.com/wp/about-us/; Saza Osawa, “An Upstream Journey: An Interview with Sandra Osawa,” in Native Americans on Film: Conversations, Teaching, and Theory, ed. M. Elise Marubbio and Eric L. Buffalohead (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2013), 304-05.

⁸¹ Sandra Osawa, “Interview: Sandy Osawa,” interview by Lawrence Abbott, American Indian Quarterly 22, no. 1/2 (Winter – Spring 1998): 115, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1185111.

⁸² Elizabeth Weatherford, “Native Visions: The Growth of Indigenous Media,” Aperture, no. 119 (Early Summer 1990): 60, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24472275; Elizabeth Weatherford, ed., Native Americans on Film and Video (New York: Museum of the American Indian, 1981), 48, 93, 98.

⁸³ People of the First Light: Native Americans in Southern New England [1979-03-13], The Mashpee Wampanoags, 79028 CYT, 1992 Peabody Awards entry form, George Foster Peabody Awards records, ms 3000, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Peabody Awards Collection Archives, http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/peabody/id:1979_79028_cyt_1.

⁸⁴ Singer, Wiping the War Paint Off, 40.

⁸⁵ Frank Blythe, “Siyo!” in 3 Decades: Native American Public Telecommunications (Lincoln, NE: Native American Public Telecommunications, 2006), 4, https://visionmakermedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Three_Decades_Report.pdf; Joanna Hearne, Native Recognition: Indigenous Cinema and the Western (Albany: University of New York Press, 2012), 262.

⁸⁶ Shirley Sneve, interviewed by Christine Becker, “Presenting the Past” podcast, https://americanarchive.org/about-the-american-archive/podcast.

⁸⁷ “Native American Public TV Agency Wins Grant,” Los Angeles Times, June 21, 1977, G11.

⁸⁸ Frank Blythe, quoted in “Humble Beginnings,” Indian Country Today, February 23, 2021, https://indiancountrytoday.com/newscasts/frank-blythe-2-23-21.

⁸⁹ Singer, Wiping the War Paint Off, 40.

⁹⁰ “Our Mission,” Vision Maker Media, https://visionmakermedia.org/about/.

⁹¹ Weatherford, Native Americans on Film and Video, 14-15.

⁹² Doug Gordon, “How Wisconsin’s Charlie Hill Influenced Native American Comedy,” Wisconsin Public Radio, March 20, 2021, https://www.wpr.org/how-wisconsins-charlie-hill-influenced-native-american-comedy.

⁹³ Osawa, “An Upstream Journey,” 319.

⁹⁴ Singer, Wiping the War Paint Off, 49.

⁹⁵ Surviving Columbus, 1992, 92016 DCT, 1992 Peabody Awards entry form, George Foster Peabody Awards records, ms 3000, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Peabody Awards Collection Archives, http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/peabody/id:1992_92016_dct_1-2.

⁹⁶ Surviving Columbus, 1992, 92016 DCT, Winner Citation, George Foster Peabody Awards records, ms 3000, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Peabody Awards Collection Archives.

⁹⁷ Surviving Columbus, 1992 92016 DCT, George Foster Peabody Awards records, ms 3000, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Peabody Awards Collection Archives.

⁹⁸ Singer, Wiping the War Paint Off, 50.

⁹⁹ Singer, Wiping the War Paint Off, 49.

¹⁰⁰ Shirley Sneve, quoted in Peterson, “Made Impossible,” 257.

¹⁰¹ Peterson, “Made Impossible.” 257.

¹⁰² “The Return of Navajo Boy Webisodes,” Groundswell Educational Films, 2021, http://navajoboy.com/webisodes/; Marsha Weisiger, “Happy Cly and the Unhappy History of Uranium Mining on the Navajo Reservation,” Environmental History 17, no. 1 (January 2012): 146-59, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23212619.

¹⁰³ Gary Witherspoon, “Film Reviews: Weaving Worlds,” American Anthropologist 115, no. 2 (June 2013): 321-22, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24028740.

¹⁰⁴ Beverly R. Singer, “Film Review,” American Indian Quarterly 34, no. 2 (Spring 2010): 281, https://doi.org/10.5250/amerindiquar.34.2.280.

¹⁰⁵ Sarah Moses, “May I Suggest … ‘Waterbuster’ by J. Carlos Peinado,” Indian Country Today, November 29, 2006, updated September 12, 2018, https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/may-i-suggest-waterbuster-by-j-carlos-peinado; Ryan Tafoya, “Waterbuster,” Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education 22, no. 2 (Winter 2010), https://tribalcollegejournal.org/waterbuster/.

¹⁰⁶ Channette Romero, “Expanding Tribal Identities and Sovereignty through LeAnne Howe’s ‘Tribalography,’” Studies in American Indian Literatures 26, no. 2 (Summer 2014): 15-16, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5250/studamerindilite.26.2.0013.

¹⁰⁷ We of the River, 1986, 1986028 DCT, 1986 Peabody Awards entry form, George Foster Peabody Awards records, ms 3000, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Peabody Awards Collection Archives, http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/peabody/id:1986_1986028_dct_1.

¹⁰⁸ Elizabeth Weatherford and Emelia Seubert, eds, Native Americans on Film and Video, Volume II (New York: Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation, 1988, 53-54.

¹⁰⁹ Weatherford and Seubert, Native Americans on Film and Video II, 30.

¹¹⁰ Singer, Wiping the War Paint Off, 47; Chris Spotted Eagle, “Indian Uprising,” Maquah.net, May 3, 2006, https://www.maquah.net/IndianUprising/05-03-06.html.

¹¹¹ The Great Spirit within the Hole, 1983, 83147 DCT, George Foster Peabody Awards records, ms 3000, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Peabody Awards Collection Archives.

¹¹² Frank H. Tyro, “Localism and Low-Power Public Television on the Flathead Indian Reservation,” Wicazo Sa Review 16, no. 2 (Autumn 2001), 20, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1409604.

¹¹³ “About FNX,” FNX | First National Experience, https://fnx.org/about/.

¹¹⁴ “Interview: Sandy Osawa,” by Lawrence Abbott, 112-13.