Dear Tisch Community,

Since 1995, the United States government has issued annual proclamations designating the month of November as the time to celebrate the cultural contributions of Indigenous, Native American and Alaska Native communities. As Native American Heritage Month closes, we invite members of the Tisch community to reflect on the complicated history of the United States and our unfinished journey toward equitable representation in the arts. Tisch is committed to raising awareness of the exclusion and erasure of Indigenous peoples by uplifting their accomplishments and acknowledging our responsibility to help sustain cultural preservation.

On November 15th, the Offices of Diversity and Global Strategic Initiatives were grateful for the opportunity to support the screening of GATHER organized by students, Mariela Morales-Inturias (Tisch, Undergraduate Film & Television), and Puanani Apoliona-Brown (Steinhardt, Food Studies).

A-dae: We’re some pretty bad ass storytellers! There’s so many stories that we take in daily, and that our communities share with one another in the most informal times. That’s like, our power. We tell stories through chants, we tell stories when we pray. The stories are everywhere and recognizing how powerful they are - it’s a fact, you have to be able to see it - and so, the medium of film was the easiest way to bring that to a wider audience. But there's so many stories that need to be told, not only in film, but in academia, in sharing and recognizing Indigenous stories, and in the last 2 to 3 years so many Indigenous storytellers are putting things in film, putting things in song, putting things on the internet. We’re really excited that GATHER can be a part of that. It’s just like a continuum of our Indigenous culture.

A-dae: You have to be humble, you have to recognize when the plants are telling you things, when the land is telling you things, and so when we think of food sovereignty - the movement part kind of gets me sometimes because a movement has a beginning and an end, but Cochiti, like we've been in our places since time immemorial. And so there is no beginning or end. Feeding our people has always been part of our existence, serving our people has always been part of our existence, building these relationships with our land has always been part of our existence. I think the food sovereignty movement is more a description for people outside of the Indigenous worldview - to explain the more recent barriers to access to food and land, but we've always fed our people. We probably will feed our people a hundred generations from now, no doubt, and that has no beginning and no end.

A-dae: I’ve heard that word many times - activism - I think some of the community, I, struggle with that word too, sometimes. So, really for me when we're talking about NYU students, cultivate whatever skill, or whatever talent, that you have to the utmost, and take that skill and use it for community, in the community. That’s what connects activism to real life things, like you're cultivating the skills that you’re blessed with, and giving it to a community. Until you make that gift to the community, you're just a person that’s living. And so to me, activism is about community connection, and whatever gift you have to contribute for that movement...

GATHER, directed by Sanjay Rawal, was made in partnership with the First Nations Development Institute, a leading Native nonprofit based in Colorado. We encourage you to watch the film and gain perspective and understanding of Native agriculture and food systems.