Lakota In America
Genevieve Iron Lightning is a young Lakota dancer on the Cheyenne River reservation, one of the poorest communities in the US. Unemployment, addiction, alcoholism, and suicide are all challenges for Lakota on the reservation.
For nearly a hundred years it was illegal to practice Lakota customs. Now the Cheyenne River Youth Project is working with young people like Genevieve to create a stronger economic and cultural future – andthrey using their Lakota heritage to get there.
https://youtu.be/OTftjoxyNaI
“Lakota In America” is the third film in Square’s For Every Kind of Dream series. See the other films at http://foreverydream.com.
Tips, Comments, Complaints, Etc
By now most of you know that Indigenous/Native American/First Nations/ etc issues are very important to me so there will be more like this in the future. Also I’m not making any promises, but I’ll finally try and get an Indigenous version of a Monday Night Mixtape post up this week.
You do a superb job presenting Native American issues, LD. T and R!!
Genevieve Iron Lightning, what a wonderful name!
Aka’Stands First Women’.
This video was hard to watch through, my emotions high. Seems like a really great program. Well worth the view. My heart goes out to their community, I so hope that their youth thrive!
It’s certainly hard to watch (especially at first, as these kinds of things usually are), but the hope and optimism Genevieve has ultimately overrides the more depressing bits.
For a lighter moment heres some more Native teens embracing their culture:
https://youtu.be/mGGPsPfe0TU