Mae from the film “Gather: The Fight to Revitalize our Native Foodways.”
“Gather: The Fight to Revitalize our Native Foodways”
Saturday, March 6, 3 p.m. CST
“Gather: The Fight to Revitalize our Native Foodways” is an intimate portrait of the growing movement among Native Americans to reclaim their spiritual, political, and cultural identities through food sovereignty, while battling the trauma of centuries of genocide. “Gather” follows Nephi Craig, a chef from the White Mountain Apache Nation (Arizona), opening an indigenous café; Elsie Dubray, a young scientist from the Cheyenne River Sioux Nation (South Dakota), conducting landmark studies on bison; and the Ancestral Guard, a group of environmental activists from the Yurok Nation (Northern California), trying to save the Klamath river. This film was a critic’s pick in the New York Times, September 2020.
Susan Messer talked with director Sanjay Rawal.
Film Director Sanjay Rawal
Q: You’ve made a film about Native Americans, but you are not Native American yourself. How did you manage this sensitive issue?
A: The first documentary we have, “Nanook of the North,” was made in 1922 by an Anglo-American, Robert Flaherty. He made up the rules as he went along, in what I’ve understood from some local accounts was a collaborative process with his subjects—an Itivimuit community in northern Canada. The film spawned an industry of people who could afford to travel around the world and capture stories of people who they considered exotic. Today, most media about indigenous communities have been made by non-Native people. I’m a person of color, yet not a Native American. I was mindful of the space I was entering.
Of great benefit were the strong relationships my partners at the First Nations Development Institute (FNDI) had in Indian Country. We put the film together as a team. FNDI has a 40-year history of working on food issues in Native cultures. With them, I assessed the types of stories we could cover cinematically, including which tribal nations would be our focus. Without FNDI, it would have taken me, a non-Native, several years to develop the trust that allowed me to work on the ground in those communities.
Q: What is the focus of your film?
A: The film looks at colonization and the destruction of food systems, and at those attempting to revive them. It focuses on areas that were colonized post-1870s, west of the Mississippi—places where I could find the essential imagery, the photographic evidence, I needed to tell these stories. The challenge was to hone a very large subject scope into something based in image. Structure is essential in film, as are length considerations, as is, of course, finding the best stories to tell.
All storytelling, especially by an outsider, can come with a sense of exploitation. We wanted to have a clear participatory role for our subjects, to show them as the experts they are. We didn’t want to go to outsiders to present context.
Because we had Native producers, we were able to avoid stylistic pitfalls—that is, to avoid romanticizing or treating these people or their lives as anachronisms. We picked characters based on their background, on their cinematic charisma, on how well they could carry a story without speaking. We didn’t come to the film with a strong thesis; we let the people drive the narrative, drive the set of facts that are presented.
Q: What surprised you in the making of this film?
A: Really getting to experience the front line of Native activism—learning about the role Natives play as stewards of the land, and coming to understand that issues that may at first appear to be local can affect people thousands of miles away. The outcome of any of these efforts will have a bearing on how environmentally clean the future will be for all of us.
Sammy from the film “Gather: The Fight to Revitalize our Native Foodways.”
One story we follow in the film concerns activists from the Yurok Nation in northern California, whose goal was the removal of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. These dams have seriously undermined the health of the whole river system—a formerly rich fishing ground for the Yurok—and in turn almost completely undermined the livelihood of the Yurok people and their relationship with their environment. But the story isn’t only about the Yurok. People in LA might not be paying attention to this effort, but its success will have long-term implications for the health of all California water and forest systems.
I’ve always lived in cities, the Bay Area, New York. It can be hard for us urban folks to understand the whole chain of processes and people that affect us, how protecting resources in one community can affect all communities in North America.
Q: But the focus of the film is food, correct?
A: Yes. And food traditions. Many of us had ancestors who remained in the same general part of the world for hundreds or thousands of years, so they knew the foodways—what you could eat and not eat, how you gathered and prepared your local food. They had strong cultural ties to their food systems. And these foodways intertwined with identity. These traditions and cultures and identities around food were one of the many things that were taken from Native Americans.
One story in the film is about Nephi Craig, a chef from the White Mountain Apache Tribe in Arizona. What he was doing was so relatable. He had a dream to open a high-end affordable café on his reservation, and to bring together a network of Native chefs dedicated to researching, refining, and developing Native American cuisine. And he faced all the challenges a dream like that can take. His understanding of ingredients and the rationale around cooking, how food intertwines with identity was so deep. But I didn’t want to make a Food Network film and show recipes. I wanted to show the role a chef—this chef—could play in advancing ideas in the food system. All the film’s stories weave together during the course of the film, but his is the spine.
Sanjay’s film will be followed by a discussion led by Maddie Oatman, Senior Editor and Writer, Mother Jones Magazine; contributor to Mother Jones' food politics podcast, "Bite.” She’ll be talking to these panelists:
Danielle Hill, Founder, Heron-Hill LLC; Mashpee Wampanoag tribes; appears in “Gather: The Fight to Revitalize our Native Foodways”
Kayleigh Warren, Communications Coordinator, Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance; Tewa and Tiwa from the Pueblo Nations of Santa Clara and Isleta
Tickets are free, with $8 suggested donation.