Celebrating Native Awareness Month

Cal State East Bay will screen the film “One Word: Sawalmem” Tuesday, Nov. 3 in honor of Native Awareness Month. 

The film, released in March 2020, centers around the question: “What is one word from your ancestral language which changed your life and which you can offer to humanity as medicine to heal our relationship with earth?” 

The short film, co-directed by Michael “Pom” Preston of the Winnemem Wintu tribe of Mount Shasta, gives a look into the life of local Native wisdom keepers who hold intimate knowledge about living in balance with the Earth. It tells the story of the Shasta Dam, which has harmed salmon, the Winnemem Wintu tribe, and the Sacramento River since the 1940s. 

According to the film’s website, as a student of environmental studies at UC Berkeley, Preston did not feel heard and felt he was being told his viewpoint as an idigenous person was irrelevant. The film asks viewers to think about how the planet’s healing could start with a shift in humans’ mindset from one of exploitation to one of stewardship and reciprocity. 

Tuesday’s event will be held on Zoom from 12:15-1:15 p.m. and include a screening and a discussion. Registration is required and available through the DISC website. 

Later in November, Cal State East Bay will host Oakland-native Julian Brave NoiseCat, artist, activist and director of Green New Deal Strategy for Data for Progress. He is also the narrative change director at the Natural History Museum, a contributing editor for Canadian Geographic, and a correspondent for Real America. 

NoiseCat is a proud member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and is a descendant of the Lil’Wat Nation of Mount Currie. His work has been published in newspapers and magazines around the country including in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Rolling Stone and Haper’s, among others. 

In 2019, NoiseCat helped lead a grassroot effort to bring an Indigenous canoe journey to the Bay Area to commemorate the 1969 Alcatraz Occupation. Canoes from as far north as Canada and as far west as Hawaii participated in the effort. 

The community dialogue with Julian Brave NoiseCat will be held Thursday, Nov. 19 at 12:15 p.m. Registration is available on the DISC website.