We Shall Remain "The Radio Project" is a series of short radio programs that bridges the historical segments presented in American Experience’s We Shall Remain television series and presents the Indian world as it is today. Each program illustrates the television program content from current perspectives.
We feel it is vitally important that Tribes and Native communities are not left in the past but seen as the dynamic Sovereign Nations that they are today -- proud strong nations participating in the American economy and contributing to local communities.
Information about each of the radio programs is listed below. Air date information will be updated as we know it so check our website frequently!
Native Public Media is honored to be a part of this historic project with American Experience and WGBH. Our work focuses on bringing access, ownership and control of media to Native America so that Native People can tell our own stories in our own way. “The Radio Project” does just that. Thank you for being part of it.
Peggy Berryhill Director of Media Architecture and Services for Native Public Media Producer, We Shall Remain “The Radio Project”
1. David White - Wampanoags Producer: Arun Rath We Shall Remain television episode: After the Mayflower
David White—a Nipmuc language coach for the first PBS We Shall Remain episode After the Mayflower ―is waging a battle to revive his people’s language, unused for a hundred years. As a young man, he studied with an elder who had revived the language, and who, at death, bequeathed its future to David. White balances his day job as a Massachusetts electrician with his single-handed mission. Wampanoags examines the peculiar challenges he faces, such as having to rely in part on records and dictionaries preserved by white colonists.
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2. Sovereignty, Technology and Spectrum Producer: Peggy Berryhill We Shall Remain television episode: Tecumseh’s Vision
Modern technology is reshaping ancient conflicts over U.S. and Native American lands. Episode 2 of the television series We Shall Remain recounts the pan-Indian resistance movement led by Tecumseh, aimed in part at government survey teams who set out to map the West. While Tecumseh’s defeat and death set the stage for further white encroachment into Indian lands in the 19th Century, many tribes today use digital tools to protect their resources.
The Coeur D'Alene Tribe, featured in this radio program, uses technology in totally new ways to preserve and expand its cultural assets. Through the Native Names Project, Coeur D’Alene Elders and Geographic Information System workers have convinced the United States Geological Survey to change existing place names to correctly reflect tribal names. The Coeur D’Alene’s Internet Technology director, Valerie Fast Horse, shows off the reservation’s Tribal Tech Center and discusses the progressive role of technology in Tribal government and the future of native people.
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3. Chickasaw Nation Producer: Arun Rath We Shall Remain television episode: The Trail of Tears
In spite of the horrific suffering inflicted by the Trail of Tears, displaced tribes did survive, and some flourished. One of these is the Chickasaw Nation. The Chickasaw left ancestral lands and relocated to ‘Indian Territory’ in present-day Oklahoma. Today the Chickasaw Nation confounds the “reservation” stereotype, with good healthcare, education, a strong sense of cultural independence and a thriving economy based only partly on gaming.
Chickasaw Nation explores what present-day sovereignty means, including the complications of being a nation within a nation―such as local law enforcement and tribal police jurisdictions, issues of cross-deputization and other problems of coordination with state and federal authorities.
April 28, 2009 Listen to this recorded show in streaming audio:
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4. The Icons Among Us Producer: Brian Bull We Shall Remain television episode: Geronimo
After Geronimo finally surrendered, he quickly went from being Public Enemy No. 1 to a celebrated symbol of America's wild past, an object of nostalgia. Native artists and performers have since used -- or resisted -- these vilified or romantic stereotypes that have defined their people.
Oneida comedian Charlie Hill says, "When I first started, I was backstage and another comic said to me, 'An Indian comedian, what a gimmick, what a gimmick!' I responded, 'I can't help it, my parents are gimmicks!'" The Icons Among Us takes a light-hearted look at stereotyping in everyday life. We talk to a wide-ranging group of Native performers and find out what it's like to "walk a mile in their moccasins."
May 5, 2009 Listen to this recorded show in streaming audio:
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5. Who is an Indian? Producer: Brian Bull We Shall Remain television episode: Wounded Knee
During the 1973 occupation of the Wounded Knee Reservation, urbanized Indians from across the country flocked to Wounded Knee, and after mingling with the more traditional Lakota there, left with a new sense of "Indian identity."
But who is an Indian? And who decides? Based on what criteria? How these issues are decided is essential to the future of Native sovereignty. In the last U.S. Census, more than 4.1 million Americans reported some Indian blood; 2.5 million reported as "pure" Native American. Most Native American tribes base membership on "blood quantum," a federally imposed standard. Today, some children lack enough "blood quantum" in any tribe to be enrolled, yet are considered part of the Indian community. The thorny politics of tribal enrollment ―create tensions between mixed-race Indians and those who consider themselves culturally "purer."
Premiers: May 12, 2009 Listen to this recorded show in streaming audio:
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