♪
- [Gyasi Ross] When you're told for 500 years your ways are evil,
that damages your self-esteem.
And so, showing the beauty of the pow wow,
showing the beauty of the language, is a small dent
in reclaiming that self-esteem.
Little Dream Catchers was cool in the sense
that it's trying to buffer
the children with language, with culture,
with stories, about why you're special.
And ultimately that will provide protection as you go on.
- We're gonna dance.
Go around in a circle.
And we're gonna have just a pow wow.
- [Voiceover] Having a pow wow today.
- [Voiceover] Do you like pow wows?
- [Children] Yes!
- [Girl in blue] He likes you.
- Because he's my dog.
- Does he pee on people?
- Nope.
♪ And I move on
♪ And I become
- We're gonna bless our grounds because
we're thanking Mother Earth and the creator
for allowing us to use the grounds that we're on.
At the same time we're asking our grandfathers
and forefathers to come in and join us.
- We are the land.
The land is us.
We came from the East.
As our ancestors tell us we would find our home
where our food grows on the water, which is the wild rice.
- White Earth is the largest tribe in Minnesota.
We have approximately 20,000 members.
25% live on the reservation.
(scat singing)
- We're still trying to do our best
to hold on to our language,
to hold on to our culture and even our kids
who are trying to hold on to them.
We're trying to show them a better way,
to show them a better life than what we had.
- I used to live life for myself.
That has changed.
Being a father is just, you know,
automatically know what's good for your kids.
- I was really scared first time being a parent,
you know, it kinda scares you a little bit.
I had a lot of positive role models to look up to.
My grandparents were, like, one of them.
It's kinda sad 'cause I see a lot of grandparents
who are taken advantage of, but I think that stems
into the whole drug addition.
Around here it seems to be really high.
- I was pretty worried about my grandkids.
Their parents were having problems.
They weren't really taking care of them right.
They were with some other relatives
before they finally brought 'em to me.
I've been taking care of them for the last two
and a half years now.
The biggest threat is prescription drugs,
meth, heroin.
They're talking about new drugs coming
into the communities now.
Whenever you bring your kids to the playgrounds
around on the reservation up here, you know,
you better walk around there first and go look around,
because people are leaving those hypodermic needles.
Them things are laying all over the place.
No, 'cause you might get hurt over there.
I had a lot of friends around here.
I don't have many friends anymore
because they're all on drugs.
And it's sad because their families are suffering
because of it.
There's not much to do around here.
It's poverty.
- During the Great Depression when unemployment was 27%,
there was an outrage in the country
and yet we have a Great Depression every day
year in and year out.
Education is our ticket out of poverty here.
80% of a child's development takes place
before five years old.
So it seems to be a no-brainer to me
to focus on that area.
- [Teacher] But then he was stuck with.
- Sheep, dog, cat, hen.
- [Teacher] And then the hen.
- Children from middle income families arrive
at kindergarten with a 20,000 word vocabulary.
And our kids from lower income,
and especially children of color, they're arriving
at 3,000 to 4,000 word vocabulary.
Native American children are
by far the largest gap,
so we're hoping that what we're doing
will make a significant difference to close that gap.
- I've got a kitty too, you know.
- [Evelyn] Yup.
- No, it's a girl name.
- It's Ivana.
- I work nights and I sleep during the days.
About mid-afternoon I get up and make lunch
and I pack my lunch and then I go to work.
It's about 35 miles out from Mahnomen here,
so I got to drive every day.
- [Evelyn] Mom, do you want to go outside with me?
- What do you want to do outside?
- I want to play in the leaves.
- Do you know where your shoes' at?
- Yeah.
- Get them.
- Right here dad because this is where.
- Play.
- Yeah, I like to do everything outside too.
- She was always talkative when she was younger,
until around two.
And it developed more and more as she got older,
so now she doesn't be quiet ever (chuckles).
- I used to be a housekeeper at the casino,
cleaning hotel rooms and I just,
I didn't want to do that.
I had a dream that I was doing that again,
so after I had her, I realized, you know,
if I want to have a better future,
not entailing cleaning toilets,
I figured I should probably go to college.
And so, I started at the Tribal College Mahnomen.
That was the biggest thing that I wanted out of my education
was to learn about Native American Indian studies,
because they don't offer much of anything in high school.
- Historically the purpose of education for us
as tribal people has been assimilation.
We go back to the boarding school era
of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The purpose then, along with churches,
was to eradicate tribal culture, language and traditions,
and to assimilate and civilize us,
and to Christianize us.
So our children were taken away.
Over 100,000.
In the boarding schools, the children were punished
for speaking the language.
The loss of language, the loss of culture,
the loss of tradition, the loss of family,
the loss of community.
That brokenness is generational
and there's historical trauma attributed to it.
- Many children were ripped from their families
and loaded onto a truck
and not seeing their parents for years.
We're talking generations where parents couldn't be parents.
And so, now you're seeing parents
who maybe don't know how to parent
because they did not receive parenting.
We need to really focus on
maintaining a family structure.
We help a lot of the grandparents.
They need that support too.
- Peter who was very naughty ran straight away
to Mr. MacGreger's garden and squeezed
under the gate.
Uh oh, do you think he's supposed to be there?
- MacGreger?
He's the one that kills rabbits.
- [Heather] He does?
Holy cow, that Mr. MacGreger must be kind of a scary guy.
- He's mean.
- He's mean, huh?
- Their dad, he's in prison right now.
He won't be getting out until this fall.
He was talking about coming and living with us
or something, but I'm probably going to have
to tell him he's going to have to go live
at a halfway house for a while here
and learn how to take care of himself first.
- Do the kids get to see their parents very often?
- No, they haven't seen their dad in months now.
I don't remember even the last time.
- Because grandpa never let us go to mom's house.
- No, one, that's not safe over there
for one thing, first of all.
- Why?
- Because it's not.
- Sometimes you just gotta make sure it's safe.
- Because somebody went and shot up the house
over there now too.
Do you want to get shot?
- No.
- Okay then.
She can come to our house anytime she wants to.
She doesn't make an effort.
Your dad's in prison.
He ain't getting out until this fall.
I don't even remember when the last time
it was when you guys seen him.
- How do you think mom and dad being gone
has affected the kids?
- 20 years!
- They're doing okay.
They're doing good.
I'm sure it would be better if they had them, but.
- Well, they have you.
You know, that's kind of a nice support system for them.
You know, they got someone to come home to every day.
And you know, who cares about them.
- The baby she, whenever she gets really upset,
then she starts crying for her mom and her dad,
but, I mean, it's nothing I can do about it.
They're stuck with me.
We're stuck with each other for now.
- Cali.
- Nadia.
- I ain't smiling.
- Every family's been touched by the drug problem here.
Mine included.
My oldest son became a single parent
when his oldest son was two and a half
and his daughter was six months old.
- The doctors gave my kids' mother some pain pills
for her back and that's where it started.
I was living with her every day.
I didn't see no back problems,
but she always said that her back hurt.
Then the doctors just kept giving them to her.
After a while I imagine that the pills weren't enough,
so she moved on to the harder stuff.
I told her you got to get into treatment, you gotta stop.
Third time, I told her if don't get treatment,
we're not, I'm going to leave
and I'm gonna do my best to take these kids.
Natalie, you ready?
- Daddy, Daddy!
- [Voiceover] Is that you daddy?
- I woke up one morning, I caught her doing pills.
And that was it.
I got home from work that day and I left.
And then that's when the battle began with the courts.
Nathan was old enough to realize everything.
And for two years he asked me, "Where is mom?
"Where is my mom?"
I didn't know how to answer that.
All I could say was she's sick.
(gentle music)
- My name is Nathan and I'm seven years old
and this is my grandma's cabin.
- I like to go fishing.
- [Nathan] Still have a councilor coming
and seeing him to this day.
He's got separation anxiety from it, losing his mother.
- [Nateli] See an ant.
- He really didn't lose her,
but also in a way he did 'cause she's not around.
- Drugs, violence, those things weren't part
of our tradition and our culture years ago.
So when I hear of our youth going back
to their traditions and language,
you see something in them.
They're very prideful, they're good citizens.
They're just happier people.
Look at teacher.
How many is this in Ojibwe?
(speaking in foreign language)
Yeah, all right.
Sabrina, how do you say bear in Ojibwe,
'cause I don't know.
(speaking in foreign language)
- [Terri] Is what?
- Bear.
- Bear, how many is this?
(speaking in foreign language)
Yep, that means two.
They're counting numbers and stuff
and some even the babies now can say.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Hello.
- [Erma] We are teaching our culture, our history,
our language, because those are the essence of our identity.
(gentle foreign music)
What you see is what you become.
You experience love.
You experience the beauty of your culture,
your language, your community, your traditions,
and all of the wonderful values that we have.
That's what our children will become.
- For some reason we keep holding on to these things.
We keep holding on to our culture, our language,
our ceremonies, no matter how hard it is.
It must be something in our DNA.
- Our children today are our future leaders,
hopefully if we set them in the right path.
And I just hope that she can be able to better her life.
I hope that she has a bright future.
- I hate to say this, but I wouldn't had no care
for anybody else prior.
Now that I have kids, I'm second.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Thank you.
(light foreign music)
This program was made possible in part
by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
as part of "American Graduate: Let's make it happen."