WE'RE STILL HERE (part 3 of Matters of Race)
Documentary
60 minutes

Produced and Directed by Sindi Gordon • Executive Producer Orlando Bagwell

A contemporary look at two communities often overlooked in the
race dialogue: American Indians and Native Hawaiians.

On the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the program features the voices of three
generations of Lakota families as they consider their past, their future and the process of
merging multiple world views, waysof life, and ideas of America. Through the stories of
these families the film considers the historical construction of Indian "otherness" and its
influence on the ways a new generation of Lakota people will address issues of unemploy-
ment, alcohol, domestic abuse, and apathy ravaging their community.

Meanwhile, across the Pacific Ocean, beginning in the late 1990s, lawsuit after lawsuit challenged the rights of Native Hawaiians to run schools and housing programs that provided only for their beleaguered community. Having been accused of reverse-racism, how do they see themselves in relation to the rest of the nation? And what are their connections to other Native communities? These are the questions explored in this film.