{"id":30997,"date":"2023-03-20T11:05:47","date_gmt":"2023-03-20T15:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/2023\/03\/20\/were-still-here-native-film-depicts-struggles-as-navajo-nation-heads-to-u-s-supreme-court\/"},"modified":"2023-07-31T13:47:05","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T17:47:05","slug":"were-still-here-native-film-depicts-struggles-as-navajo-nation-heads-to-u-s-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2023\/03\/20\/were-still-here-native-film-depicts-struggles-as-navajo-nation-heads-to-u-s-supreme-court\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We\u2019re still here’: Native film depicts struggles as Navajo Nation heads to U.S. Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Powerlands\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\tPowerlands Trailer\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
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Premiering in 2022, Powerlands is a new documentary directed by Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso. See more at powerlands.org.A young Navajo filmmaker investigates …<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

\n\t\t\"YouTube\"\t\tYouTube\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
POWERLANDS: Trailer<\/a>\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n
‘We\u2019re still here’<\/div>\r\n
Native film depicts struggles as Navajo Nation heads to U.S. Supreme Court<\/div>\r\n
Monday, March 20, 2023<\/div>\r\n
By Acee Agoyo<\/div>\r\n
Indianz.Com<\/div>\r\n

<\/P>\r\nWASHINGTON, D.C. — With the Navajo Nation<\/a> headed to a showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court<\/a>, one Native filmmaker is drawing attention to the struggles Indigenous peoples face around the world as they work to protect their lands and resources.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nSpeaking at the National Museum of the American Indian<\/a> on Sunday, Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso<\/a> said her family has been negatively impacted by resource extraction on the Navajo Nation. Through a lease that was approved by the federal government, the world’s largest coal company made billions of dollars<\/a> from a mining site on the reservation. \r\n

<\/p>\r\n“We succeeded in the fact that we’re still here, because it’s been a resistance has been happening for sixty, seventy years — including my entire family,” Manybeads Tso said after she screened her film, Powerlands<\/em><\/a>, as part of the 2023 Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital<\/a>.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nPowerlands<\/em> doesn’t just focus on the Navajo Nation, the largest reservation in the United States. As director of the film, Manybeads Tso took the project to Indigenous communities in Mexico, Colombia and The Philippines, where resistance falls among familiar lines of marginalized peoples fighting against large and powerful entities.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n“We are working against this huge monolith of corporations and governments that are really trying to not necessarily help us,” Manybeads Tso said at the NMAI.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n \"Ivey<\/a>

Film director Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso speaks at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., following a screening of Powerlands during the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital on March 19, 2023. Photo by Indianz.Com (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nIn the film, Navajo families whose lives have been disrupted by Peabody Energy’s operations<\/a> speak in particular about the degradation of water on their homelands. For decades, the corporation operated two mines on tribal land in the northeastern part of Arizona that extracted millions of tons of coal every year, sending it to a power plant<\/a>, where electricity was generated to benefit millions of consumers in communities far away from the reservation.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nBut even though Peabody has shut down operations after filing for bankruptcy protection in 2016, Manybeads Tso pointed out that the corporation has left a major mess on lands belonging to the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe<\/a>. A huge metal slurry that consumed large amounts of water on the reservation<\/a> is among the legacies of resource development.\r\n

<\/P>\r\n“Mining corporations are not required to clean up after themselves,” the filmmaker asserted. “So that big green pipe that is like literally massive and gigantic will be there until — it goes away on its own?”\r\n

<\/P>\r\nBy the conclusion of Powerlands<\/em>, which also covers the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline that was resisted by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe<\/a> over water protection issues, Native youth come together to warn future generations about the harmful impacts of resource development. They are seen painting a water tank on the Navajo Reservation<\/a> with artistic messages that let people know that the water is not safe to drink or use.\r\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\"U.S.\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\tU.S. Supreme Court adds more Indian Country cases to docket\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
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Indian Country is gearing up for another round of big cases at the nation\u2019s highest court, with water rights and tribal sovereignty on the line.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

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<\/P>\r\nThe screening of the film comes as the Navajo Nation is once again seeking to hold the U.S. government accountable to its trust and treaty responsibilities when it comes to natural resources. On Monday morning, the highest court in the land will hear a long-running dispute over the tribe’s right to water from the Colorado River<\/a>.\r\n

<\/P>\r\n And just like the struggles presented in the Powerlands<\/em>, the tribe is up against some of the most powerful interests in the country. Not only are the states of Arizona, Nevada, California and Colorado trying to protect their ongoing extraction of water from the Colorado River, the federal government has so far refused to finalize a water allocation for the tribe in accordance with treaties signed in 1849 and 1868, which guaranteed the Navajo people a homeland where they could live forever.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n“Read as the Navajos would have understood them, the specific provisions in the treaties guaranteeing the Navajos a permanent homeland and help with agriculture are agreements that the United States will provide the Nation adequate water,” attorneys for the tribe told the U.S. Supreme Court in a February 1 brief<\/a>. \r\n

<\/p>\r\n“Those provisions establish a meeting of the minds on the hallmarks of a fiduciary relationship over the Navajos\u2019 water rights and impose an enforceable duty on the United States to consider the Navajos\u2019 water needs and make a plan to meet them,” the brief continues.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n \"Buu<\/a>

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren examines treaty materials featured in an exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., on February 8, 2023. Photo: Navajo Nation Office of President and Vice President<\/a> <\/figcaption>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nThe Navajo Nation has gained significant support in its quest to force the Department of the Interior<\/a>, which includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs<\/a>, to come up with a plan to ensure the tribe receives adequate water from the Colorado River. Dozens of tribal governments, along with historians, law professors and other experts, are urging the Supreme Court to respect and affirm a precedent known as the Winters<\/em> doctrine<\/a>, whose name comes from an Indian water rights case decided way back in 1908.\r\n

<\/P>\r\n“Since its inception, the Winters doctrine has continued to ensure the continuing vitality of the historical promises of the United States to reserve livable homelands for tribal nations by securing the water rights necessary to fulfill the purposes of those reservations,” a brief signed by nearly 40 tribes, plus the National Congress of American Indians<\/a> and the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians<\/a>, reads.\r\n

<\/P>\r\n“Guided by that mandate, the United States\u2019 trust duties to tribal nations motivates federal actions to make good on those promises,” the tribes and tribal organizations argue in the February 8 document<\/a>.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nSpiritual leaders from the Navajo Nation are also weighing in. The Din\u00e9 Hataalii Association, a non-profit that represents more than 200 medicine women and men on the reservation, explains why developing a water plan for the Colorado River is so important to the tribe and its citizens.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n“In Dine\u0301 culture, binding agreements between parties create implied directives\u2014much like the Winters<\/em> doctrine recognizes an implied right to water for federal reservations,” the February 8 brief<\/a> reads.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n“Put another way, it is not enough to promise something — ‘leaders are required to . . . [actively] seek solutions to problems,’ such as securing water resources,” it continues, quoting from Roman Bitsuie<\/a>, a traditional practitioner on the reservation. “Dine\u0301 believe that ‘every word is powerful, sacred, and never frivolous,’ and that every provision of an agreement must be given force and effect.”\r\n

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