How do we create and embody resistance when livelihoods are threatened? From media activism to the strengthening act of a Hoop Dance, global Indigenous leaders are using storytelling to defend communities and protect humanity from the effects of climate change.
At the 2024 Skoll World Forum, Indigenous storytellers, activists, and creatives explored the power of film, cartoons, 3D maps, and more to remedy the biggest social and environmental crises of our time. Stories make Indigenous worldviews more visible and provide “a medium for rebellion” against destructive narratives and practices, said filmmaker and youth liaison Kynan Tegar. “And that’s what inspired me to make my first films.”
Tegar was joined by global leaders including Eric Michael Hernandez, Lumbee circle artist and storyteller; Mia Kami, vocalist, songwriter, and activist; and Txai Suruí, environmental activist and executive producer. Moderated by Crystal Echo Hawk, co-CEO of IllumiNative and 2024 Skoll Awardee. Watch this captivating session and read the transcript below to learn more about creative tools for change.
Transcript from “Indigenous Storytelling in Defense of People and Planet,” filmed on April 11, 2024 at the Skoll World Forum:
Crystal Echo Hawk: I’ve been telling everyone this is going to literally be the best session at Skoll and it has nothing to do with me. It’s the four amazing people that we have here. But I officially want to welcome you to the Indigenous Storytelling in Defense of People & Planet. And this is a really special session. But as we’re going to spend this time together today in this circle, we’re going to be talking about how a rapidly warming planet and ongoing attacks on land, life, and culture are driving global Indigenous leaders to leverage an unexpected tool to defend people and planet, storytelling, art, culture, you name it.
And we’re going to hear from four amazing Indigenous storytellers, activists, and creatives about how they’re using film, dance, and more to raise awareness about how to resist and remedy the most pressing issue of our time. So I am just so honored to just be here today to spend time with them.
So, our incredible speakers are Eric Hernandez, a Lumbee Hoop Dancer and storyteller, Txai Suruí, we’ve been working on this, an environmental activist and executive producer, Kynan Tegar, an Indigenous filmmaker and youth liaison, and Mia Kami, a singer, songwriter, and activist. So get ready to just have the most incredible time together. And with that, Eric, it’s yours.
Eric Michael Hernandez: Thank you. Hello, can everybody hear me? Yes, wow, I’m so happy to be here. What an honor. My name’s Eric Hernandez. I’m a member of the Lumbee Tribe from North Carolina. I travelled in here two days ago, still adjusting to the time a bit. The dance that I’m going to share with you today, this tradition is a healing ceremony. It comes to us from the Taos Pueblo Tribe from New Mexico. And this was a dance that I learned when I was about 10 years old. It was when my parents separated and my mom wanted me to have another father figure to step in. And that was my uncle, Terry. And at that time, he chose the Hoop Dance to kind of guide me and father me. And I was a bit resistant. I was like, “You’re not my dad.” I wasn’t too excited about learning this tradition at that age. I was more focused on friends, and sports, and video games.
I didn’t grow up in my community. I grew up in a small suburb outside of Los Angeles called San Dimas, California. And the Hoop Dance became my only connection to my culture. My uncle Terry had been Hoop Dancing for 50 years at that time, and he was a 9-time world champion Hoop Dancer. And it was really special and an honor for him to teach me this. But like I said, I didn’t understand or appreciate how special it was at that time.
But as I continued to learn and he continued to teach me this dance, he taught me the meaning of it. And he taught me how the Taos Pueblo Tribe use it as a healing ceremony. He taught me how they believed that every time the hoop would pass through their body, that it would add time to their life. They believe those colors on the hoop represent the four directions, north, south, east, and west. And this dance also told a story. It told a story of you and I as humans and our journey through life. And it used the image of this small bird. And as you watch this stance, you’ll see this bird grow as I add more and more hoops to my body.
And you’ll see, as this bird develops, you’ll see the different plants and animals that this bird encounters throughout its life. And how all these hoops and the images, and humans, and nature must work in balance and in harmony with one another to form the world that we live in.
So, as you watch this stance, you’ll see that story. Originally, the Taos Pueblo would use four hoops. They wanted to represent the four directions and bringing the people together from those four directions, once again using this image.
But as a 10-year-old, I didn’t find that excitement about it yet. And I remember it was my first year of high school. And growing up in a neighborhood that didn’t have many natives other than me, I didn’t think that my classmates understood who I was and what I represented. A lot of the things we were learning in our history books and that we were seeing in movies, it didn’t match up to the things I was learning from my uncle about the Hoop Dance.
This dance was about moving with grace, and beauty, and flowing. The reason that it was healing was because of how easy the medicine man would make this dance look. It would show us that we have the power, as humans, to navigate life with that same grace. And it wasn’t until one day when my school teacher announced that we were having a cultural festival at our school. And she looked around the classroom and she said, “Is there anybody who would like to participate?” And once again, I didn’t think that my friends would understand. I was scared that they would call these hula hoops. I was scared that they would call my regalia a costume. So I put my head down and I didn’t raise my hand to participate in that cultural festival. But as I went home that night, and I really thought about that decision that I made, and thought about the teachings of the dance, I realized that I actually had an opportunity to reshape that image of my native people and to show them my experience as a Native American, which has been through the Hoop Dance. And to show this dance in a way that is represented in today’s world, in a world of contemporary arts.
As you see, my regalia is not buck skin. It’s modern colors. I chose this to represent my personality. And I wanted to and I needed to show up to school and represent myself and my people, and my uncle, and my native culture in the way that I felt my classmates needed to see.
So I showed up that next day at school, and my teacher, her name was Ms. Johnson, and I said, “Ms. Johnson, actually, I do have something to share and I would like to participate in this cultural festival.” And she says, “All right, well, as soon as that lunch bell rings, you could step forward and go ahead and present in front of your whole school.”
And it kind of felt just like this. And I approached the quad. All my classmates were eating lunch. And I began to set down my hoops just like this. And as my classmates began to hear my hoops, they began to look over and say, “What’s Eric doing?” And I looked at Ms. Johnson and I gave her my CD, because we used CDs back then. And I said… I said, “Play my music.” And I gave her the cue.
♪ I hope you know ♪ ♪ There’s no one else like you ♪ ♪ I hope you know ♪ ♪ I never wanna see you go ♪ ♪ I hope you know ♪ ♪ You’ve always been the one ♪ ♪ I hope you know ♪ ♪ I’ll never break your heart in two ♪ ♪ I hope you know ♪ ♪ There’s no one else like you ♪ ♪ I hope you know ♪ ♪ I never wanna see you go ♪ ♪ I hope you know ♪ ♪ You’ve always been the one ♪ ♪ I hope you know ♪ ♪ I’ll never break your heart in two ♪ ♪ I hope you know ♪ ♪ There’s no one else like you ♪ Thank you.
So, then I came to school the next day after that. And one of my friends runs up to me and he says, “Eric, have you seen the school newspaper?” And he hands it to me. There’s a picture of me on the cover with my hoops with the title “Lord of the Rings.”
And it was at that moment that I realized how important it was that I found that courage to share and to have that opportunity to create a new narrative in all my classmates’ minds about who my people were, who Native American people were and are. The fact that we’re still here, and our songs, and our dancers are still alive, and they’re cool.
And a few years after that, oh, about a decade after that, I received a very unexpected phone call from an entertainment company based out of Montreal, Canada, called Cirque du Soleil. They asked me to join their touring production, Totem.
I couldn’t turn that down. So, I ran away with the circus. I toured all around the world sharing this Hoop Dance, 10 shows a week for nine years straight. I performed for millions of people all around the globe, all because I had that courage as a young boy. And thank God to my uncle, as well, who taught me that. It really has been something that has taken me on quite a journey and led me to you here today.
A big question I get asked is, “Are you still with the circus?” So, since COVID, the show, Totem, shut down, the show hasn’t returned. And I have redirected my mission and my goals with the Hoop Dance to giving it in the same way that my uncle gave me, to empowering native youth, giving them a tool to represent themselves, to be proud of themselves, and to also continue to rewrite that narrative of our people, and to represent it in a positive light. So, thank you for letting me share my story with you here today.
Crystal Echo Hawk: Oh, God, oh, God. Oh, my gosh, just amazing. And we’re just so proud of Eric, and he is, again, just such an accomplished dancer, storytelling, just like he’s such an example about the way that we can change the narrative, change the stories, change the way people think in very unexpected ways. And you should check out Eric on TEDx. He recently did that on TEDx, so spread the word. So, thank you, Eric.
All right, here we go. We’re not done. Oh, I’m so excited for this one. So excited that we have Txai Suruí here. Who, again, is an Indigenous Brazilian environmental activist and she’s called the most well-known Brazilian environmental activist in the world. And she has also received a Primetime Emmy Award for exceptional merit in documentary filmmaking as executive producer of the territory. And so right now, we’d actually like to queue up the trailer if it’s ready.
Please welcome, Txai. Thank you.
Txai Suruí: Bom dia, good morning. I will ask you to use the translation because I will speak in Portuguese.
I’m Txai Suruí. I’m an Indigenous leader of the Paiter-Suruí people and I’m the executive producer of the movie “The Territory,” which you’ve just seen the trailer for. And this film, which is a documentary that was co-produced by the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau people and also by other Indigenous Peoples from all over the world, tells the story of the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous land, which is in the state of Rondônia, the largest Indigenous land in our state, and the struggle of the Jupaú people, the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau people.
“The Territory” is a documentary that was shot on the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous land, the largest Indigenous land in the state of Rondônia. It’s a film that was co-produced by us, the Indigenous Peoples, the Jupaú people, myself and other Indigenous Peoples from around the world. This film tells the story of our resistance, of this territory, especially during the last government that we experienced in Brazil, a government that was anti-Indigenous, fascist, genocidal and which was the worst attack we have ever experienced in the history of Brazil against Indigenous Peoples since colonization.
The movie will also tell the story of my mother, an Amazonian activist and leader… I’m nervous. Because the movie will also tell the story of Ari, who was a guardian of the forest, who grew up with me, a teacher, father, son, who was murdered for defending his territory.
And I’m thrilled, because in four days, three years since Ari’s murder, we’re going to have the trial of his murder. And although the… The murderer is now on trial, the mastermind has not yet been discovered. They want to put various theories, but without saying that Ari was murdered because he was defending his territory, because he was an Indigenous leader. So… we miss him a lot, right? And we are crying out for justice. I get very emotional because, finally, the trial is approaching and we still suffer a lot. Even three years after the murder, we still miss him a lot. Because, as I said, he was our leader too, he was our friend, he was a father, he was a son.
It’s also an example of what we’ve been experiencing in Brazil. To this day, our lives continue to be threatened. We are still fighting for resistance, to protect our territory, to protect our forest and our lives. So, anyway, sorry.
I don’t just want to be sad because I think that our fight, our resistance, we also do with a lot of love and perseverance. And Indigenous art, like this healing ritual, which I really needed, thank you. It also shows how we resist every day.
So I want to talk a bit about this, about how we Indigenous Peoples are using art, films, dance, music, also as a form of resistance. Everywhere, we’ve been showing this, showing our reality, what we’ve been experiencing, retelling our story. Because, as you said, it’s like that in Brazil too, they tell a story that isn’t ours, isn’t the true story of the Indigenous Peoples. So we need to do that too, retell our story. We’ve been showing our wisdom to the world through this art, through our films, through our singing. And also presenting and showing new paths, these are paths that our world leaders often fail to see. But we are here to show these new paths and to say that they exist.
As I said, above all to show the beauty of our place, the charm of where we come from, where I come from, the Amazon, which is a place that often remains simply in people’s imaginations. And also the beauty and charm of us, the Indigenous Peoples, this people who protect the forest and who value life and dreaming. The dream is very important to us.
So we use art and we use our original knowledge, our ancestry, our history that has been passed down from our elders, from our leaders, from all our people, from all the Paiteres. As an instrument of transformation, to transform this world and, above all, to show that talking about Indigenous peoples’ rights means talking about this climate justice as well.
Ensuring that a future is possible through ancestry. That’s why we say that the future is ancestral. Because if we want to have a future, it has to go through our ancestry. We don’t just live in the forest, in nature, it’s not just our home, it’s part of who we are. We are nature-beings. My people believe that women come from trees. So I’m a tree woman too, a nature-woman. And that’s why, understanding ourselves as nature, we also know the paths to a fairer place for everyone and we also reaffirm the solutions that are already being put into practice within our territories to maintain a standing forest.
If you haven’t seen “The Territory,” it’s available on Disney, feel free to watch it and you’ll see that we are the ones who protect our territory with our lives. And if you go to Brazil, you’ll see that there’s still standing forest where it’s Indigenous territory, whether it’s demarcated or not. So we are the ones who do this protection, who remind the importance of knowing how to listen to the forest, which, as I said, talks to us through dreams and speaks through us.
That dance was the forest talking to you. Our art is also the forest talking to you. And that’s what I learned from my father, how to listen to the forest, what it’s saying to us, what the birds are saying, the trees, the stars, the rivers. That the rivers continue, they continue in our veins. So they’re part of us too. Trees are sacred, rivers too. They are alive, they have life. So we’re talking about this through our art, about sowing dreams and reforesting minds and hearts. This is something we talk about a lot within the Indigenous movement in Brazil, especially when it’s led by women.
Yesterday you saw our minister, Sonia Guajajara, who spoke about the importance of reforesting people’s minds and hearts. We have been doing this work in every way and on every front. Bringing this criticism, this reflection, which the world often fails to see. There are other worlds here. And that other paths are possible. We are complex societies and really other world. It’s about other ways of thinking, other ways of living, being and being here. And the fight of the Indigenous Peoples is a fight for everyone, it’s a fight for human rights, but above all for us, we say that we fight for life, so it’s a fight for life.
And today the whole world is looking at the Amazon, because of this moment we’re living through and understand the importance of this place. But they need to understand the importance of protecting those who protect the forest. So we have to put Indigenous Peoples and the fight against climate change at the center of these discussions that talk about climate justice, that talk about nature and the forest, and we need to dream again and understand the importance of dreaming. And that’s it, people, dreams are necessary and I invite you all to dream with me too, this dream of fighting.
Because I saw a quote from an environmental activist too, non-Indigenous, white, but he said something that made me think, that people are waiting to be saved. Maybe they see our fight and expect us to save them. But we all need to take action and we need you to support and collaborate in our daily fight for our territories. And that we also do, as I said, through our art.
So I finish with that invitation for you to dream with me. For a fairer world, with climate justice, that really looks at Indigenous Peoples, that knows how to listen to us too, just as my father said, for me to learn how to listen to nature.
Thank you. Thank you.
Crystal Echo Hawk: Txai, thank you. And just a couple lines so much, but just our struggle is our resistance and we do it with a lot of love. Txai, our prayers for your community and for justice. We want to accept your invitation to dream with you. So, thank you, thank you. Okay, boy, power’s going to keep coming.
I am so excited for Kynan to come up and share. And I think I’ve been kind of scaring him a little bit because after I saw his films, I was like, “You’re so cool.” When I met him yesterday. He was like, “Who is this weird lady I’ve never met before?” But Kynan is a 19-year-old photographer and filmmaker from the Dayak Aban tribe of the island of Borneo, Indonesia. And he picked up his first camera … when you were 12?
Kynan Tegar: Uhm yes.
Crystal Echo Hawk: And he’s been doing really powerful and amazing things since then. So with that, Kynan, floor is yours.
Kynan Tegar: Hi, everyone. My name is Kynan and I’d just like to take a moment to appreciate Txai for the story that she shared. It means so much, thank you. I also want to share my story, the story of our people, our life, our struggles, our fights, and our sorrows. I want to share the story of my home, Sungai Utik. There’s always been a narrative painting Indigenous Peoples, the positive portrayals anyways, that says that we’re in touch with nature. That we’re a part of nature, right? That we protect the culture, et cetera.
But there is an infinite amount of nuance, complexity, wisdom, sorrows, sadness, joys, and hopes that is so often just not touched on. The way that we perceive the world are shaped, are guided by our roots. We do not see the river just as water flowing. We see it as the lifeblood that our ancestors entrusted upon us. We don’t see the forest just as a piece of land with trees that you can put price tags on. We see it as the dwelling place of our ancestors. And we treat it, we treat it as such.
This way of seeing the world, this worldview, this ontology is completely different from the predominant ontology of businesses and governments throughout the world. And when these very different perspectives clash, it’s often the ones with more power, with more force who are able to enforce their worldview, their way of seeing the world upon us.
Their suppression can manifest itself in so many ways, but the most evident, the one that you can so easily see is in the destruction of the forest, in the criminalization of Indigenous Peoples, like Txai shared with us, and in so many injustices that’s been happening. One way that we can fight against systems that seem to be so totalizing is by sharing our own stories. The stories of Indigenous Peoples told by Indigenous Peoples. The stories shaped by our own worldview that is so completely different. These stories of who we are, how we, Indigenous Peoples … And I think every community has these stories of who we are, how we came to be who we are, where we come from. And there is such a richness that we can learn from this.
This was almost the case for my community, Sungai Utik. But our elders, they fought for decades. Each time a logging company came to our village, they would drive them away time and time again, over and over for the course of decades. There was a lot of bloodshed. There was a lot of loss, a lot of grief. But there was hope. There was hope. And that’s what I want to try and share with you all today, the story of hope.
By 2019, our community was on the precipice of gaining our rights to our forest. This battle had been going on for decades, generation to generation, from my grandfather, my grandmother, to my father, too, and now onto me. There was a lot of steps in the way, so many steps. And I was lucky enough to be able to be a part of that long journey. I helped with documenting the process.
And through that, finally accumulating, after all of those years, in 2020, we were able to get this, a piece of paper. But this piece of paper means a lot today in our systems of bureaucracy. It symbolizes our right. It means that our community is able to manage our territory the way we see it fit. And as such, we have the rights to our customary forest now. And so I made a film about exactly that.
That’s one of the problems that we have, really, is that there are so many stories within these communities that are often just left unheard. These stories have so much potential. These stories can be our medium for rebellion against the hegemony of the narrative. But the act of translating these stories into actual actionable material is the thing that’s lacking, especially by members from our own community.
That’s what inspired me to make my very first films when I was 13, mainly just about the rituals that we would have around the village. Is what my father told me. Like, “Kynan, why don’t you record this and then we’ll have it shown in the community?” But then it expanded to so much more and I started making films for change. And that’s exactly what we see here to this story.
My next film will be premiering next month in Mountainfilm Colorado. And I’m really excited for it. The title is “Mother, Father, Blood.” It represents how we perceive our environment. We see the land as our mother, we see the forest as our father, and we see the river as our lifeblood. And through it, I hope that you’ll be able to see it, to see the film. I hope that you’ll be able to see nature the way that we, as Indigenous Peoples, see it. Thank you.
Crystal Echo Hawk: Thank you so much, Kynan. Your work is so beautiful. And I love that line that our stories can be an act of rebellion, right? And just the power of story when it meets action. The fact that you were able to get the customary rights back to your forest is amazing. Thank you so much. All right, it just keeps getting better and better. This morning, we were in here for a rehearsal. It was a beautiful way to start the morning because Mia was in here, rehearsing, and just has the most extraordinary voice.
So, Mia is a Tongan singer and songwriter, activist and storyteller. And she’s currently working as a teacher at Tupou College, yeah, in Tonga. And so, please, welcome to the floor, Mia.
Mia Kami: Thank you. Thank you, Crystal. Hello, everyone. And it’s really hard to follow after everyone else on the panel, because they’ve basically said exactly what I was planning to say. But I’ve been in the climate space for over a decade now. And what that means is that I’ve been telling a lot of the same stories for over a decade. I’ve been pushing the same narrative for over a decade. This narrative that our Pacific Island countries are drowning. We are fighting for our lives. We are fighting for our existence. We are on the front lines of the climate crisis. We contribute the least to the climate crisis.
And yet, we are facing the brunt. It’s the same narrative over and over and over again. And it’s the same response over and over again. Oh, we’re really sorry to hear that. Can you come and sing a song so that people can cry? Do you mind just coming in and just inspiring people? We’re not sure if they’re going to do anything, but if they’re inspired, maybe they’ll do something, right?
And so, three years ago, I decided that I wanted to be a teacher. And I moved from Fiji. After living there for 14 years, I moved back home to Tonga, and I became a high school teacher at an all-boys boarding school in the middle of the bush. And we house a thousand students, a thousand boys from around the island.
And it was here where I learned a different narrative, a narrative that I don’t see very often being portrayed in spaces like this. It was a narrative of resilience that didn’t come from our pain, that didn’t come from our trauma, but instead it came from our joy, it came from our compassion, it came from the mutual love and the mutual respect that is embedded in our culture in Tonga.
And so I’d like to share a video first, to show you a glimpse of what my life is like in Tonga, and to give you a glimpse of a new narrative of what it means to be from the Pacific. And so this is Tupou College.
Student 1: Why Tupou College?
Student 2: Why Tupou College? I came to Tonga because it was a dream since childhood.
Student 3: We come here to learn the three principles of the school. Body, Mind & Spirit.
Student 4: In Toloa, we are always learning. We learn in church, we learn in the bush and we learn in the classroom. Whether it’s on the field, wherever we are, the learning continues.
Student 5: It’s unique culture and traditions.
Student 6: One of our values is mou’i ofa (loving one another). Mutual love is an important value we hold in Toloa.
Student 7: The most special one for me is for the Rugby to build up my talent in Toloa. Loving your fellow students that are younger than you, and the ones older than you, means the love returns back to you.
Student 8: The reason I came to Toloa is to learn things from the different programs that I’m not familiar with.
Student 9: The most special one for me is the Rugby Academy. To build up my talent in Toloa.
Student 10: I’m proud to be part of the Sports Academy to represent Tupou College.
Student 11: Tupou College Music Academy is very unique because together with my brothers, it’s the best music academy in Tonga.
Student 12: As we go into our community, we take with us more than what we learn in the classroom. The school teaches us skills and biblical values for us to take into our society.
♪ When I can’t find it elsewhere ♪ ♪ I find comfort here ♪ ♪ While the present is concrete ♪ ♪ The futures unclear ♪ ♪ So I carry a part of it wherever I go ♪ ♪ You see a school ♪ ♪ But I see a home ♪ ♪ I see a home ♪ ♪ And I found a home ♪ ♪ You see a school ♪ ♪ This is my home ♪
Mia Kami: Thank you. So, that was Tupou College. And my principal says that I have Tupou College cancer, which means that everywhere I go, all I talk about is Tupou College. When I think about Storytelling in Defensive of People & Planet, these are the people that we are defending. This is the people of the planet that we are defending. These are the stories that we are trying to tell, the narratives that we are reclaiming. Because like Eric said, it’s about reclaiming our narratives. Like Txai said, it’s about retelling our stories. It’s how we, as artists, have been able to tell our stories through art. And it’s not just for us, it’s for the generation that will come after us.
And so to finish, I’d like to sing a song that I had written for my sister. She’s younger than me, very talkative. Doesn’t shut up about the fact that I wrote a song for her. But this particular song is very special to me, that I hold very dear to my heart, because it is almost like my love letter to the descendants that will come after me. It’s called “Generations.”
And I won’t speak for much longer because I think that a lot of what I want to say, and what I’m hoping will wrap up what we’ve been trying to say very nicely, is that our stories belong to us, and it’s our duty as artists, as Indigenous people, as specific people, to retell those stories so that we may reclaim the narratives that were taken away from us so long ago. And so this is called “Generations” and I hope you enjoy it.
♪ There’s only so much that I could say ♪ ♪ But I’ll keep on trying anyway ♪ ♪ There’s only so much that I could do ♪ ♪ So I’ll try my best to carry you ♪ ♪ Choosing to be silent just ’cause it’s convenient ♪ ♪ Still makes you complicit ♪ ♪ So how can we fix this? ♪ ♪ How will I fix this? ♪ ♪ I, I, I know what I have to do ♪ ♪ I, I, I know what I have to do ♪ ♪ I, I, I know what I have to do ♪ ♪ To make sure you don’t live what we went through ♪ ♪ Brave this battle so you don’t have to ♪ ♪ ‘Cause when I fight for me ♪ ♪ I fight for you ♪ ♪ I fight for you, you ♪ ♪ There is so much I must unlearn ♪ ♪ Generational curses at every turn ♪ ♪ And if I wanna make sure we survive ♪ ♪ Gotta fight to keep the right things alive ♪ ♪ Choosing to be silent just ’cause it’s convenient ♪ ♪ Still makes you complicit ♪ ♪ So how can we fix this? ♪ ♪ I’ll fix this ♪ ♪ I, I, I know what I have to do ♪ ♪ I, I, I know what I have to do ♪ ♪ I, I, I know what I have to do ♪ ♪ To make sure you don’t live what we went through ♪ ♪ Brave this battle so you don’t have to ♪ ♪ ‘Cause when I fight for me ♪ ♪ I fight for you ♪ ♪ Yeah, I know what I have to do ♪ ♪ To make sure you don’t live what we went through ♪ ♪ Brave this battle so you don’t have to ♪ ♪ ‘Cause when I fight for me, I fight ♪ ♪ Choosing to be silent ♪ ♪ Just ’cause it’s convenient ♪ ♪ Still makes you complicit ♪ ♪ So how, let’s go fix this ♪ ♪ How will we fix this? ♪ ♪ I, I, I know what I have to do ♪ ♪ I, I, I know what I have to do ♪ ♪ I, I, I know what I have to do ♪ ♪ To make sure you don’t live what we went through ♪ ♪ I’ll brave this battle so you don’t have to ♪ ♪ ‘Cause when I fight for me ♪ ♪ I fight for you ♪ ♪ Yeah, I know what we will do ♪ ♪ To brave this battle so you don’t have to ♪ ♪ I’ll brave this battle so you don’t have to ♪ ♪ ‘Cause when I fight for me ♪ ♪ I fight for you ♪
Crystal Echo Hawk: Aw, so beautiful.
Mia Kami: Thank you.
Crystal Echo Hawk: There can’t be a dry eye in this house at this point . I just want to say thank you, Mia, because you bring up something that I know that we, as Indigenous Peoples, always deal with. And it’s like everybody, when we talk about narrative, they want to define us by our trauma, by the history. They want us to show up and be magical, and mystical, and dance, and pray, right? But that our stories have power and they have power, first and foremost, for us in this process of reclamation. But they have power in medicine for the world, yeah? That’s why we’re all here.
So without further ado, let’s come up on the stage and have a bit of a conversation for a few minutes. So Eric, Mia, Kynan, Txai, come on up. And to the panelists, make sure you bring your translators up. How are you all feeling? It’s good, it’s really good. I mean, whew, I got to catch my breath here. I think, God, I was just so affected by everything that you, each, had to share, and say, and show.
And I think about one of the things, Txai, I think you said that our dance, we hear our forest, right? The songs, we hear our forest. Just the power of how all of this is expressed through these different mediums of storytelling. And I guess, I think a lot of times, a lot of people talk about storytelling and they’re like, “What is that? How does that help anything?” Right?
And I think like a lot of people talk about narrative, and that’s a new thing for a lot of people out there, particularly for people with deep pockets who have the ability to invest, or policy makers that can make change. And I would love to briefly hear from all of you, because I’m hearing we’re starting to run out of time. But you all are doing very powerful things through dance, through film, through music. Can you just give some examples of why you think that’s effective? How you feel like you’ve moved kind of hearts, and minds, and people, to do things? And Eric, can we start with you?
Eric Michael Hernandez: Yeah, I think storytelling, since the beginning of time, has been such an incredible way to get a point across, to inspire. I feel it’s a great way to open somebody’s heart. I use my dance and my dance has allowed me to kind of have people put their guards down, and then I’m able to kind of speak to them in a different way where almost they’re more open, more receiving. So that’s what’s been very powerful for my dance and my storytelling, is kind of discarding people and allowing them to receive it in a genuine way. So it kind of allows them to open up.
Crystal Echo Hawk: I love that, I love that. We have it, the translation? Okay.
Txai Suruí: The importance of this for me, an example is “The Territory,” right? As I said, the Amazon was very much in people’s imagination. They didn’t know our reality. So when they saw “The Territory,” which is a documentary about our lives and that the movie ends, but our fight continues after the movie, they were able to understand a little of our reality, a little of what we were going through. And with this movie, we went to more than 100 festivals and won an Emmy. So we were able to take our voice to the whole world. And in Brazil, especially, we are living through a war of narratives. And the narrative they tell about us isn’t the real one. I think it’s very important, and for a long time this narrative was told from the other side. Now it’s us telling our story through our eyes and taking it to the whole world.
Crystal Echo Hawk: Sorry about the interrupt, but I just want to pause there because I think as you’re going down, but part of what IllumiNative does is we study the power of narrative. We’ve done research around it, just what you just said is that the power of narrative and why we should care about story is because it’s what’s used to rationalize power, how power is exercised, who counts and who doesn’t, who gets money, who gets resources, whose rights get to be protected. This is the power of what each of these amazing people are doing. And I just wanted to call that out and say thank you. And Kynan, Mia, we want you to build on that from there in your own way, yeah.
Kynan Tegar: Yeah, I agree completely what you just said, because to me, stories in general is like how we perceive the world, right, how we make sense of the world and the way that we perceive it is unique to our own individual cultures and there’s so much that we can learn from that. But just like you said earlier, story has a lot of correlations with power. And I think in this context, it’s able to show us like what’s possible. It’s able to open up our collective imagination to the things that are possible. Through my film, I hope that I was able to show that here’s a community that was able to go up against the systems that seems to be entirely totalizing and won, that there’s a possibility that change is possible, especially in the current context back home in Indonesia where we’re going through a lot of change where it seems to be headed in one direction because I think that stories can never be taken out of there context. And that’s very important to understand.
Crystal Echo Hawk: Thank you for that, yeah, Mia?
Mia Kami: Again, as the last speaker, I get stuck with everyone already saying the main points. No, but again, I totally echo what everyone else is saying. And for where I come from in the Pacific, we are all storytellers. All of us, everyone in this room, at our core, we are all storytellers and we all have our stories to tell. And I just think that being able to do that through art is a gift. And coming from a culture that is very dependent on art as a means of communication, we tell our stories through song. We tell our stories through dance. And in that way, by giving space to artists to be able to do that, we suddenly have a space that would not have been available to us 10 years ago. It’s suddenly like people need artists in this space. Their desire is that they have an artist in this space to tell these stories. Because if we’re all being very realistic, speeches are boring. I don’t want to hear about a presented story through a keynote speech where they stood at the front for 25 minutes and did a presentation. When we use art, we’re not tapping into here, we’re tapping into here. And so, yeah.
Crystal Echo Hawk: I’m so glad you said that because I really, really hope for the people that, I always get approached like, because with IllumiNative, we’ve been doing this work and people are like, “I don’t understand. “What is the power of narrative? “Why do you do this work? “How do you measure how it has impact?” And it’s exactly what you said. It’s because we get so caught up as in our advocacy and our policy making philanthropy thinking just solely with our head, right? But if we’re really going to have transformative change, if we’re really going to save our planet and all the things, we have to start thinking with our hearts. That is seriously what’s wrong in all the polarization that’s happening all over the world right now, the power of art, culture, things that tap into something has the ability sometimes just to let people actually hear as opposed, like you said, to some boring 25-minute speech, right?
And I think about as we’re all sitting here and there’s also, you have everyone in this audience. There’s actually another room where people are watching, and then this is going to be shown globally to a live streaming audience. And I really think about you were saying, the invitation to dream, right? We need to dream, right, along with all of these folks. But I think about we also have to have a call to action here too, right? It’s not enough to dream. We have to have a call to action. We have to have actually a call to do something. And I think, Mia, part of that is like you’re saying that in your song, how are we going to fix this together? Because I think a lot of times when I hear these stories of these amazing activists, particularly our relatives from the South in so many places all across the world, and we’re like, “Oh, we’re so glad they’re doing that over there for us,” but we’re going to keep consuming, and we’re going to keep acting the same old way, right? This is something that we all really have to do together.
And I think, again, I’m just like mercenary for a higher good. I think about my brother and relative, Michael Johnson, over there. He calls himself a liberator of assets for Indigenous Peoples, right? So I’m making a call for liberation of assets for Indigenous Peoples here. But really, I’d love to hear from each one of you, what is your call to action for everyone? And particularly, what types of support and investment partnership do your communities and storytellers and artists like yourselves need to reach bigger audiences, right, because that’s the biggest thing. We need your work, your medicine to reach the globe. I don’t know, Eric, you want to kick us off?
Eric Michael Hernandez: Yeah, I think my biggest motivation and my mission comes from my personal experience being a native who grew up in an urban setting outside of a reservation. And there’s a high percentage of natives that grew up off of reservations that don’t necessarily have the ability to connect to their culture and their traditions. I’ve had the opportunity over the last six months to work with a group in Los Angeles called UAII, United American Indian… And I’ve been doing drum and dance workshops with them. And we had kind of a 8-week program where I worked with the kids and taught Hoop Dancing. And when it was all finished, a lot of the parents were like, “Our kids want to keep learning the Hoop Dance and we want to keep doing this.” And UAII was kind of like, “Oh, well, when it comes around next year, we’ll get started again.”
And I also worked with another nonprofit in New Mexico called the Lightning Boy Foundation, who also works with and does Hoop Dancing. And I think that my goal and my mission is to create a platform like that for myself to be able to kind of facilitate. I’m in the process of building a nonprofit and I want to be able to build my own schedule and my own curriculum around our dances and our traditions, and not just the Hoop Dance, singing, and many other dances, art forms that give kids such an incredible tool to be proud of who they are and to rewrite the narrative.
So I think that’s the support that I would feel that I need moving into a space like that as I continue to establish and get approved with all this paperwork getting into a nonprofit kind of moving forward, whether it’s having a space in Los Angeles where I’m able to facilitate and do these kinds of workshops and bring people in, and maybe it’s also telling stories through film in different media forms, a space, a collaborative urban, native Indigenous space on the West Coast in Los Angeles. That’s me dreaming and yeah, that’s the dream right there.
Crystal Echo Hawk: Thank you.
Txai Suruí: There are many projects and dreams. What’s lacking, I think, is support. Because besides making films, and I think that “The Territory” shows a little of our work, as I said, today we, through the organization of which I am a member, I am the coordinator, we work with 22 other Indigenous Peoples, both in my state, Rondônia, and in the south of Amazonas and the northwest of Mato Grosso. And today we do this work of territorial protection, of territorial monitoring, also using technology to our advantage, such as drones, GPS, cameras, not only to make films, but also to protect our territory.
We’re also the ones who plant, I learned this from my people, I also learned it from my elders, my parents. So we also do this work of reforesting, not just reforesting people’s minds and hearts, but reforesting the land itself, giving back to it what we took from. We also work with agro-forestry, we also work with restoration within our Indigenous territories and we also work with empowering youth and women who are the most affected by the climate crisis today.
So we work with training these young people, political education, empowering these young people, so that they can also participate in spaces like the COP, so that they can also be in spaces like, for example, here, and be able to talk to you, who also have this power to help us.
We work so that these young Indigenous people can reach these spaces, these Indigenous women can reach these spaces. And today, in Brazil, despite a new government, we are suffering because we have a much more conservative Congress than that of the previous government, of the Bolsonaro government, which is continuing, turning into law these death projects that want to put an end to the demarcation of our territories, that want to continue exploiting our territories, whether through mining or by taking over the land itself. For example, the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau territory, which the film shows, has more than 20,000 head of illegal cattle inside that territory, which are being sent here, to Europe, and also to the United States. So we’re also doing this advocacy work, against this Congress that wants to end our lives.
And all of this needs a lot of support, all of this also needs money, it also needs our voices to be amplified, it also needs the support of organizations and of international pressure itself and of all the people. So, as I said, we’ve been fighting for a long time, with very little, and I keep thinking, if we perhaps had the resources that others have, imagine the transformation we could really make.
Crystal Echo Hawk: Thank you, thank you. Kynan?
Kynan Tegar: I think it was Sandra yesterday, an elder from Australia who said that, who asked the question of how should Indigenous Peoples, especially youth, interact with things like technology, globalization, et cetera. And that was a really interesting question because to me, I think the answer is that it’s something that we can take advantage of. It’s something that we can use to take back the narrative. The problem that we’re facing is that there’s such an asymmetry in the access to it, right? The access to be able to tell the stories in a way that can reach a lot of people. The platform to do it is what’s truly lacking. And that’s what we need to really work on. There are amazing organizations like if not us, then who are doing that? We’re giving Indigenous Peoples platforms to tell our own stories.
Nia Tero also do a lot of great work in that regard. And also, the organization that I’m a part of, AMAN, we have a homecoming program, sort of similar to what Eric was telling about, where a lot of Indigenous Peoples, including me, we start to live in the cities, leaving the communities, whether it be for studying, whether it be for finding jobs, and ultimately leaving the communities. That’s what AMAN is trying to address with their homecoming program to inspire, to bring back the youths, the future generations, as has been said, to come back to our communities to realize that there’s such a richness of potential. And one of the ways that we can do that, that we’re trying to do that is through films, through stories because there was another brilliant quote from the other day session, at the Indigenous session, the storytelling session, sorry, that said that the world is narrated by far too few people. And I agree completely with that, and that’s what we need to collectively work on.
Crystal Echo Hawk: Thank you for that, yeah, yeah. You keep getting the final word, Mia.
Mia Kami: That’s okay. I think the big need for… I’m speaking as an artist, but also as an educator, I’d really like to see more support in incorporating the art of storytelling in education, teaching our young children and the next generation that art is not what it once was before. And because when I was growing up, if I were to say like, “Oh, when I grow up, I want to sing a song at a conference and hopefully inspire some people.” My parents would’ve looked at me like, “Go and get a real job, all right?” “Go and get study like a real degree,” right?
But then I think it’s really important that we can tell our young people, at an age where they are still able to develop and learn, that the potential to be a storyteller isn’t just a potential anymore because we are all storytellers. And so providing the means and the resources that would allow young people to see that and to learn it at that stage. Because I would love if I could go into a classroom and be like, “Boys, today, we are not going to be reading Shakespeare. We’re going to be reading more of our Pacific writers. We’re going to be looking at how we tell our stories through poetry, how we tell our stories through music, through dance.” And if that becomes a part of our education systems, I don’t know, the next decade, I think I would say that that’s our action. We’ve done what we need to. And yeah, this has just been a really cool session.
Crystal Echo Hawk: Hasn’t it?
Mia Kami: Yeah.
Crystal Echo Hawk: Didn’t I tell you this is going to be the best session at Skoll?
Well, and as we start to wind up just a couple reflections, and I want to say thank you, Mia, because we all are storytellers, right, in different ways, even for people like me that are not musically creatively inclined at all. My use and art of story is through organizing and the work. We’re all creative, we’re all organizer, we’re all storytellers. But I love, in the words of Taika Waititi, the first Indigenous man to win an Oscar for his film, “Jojo Rabbit,” Indigenous Peoples are the original storytellers. And there’s so much ancestral wisdom. Now, it doesn’t mean that every Indigenous people you see walking down the street has the solution to everything with our planet. But when we really think about traditional knowledge from all of Indigenous Peoples from all over the world, right?
Yeah, it happens, right? How many us have been stopped thinking we have the solution or can do the rain dance, but we really need to tap into that. And I was just so moved yesterday by the talk by the Indigenous minister from Brazil. And she was talking about, well, Indigenous Peoples are 5% of the planet, but we protect, I think it was between 82%, yes, of the biodiversity. So it really is like, again, once the disproportionate burden is on Indigenous Peoples for this planet, but yet we receive amongst the least resources and investment and support for this work. And if the work of all these folks and their communities and the people that aren’t in the room that are right now, and Sandra, I’ve been learning about her work and how many land defenders that their organization helps. It is really our duty and our responsibility to both dream and do something because we are all on this planet.
And so I just really hope today because every one of these amazing young people have given us all some medicine here today. We’re going to carry this medicine. We’re going to like have a moment. We’re going to be like, “Whoa, how did Eric do that?” But the medicine, the healing, you talked about healing. Just the power of your words, your tears today. And never apologize for crying because we’re here with you and we pray for your community for justice, and for the power of your images and your vision for who you are. Thank you for picking up a camera at 12 and for the things you do in your community. And Mia, your song, we’ll be playing. And I think that is part of our call to action. How are we going to fix this together, right?
So as you get ready to leave today, and we’re all running through Skoll, what is the medicine, right, that you’re not only going to take, but that you’re going to give back, right? What does that mean in terms of the work of your own community, the work of the institutions that you’re working within and leading and guiding for the deep pockets and resources you might have responsibility to? And I really ask you, please, if there’s any way that you can, each one of them gave you a very specific call to action, please support their work in their communities. And also, look, Indigenous Peoples are often right in front of you in your own neighborhoods, right? Sometimes we say that in the States like, “Hey, Kynan, we’re still here,” right?
Look around and ask and be inquisitive and learn, because IllumiNative and as our mission as we go, as we think about organizing and transformational change and taking on systemic racism and unjust economies and inequality, right? And we think about policy and advocacy and all of these things, and the United Nations, but we can’t forget the hard work, right? We can’t forget that we’re human beings and the power of our hearts and our spirits. And when we really mobilize that, all things are imaginable. So the power of story cannot do it solely on its own, that’s one part. And that’s oftentimes how we get the heart activated. But it’s really the power of story when it reaches mass people, right? So we got to figure out distribution, how we get these stories out to larger audiences.
But when all those things combine with action, as my mentor, Judith LeBlanc, who’s from the Caddo Nation says, that’s when we create magic movement moments, that’s when transformative change can happen. So that is our call to action. So will you, please, stand with me and let’s give them a roaring round of applause.
