8 JANUARY 1, 2003
Smoke Signals
Grand Ronde Facilities Featured In Award-winning OPB Documentary
'The Way Home" shows how Tribal Elders benefit from range of facilities.
By Ron Karten
The Way Home: Finding Your Place in the
Golden Years" aired on Oregon Public Broad
casting on November 27, 2001. The documen
tary followed families facing their living options
in their so-called 'golden' years. It dealt with
such issues as how family adapts to changes
when parents can no longer handle an inde
pendent lifestyle, the importance of belonging
to a community, transportation and health care.
The Tribal Wellness Center, the Community
Center and Elder Housing at the Confederated
Tribes of Grand Ronde were all features of one
segment of the film, showing how these inte
grated facilities play an important part in the
lives of our Tribal Elders.
The documentary, produced by Jessica Mar
tin, won a "Freddie Award in New York, which
has been described as "the Oscar of health care
filmmaking," and also the Helen Hayes Award
for Outstanding Health Consumer Entry. For
the Helen Hayes Award, "The Way Home"
competed against work produced by Dateline
NBC, HBO, Discover, TLC, ABC's Good Morn
ing America and ABC Primetime News.
"I couldn't believe it," said Martin.
The Providence Health System with support
from the NW Health Foundation and the Or
egon Department of Human Services, seniors
and People with Disabilities sponsored the ef
fort. B
"Restoring the Sacred Circle" is Best Public
Service film at Indian Film Institute
Grand Ronde Tribal Elder Kathryn Harrison plays prominent role in award winning film about Elder Abuse Prevention.
I
By Ron Karten
The film premiered at the National Indian
Council on Aging Conference held September 5
in Albuquerque, NM. Tribal Elders came back
enthralled with the production enthralled and
educated.
On November 9, "Restoring the Sacred Circle;
Responding to Elder Abuse in American Indian
Communities" was
named best "Public
Service" film at the
American Indian
Film Institute
(AIFI)inSan Fran
cisco. The Confed
erated Tribes of
Grand Ronde
(CTGR) partici
pated in both
events.
One reason was
that Elder abuse is
much on people's
minds these days, here as elsewhere. A surprise
for many who saw the video was the prominent
role played by Grand Ronde Tribal Elder
Kathryn Harrison, CTGR's former Tribal Coun
cil Chair.
"Much as I enjoyed doing my part," said
Harrison, "I felt it was sad that we were doing
it. But if we have one poor Elder understand
that they have rights, then the whole thing was
worth it."
Harrison was the prominent face on the cover
of the video, and maybe the most visible "non
actor" starring in this video made almost com
pletely with non-actors. The one exception was
narrator Gary Farmer, a Canadian and mem
ber of the Cayuga Nation within the
Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy.
Farmer has worked as an actor, director, pro
ducer and journalist, including appearances in
such movies as Smoke Signals, and such televi
sion productions as China Beach, Miami Vice,
The Job, The Pretender and The West Wing.
The video was developed in response to one of
the ten needs identified at a special caucus of
American Indians held at the U.S. Department
of Justice Symposium on Elder Victimization in
October 2000, in Washington, D.C., said Aileen
Kaye, Abuse Prevention Program Coordinator
for the Oregon Department of Human Services.
"I heard all these terrible stories about Indian
people but all these other people too," said
Harrison. "We all kind of looked around and
said, this is worse that what we thought."
The film ultimately came out as one concrete
result, but in the process, the state also worked
with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde
(CTGR) on Elder Abuse Training, said Kaye.
"The result of that training has now become a
model training program for the country."
The training program is useful for Tribal so
cial service providers, Tribal police, Tribal judges,
victim assistance staff, health workers and other
medical personnel that assist Tribes in respond
ing to the problem of Elder abuse; said Kaye.
Kaye's office is now in the process of sending
copies of the video to all of the country's 560
Tribes. And copies of the training also are
1
being made available.
On the way to the success of this project,
Director Phil Lucas, a Choctaw film director
based in Issaquah, Washington, encountered re
sistance from both individuals sought to act in
the production and from Tribes, both worried be
cause the issue is so controversial. "I think an
awful lot of (the chal
lenge) was finding
people to cooperate. I
think there was quite a
bit of reluctance," said
Lucas.
Ironically, however,
the presentation "comes
off really real," said
Lucas, because those in
the film were principally
not actors. "In Albuquer
que, there was not a dry
eye in the place."
The production devel
oped out of a $75,000
U.S. Department of Jus
tice grant targeting out
reach with Tribes re
garding Elder abuse,
said Kaye.
Lucas credited Kaye
and Lee G. LaFontaine,
Grants Manager at the
State Human Resources
Department. "Working
with the Oregon State
Department of Human
Services, that's the best
I've ever worked with
any government," said
Lucas. "They were aces
to work with."
And Kaye said it never
would have come off
without Harrison, who was Tribal Council Chair
at the time, or the help throughout the produc
tion of Tribal members Bonnie Tom and Sharon
Wood, both of the Tribe's Social Services Depart
ment. And everybody praised the Yakama Nation,
which was only slated to be the setting for part
of the video, but helped out again when another
Tribe set to be a loca
tion in the film
backed out at the last
minute.
Representatives of
the Yakama Nation,
Confederated Tribes
of Warm Springs,
Confederated Tribes
of Grand Ronde,
Trenton Indian Ser
vice Area, Nez Perce Tribe, Quinault Indian Na
tion, Klamath Tribes and the National Indian
Council on Aging (NICOA) all served on an ad
visory committee for the video.
Phil Lucas, Director
His credits also include the influential "The Honor of All," the 1987
film about the Alkalai Lake Band Indians based in British Columbia,
who at the time of the filming were 100 percent alcoholic, according
to Lucas, and today are 95 percent sober. That film launched the
sobriety movement in Indian Country, and pioneered the use of non
actors in film, said Lucas.
Lucas credits his interest in film to the epic western film, Stage
coach, starring John Wayne, which came out when he was 12. At
tending a predominantly Indian theater, Lucas saw everybody
himself included - cheering for the cavalry. "I walked the ten miles
home," said Lucas. "I wondered, 'how could we be so manipulated?'"
Now, he uses those same techniques of drama and character build
ing to make his films effective.
"When you have an emotional event that touches somebody's heart,
they can change. Nobody's behavior ever changed by an intellectual
argument," he said.
He also noted that many Elders experience abuse, but do not know
it is abuse. "I thought they were just being mean,' is a common reac
tion," said Lucas. "Until they have a name for it, they don't know
that it exists. That's what this video does. It gives it a name."
Wide-ranging interests lead Lucas to some of the most important
issues in Indian country. "One of the things that really intrigues
me," said Lucas, "I read a thing from the Census Bureau that 80
percent of Indians will be in cities. What does that mean for lan
guage, culture, for extended family, Tribal structure, for sovereignty?"
Lucas currently is senior producer for Native American Public Tele
communications based in Lincoln, Nebraska, which is developing a
two-part project Native Americans in the 21st Century for the
Public Broadcasting System. The first part deals with Cherokees on
a reservation in rural North Carolina, and the second looks at some
of the 170,000 Indians living in Los Angeles. "We've got all the is
sues revealed through individual lives," said Lucas. The film is ex
pected to air in late fall or early winter.