On Modern American Indian Life

The intent of “American Indian 101,” a panel discussion about contemporary American Indian life and its portrayal in the media, was made clear early on when moderator Brian Wescott — an actor-writer from the Athabascan nation — held up a newspaper from his native Alaska.

The front-page coverage of a recent conference there on Indians was illustrated with a photo, not of the heavyweight political attendees, but of an Indian troupe doing an Elvis Presley-inspired dance.

“We’re not asking, why aren’t there more American Indian writers? Why are there stereotypes?” said Wescott, a Writers Guild member via his documentary miniseries Native Century. “We want to open the door, and say, ‘Look at this unexpected, modern world that our people are in now.’”

Indeed, “Contemporary, not historical,” was the theme of the evening, held November 9 at the Television Academy’s Conference Center in North Hollywood and co-sponsored by the Academy’s Diversity Committee and the American Indian Writers Committee of the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW).

More gallery pictures here: American Indian 101.

Panelists included Gregory Cruz, who plays Detective Bobby Stillwater on TNT’s Saving Grace; Jason Gavin of the Blackfeet nation, a writer for USA’s Royal Pains whose other credits include NBC’s Friday Night Lights and ABC’s According to Jim; Nancy Miller, Saving Grace creator-executive producer and attorney Angela Riley of the Potawatomi nation, a Visiting Professor of Law at UCLA and acting associate director of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center.

One can’t get much more modern than Los Angeles; the county has the largest urban population of American Indians in the U.S., about 120,000, Riley noted. “The balance is starting to shift: there is now a slightly more urban population than reservation. So think about writing about Indians in urban settings,” she suggested.

Also contemporary: the crime procedural show, in this case, Saving Grace. Set in Miller’s native Oklahoma, the cast is diverse because, Miller said, she instructs her casting director to work that way:

“You’ve got to get writers and casting directors to think about this,” she emphasized. “It’s not that people say, ‘I’m not going to put an Indian in my script,’ it’s that they don’t think about putting an Indian in their script.”

Miller conceived Cruz’s character as the “grownup of the group, the family man, the most settled in all the craziness. That’s Greg, his presence.”

For Cruz, an East Los Angeles native of Indian and Mexican heritage, the series role “has been a huge opportunity for me – to do my work, be challenged by the whole ensemble and rise to their level. We’re not billing Bobby as ‘the native guy.’ He’s just one of the group.”

Cruz believes there are more opportunities now for American Indians, but said he has long encountered resistance because of the perceptions that Indian-related projects won’t make money.

There has been progress – Gavin said that there was no WGAW American Indian committee eight years ago, when he moved to Los Angeles. Nowadays, “I urge people to tap into stories in our community. That’s what the best writers do. They research and learn.”

There’s more at stake than just compelling drama and entertaining comedy, he added. “We grew up with stories that were not our own. We have influence. We can make a difference to kids, [who wonder,] ‘Can I go to college?’ ‘Can I get away from the life I have?’ Our stories are universal.”

The evening began with a blessing and song by Tokala Clifford, an actor of the Lakota nation. •