Native America

Manny Wheeler fights to preserve his people's language by dubbing popular movies like "Star Wars" into Navajo. In looking for their next project, he and his partners turn to westerns, a genre that has a history of misrepresenting Native peoples as primitive, vicious, and violent. "A Fistful of Dollars," the film that launched the Spaghetti Western is about to become the first Frybread Western.

Arigon Starr is an award-winning singer songwriter, a stage and radio playwright, and the creator of the cult comic book Super Indian which she also illustrated. She is one of many Native women leading in the world of art and fashion, in government, and on the front lines fighting to protect Mother Earth.

Passamaquoddy Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Donald Soctomah visits an abandoned Catholic Church in Sipayik, Maine. His tribe has tried to reclaim the building but the diocese has refused. Regardless, the tribe has turned the church into a memorial for the many Passamaquoddy children who never returned from church-run boarding schools.

Season 2 of Native America is a groundbreaking portrait of contemporary Indian Country. This four-part Native directed series reveals the beauty and power of today’s Indigenous world. Smashing stereotypes, it follows the brilliant engineers, bold politicians, and cutting-edge artists who draw upon Native tradition to build a better 21st century.

Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians archaeologist Beau Carroll and Cherokee Nation citizen and historian Julie Reed explore a cave containing some of the earliest evidence of Cherokee writing. Tom Belt, an expert on the Cherokee writing system, translates the words, but to understand what they mean, he needs to provide the when and why they were written.

In a club in Brooklyn, Bear Witness and Tim 2oolman Hill, the duo behind The Halluci Nation, an electronic music group, are putting a new spin on a traditional beat and taking power over how they represent themselves and Indigenous people. The Halluci Nation performs "R.E.D.," "Stay," and "Sisters" in this extended performance.

Betty Osceola draws on generations of Miccosukee teachings about respecting all living things and protecting the world in which we live. She leads prayer walks to raise awareness of threats to the environment and to organize people to save the Florida Everglades.

Native America Series Producer Daniel Golding is at the Library of Congress’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center to document the recovery of Passamaquoddy language recordings from 19th century wax cylinders but the team has also found something deeply personal to him. They surprise him with 100-year-old recordings of his great-grandfather singing in the Quechan language.