Information to the whereabouts of the long lost Hopi village of Los Angeles has surfaced in the L.A. Times. But think twice if you would like to live there. Rent is steep! Check it out: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2011/12/atwater-bungalows.html
Yesterday evening I discovered that the First Peoples New Directions in Indigenous Studies initiative featured BEYOND THE MESAS on their blog! If you haven’t done so already, be sure to check out their website.
Their blog is a wonderful resource for those who want to stay informed about the latest books on indigenous studies, with an emphasis on books published by the University of Arizona Press, University of North Carolina Press, University of Minnesota Press, and Oregon State University Press.
One of the books that they recently highlighted was Jodi Byrd’s The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism (University of Minnesota Press, 2011), which is due to come out in just a short few weeks. Jodi is my colleague and good friend at the University of Illinois.
Again, many thanks to Natasha Varner, Program Coordinator for the initiative, for spreading the word about BEYOND THE MESAS and other Native authored blogs!
Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert
On this Thanksgiving Day 2010, I am thankful for all the people who have visited my blog in the past year. Since I launched BEYOND THE MESAS in November 2009, the blog has received 13,070 “hits” and readers have posted 104 comments on 68 posts. The most visited posts this year have been about Hopi policies on photography, Hopi runners, and Hopi educator Polingaysi Qoyawayma.
Kwakwha, (“Thank you”)
Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert
Over the past few days several people have visited my blog in search of photographs that I took at this year’s Louis Tewanima Footrace. This is just a quick note to let people know that I will post the photos on my blog no later than tomorrow, Wednesday September 8, at 6PM Hopi time.
One of the reasons the film producers created Beyond the Mesas was to provide a teaching tool for instructors to use in the classroom. Have you shown BTM in your class? If so, how did your students respond? What questions did the film evoke? What did your students like or dislike about the film? Did you show this film in conjunction with reading assignments (articles, books, etc.)? I remember in 2006, I showed the film to a group of college students, and one of the non-Native students in the audience said to me: “Your film seems really biased,” and I responded, “You’re right, there is a definite Hopi bias to the film.” Of course, this student was not referring to a Hopi bias per se, but he was having a difficult time understanding why several of the people in the film had positive things to say about their time at off-reservation Indian boarding schools.
BEYOND THE MESAS, LLC 