nachomama

Watching 3rd episode now. I guess daddy didn’t survive. And good grief could the brother have NOT been a creep? And wtf did mama do after?! Holy crap. One day you got 4 kids then none and no husband. Had to send away the oldest so he wouldn’t get taken.

I think 6 episodes. They are tough to get through.

I’m glad I grew up after this time. I want to say humanity has advanced…not always convinced that’s true. Where I grew up white peoples were the minority. This is not scooping but a friend of mine fell at volleyball practice and bonked her noggin hard enough to give herself a concussion and amnesia. I went to her house and she was scared of me. She remembered her older sister but not her younger sister. They kept asking her questions about family, school etc they were waiting for her mom to get home from work to take her to the doctor. Had been told “do not let her go to sleep” I was being melodramatic but what if she never remembered me? She was physically scared of me. She whispered and asked who was the scary white lady. And I was crushed. Literally 2 hours later she was fine and we laugh and laugh but holy shit you do not know how scared I was. What if she disappeared from my life if was taken ? She is still the most important person in my life and we live 3000 miles away from each other now. People matter, these thousands of families…the impact is enormous

I want to watch the documentary but it fucks me up to put real names and faces on these situations. I’m not quite as old but in my childhood my parents let us out as wild animals in the morning and pretty much didn’t see us again until it got dark. We rode our bikes or did incredibly stupid stuff all day that could have ended up getting us hurt or killed all the time. And they were not “negligent”. We lived in New Mexico. All my little friends are Navajo doing same stupid shit as me. Kills me to think that if we screwed up enough somebody was gonna snatch up a friend and they don’t ever come home but if I was white they just go drop me off my parents and say “darned kids”

Second episode not as hard to watch. (I hope daddy didn’t die) I did google, Esther/bezhig was 5 ish when she was adopted. The little girl playing her, I get it, is older so I was wondering how old she was supposed to be or how much she could remember depending on her age. I was thinking 7-8 ish but supposed to be 5. I get that Dora was kind of the baby and would not remember much.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cyq41SxJl2A/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== check it out. Jim chee sighting

It’s a sad world where I’m like holy cow I think Canada was worse. Generally I think of Canadians as being so nice. And I can’t say definitively they were worse. But every time I hear another report of burial sites of the children at the residential schools I silently pray it wasn’t the USA. Doesn’t make it any better. A child is still a child. They had some kind of “homecoming “ for the remains of a bunch of children found in Oklahoma. From nearly a hundred years ago but they gave them a funeral and it just breaks your heart

Oh yeah. I understand the distrust. And nope poverty wasn’t a criteria. It wasn’t so rare to not have plumbing or electricity because it was prohibitively expensive to get so remotely. Their house was clean. The kids weren’t abused. As long as the kids attended school there should have been no problem. Other than the one sick child hidden in a crawl space. That looked bad but we obviously see why she did it. Do we even know which kid our adult is? Was she the youngest sick one or the oldest girl who tried to warn her brother not to shoot the car?

Same. I’ll wait. We can learn how to be Joe leaphorn

Check this out!

They definitely would have to create their own database. All my friends who are Navajo, there just isn’t enough data to compare and it comes back telling them they’re Asian and European. I’m sure there’s European and if the whole continental drift/traveling bands of indigenous people literally walked from the other side of the globe over the Russian peninsula then maybe southeast Asian?? I think the more dna testing and more indigenous people get added the system might catch up. But for now they would have to concentrate on their own people. I do know there’s a Navajo guy who made an app for tracking clans. It’s not dna and quite frankly I have no earthly clue how the clan system works. I know it’s matriarchal. You are born into your mothers clan. Then depending on who you marry you become their clan. Obituaries are fascinating. But it isn’t dna related. And I have no idea how other tribes/peoples do it.

It’s rare that I do anything but generally yes I’m a smaller venue person. I like blimpies too. First thing I ever ate here. College had a little meet and greet and we got a half a blimpie sammich, literally first sub of my entire life. did you know Qdoba still exists? Quiznos in witnesss protection but qdoba still kickin.

With only 1 episode I’m hoping that her “adoptive” parents were unaware. Her mom seems to love her and even though I would come unglued on the future mother in law she’s kinda sweeping it under the rug. I don’t think she considers her daughter less-than. The fiancée seems to love her.

Very first episode might be my undoing. I don’t even have children but holy Moses I wanted to snatch up the welfare worker by the hair and slam her face into pavement about 64 times. 1968 no electricity or water was not grounds for removing children. This was clearly not a drug or alcohol abuse home. I don’t even know if I can stomach to watch it much less people actually lived through exactly these same things.

We got tickets for George strait and Chris Stapleton. I’m in it more for Stapleton but I guess it is George’s big farewell. But can I say what a shit-tastic ordeal it is to purchase gd tickets? This is not new, I know. but great googly moogly can’t zoom the Map. Can’t stay in one section. Some of these tickets were $700 and sure didn’t wanna click on those. We are about 47 miles from the stage but they got screens.

The eclipse stuff is legit. My friends today have cancelled soccer and weekend stuff to stay inside. Not that they won’t look outside or whatever but in Navajo they view an eclipse as the dying of the sun. They used to put a bowl of water outside a door or window to see the reflection of the sun come back. I didn’t know that was a real thing.

Rabbit proof fence is an Australian movie about similar things, aboriginal kids being taken from their families and basically put into indentured servitude. That policy went on until 1975. That baffles me. I got little bird on my dvr and I’ll be checking it out this weekend. I saw a couple rez dogs names in there. And I think I saw Eric schweig. Yummy yummy!

Just saw a preview for “little bird” which is on pbs. 6 parts series. May be a realistic portrayal of rez life. Kids being taken from their families. Won’t say it’s a fun ride but maybe a realistic one.

I think they could get Ethan hawke. So Ethan hawke they got. And we’re supposed to squint that he fits the criteria.

I think some things about reservations is you don’t miss what you don’t have. I think any and all walks of life should be encouraged to go wherever. Learn whatever. Take advantage of whatever opportunities there may be. And there’s no failure in returning to the reservation or your home town and bringing that enrichment with you. If that’s what elora does. Yippee. I feel like cheese and willie jack also intend to pay it forward in whatever way. The indigenous people I’ve known have been the happiest people I’ve ever known. And that’s people who have to bring in sheep to sleep with in winter for heat. Not ideal for everybody but they ain’t sad about it.

part of the sense of community comes from the reservations themselves. Initially they were prisons. The government shoved them in and said don’t come out without asking. Navajos were lucky they got locked into the location they already had. White peoples didn’t want it. They had their sheep and the govt gave them flour and booze. They made do. But it meant if one guy has a truck and going to town pretty much everybody jumping in the truck and going to town. It means when there is a pandemic and they say hunker in place. Boy do they ever. The Navajos suffered tremendously because they hunkered together. You do not leave a man behind even if the man is sick and gonna take you all down. Community is necessity and you do not comprehend the level of “sharing” until you’ve hung out on a reservation.

I had a laugh on myself with a wild guess that Matthew Broderick would be the murderer. I’m looking at the shiny Constable jacket and wondering how far fetched any of the death rattle costumes etc are compared to real productions. Yes confused for a second why Ben was singing with Loretta and the figured it out. I FEEL 58 AGAIN.

As the white Steve of my growing up years I’d say yes they do respect their elders way more than regular teenagers. That doesn’t mean that they don’t get up to teenage hijinks. At my graduation I literally begged people to get out of town. If you don’t go anywhere how can you grow? Etc. Speaking only about Navajos they do not expect to leave their 4 sacred mountains. I do think it’s important to return. I have my own personal Elora my “niece” just got her doctorate and plans to create something that brings Navajo holistic medicine and add in the biligana stuff. Mental health in particular. It’s about trust. Most Navajos don’t trust western medicine. Her mom runs the community center with heavy emphasis on suicide prevention because there is so much need.

It did make me cry. I like Jackie’s hair darker. She looked like a skunk. I will miss them. I know cheese is in the fablemans so maybe I’ll go visit him. Otherwise off to “our flag means death”

I think I’m getting off work early so maybe I can watch BUT I DONT WANNA BE SAD. :(