New Documentary on Navajo Long Walk

Contact: Lester Kevin Tsosie
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEPhone: (505) 604-7696
Navajo Studies Conference, Inc.
Board of Directors, Member
Window Rock, Arizona
Email: lkt@navajojournal.com

NEW NAVAJO DOCUMENTARY, “THE LONG WALK: TEARS OF THE NAVAJO”, TO PREMIERE AT 17th ANNUAL NAVAJO STUDIES CONFERENCE, DINE’ COLLEGE, TSAILE, AZ, 11/01/2007

Navajos to Critically Review a New Documentary About the Long Walk, Its Portrayal on Film, and Issues of Social Injustice and Dispossession

Navajo Studies Conference, Inc. Board Of Directors, in conjunction with Diné College and award-winning producer John Howe, will premiere an important new documentary entitled, “The Long Walk: Tears of the Navajo.”

The public is invited to view the film and engage in a critical dialogue immediately following the showing.

1864. More than 8,000 Navajos are marched over 300 miles to a barren prison camp to a place called Bosque Redondo, a place far outside the Sacred Mountains. A Long Walk. Many died along the way and during the four-year incarceration. This important, often neglected story in the American West, a story of heartbreak and triumph through enormous adversity, comes through in the new high-definition documentary narrated by actor Peter Coyote. The film focuses on the military’s campaign against Navajos in the early 1860s, the events leading to it, and the aftermath of the Treaty of 1868. “The landscape of the American West is washed by a thousand tears,” says John Howe. “The Long Walk of the Navajos is a story never to be forgotten.” “It’s very difficult for us to talk about these stories,” Dr. Jennifer Nez Denetdale, a Navajo historian, says in the documentary. “It makes me cry, and it makes me sad and it makes me angry. And at the same time, we are also very appreciative that our ancestors had the courage and resilience to keep on going in the face of just incredible catastrophe and incredible trauma.” After the viewing, Navajo Studies Conference, Inc. Board of Directors will moderate a discussion about the meaning of the Long Walk and how the historical event has been portrayed in American history and Navajo studies. The audience will consider such questions as: What is the place of the Long Walk in American and Navajo history? How accurately does the documentary reflect Navajo perspectives about this tragic time in the past? How is Navajo history of dispossession and injustices similar to other Native peoples’ stories? What stories of the Long Walk do the Navajos still tell? What lessons do they continue to draw from their ancestors’ ordeal?

The general public is strongly encouraged to attend this important event of the year on Thursday, 4 pm, November 1, 2007. A donation of $5.00 will help support other Navajo Studies Conference events.# # #If you’d like more information, please contact Lester Kevin Tsosie at (505) 604-7696 or e-mail at lkt@navajojournal.com.