California’s ‘Lost’ Tribes
One of the four episodes from the California and the American Dream Series, California’s ‘Lost’ Tribes weighs the impact of casino gambling on Native American self-determination, explores the historical underpinnings of Tribal sovereignty, the evolution of Tribal gaming, and its effects on California’s Native peoples and their non-Indian neighbors.
Concern over gaming is especially heightened by the development of rural lands for casinos, often placing tribes at odds with organic farmers and tract-home developers as stakes are claimed in the rush for the state’s last rural lands.
In a few short years, some American Indian Tribes in California went from being the poorest people in the state to the richest – gaining extraordinary wealth from casino gaming. However, California Tribal members must still contend with a legacy of racism that thrives in the twenty-first century. In California’s ‘Lost’ Tribes, the first documentary to go beyond today’s sensationalistic headlines, tribal leaders tell their own stories of abundance, attempted genocide, survival, and resistance.
| Release date: 2006 Director: Jed Riffe Producer: Jed Riffe Editor: Maureen Gosling |
| Golden Eagle 2007 CINE Washington, D.C. |
