This is the first year that South is offering a “Native American Film Club”. In this club, which meets after school on Mondays and Wednesdays, students watch and discuss films that portray Native Americans in a positive light and in a way that doesn’t rely on commonly used stereotypes. 

The current coordinator of the group is community ed partner Alex Endeshaw, who says that the struggles that Native Americans go through go unnoticed by most people,“Most American people have no idea about there’s so many things facing Native American people” he said “People don’t really know the history of Native American people. As far as disenfranchised demographics go, they’re probably some of the lesser known struggles”

Endeshaw believes that the way that Native Americans are portrayed in media can be damaging to they way that other people view their culture, “A lot of the stereotypes, aside from, you know, alcoholism, crime and stuff, about Native Americans are some what positive, but they take away Native Americans people opportunity to be human beings.” he said.

Endeshaw also discussed how “Every Native American is looked at as being this spiritual, soulful being, and I mean I’m not saying their community or their culture doesn’t kinda lean more towards that but at the same time Native American people are people.”  He continued, “they’re individuals, they’re their own people.”

One of the members of the club is Giovanni Prezi-Larocque, a 10th grader who views it as a good way to consume socially conscious material in an entertaining way “We get to have fun and just watch good movies” he said “We learn about the history about certain events, especially about the AIM, American Indian Movement, what they did and how it started.”

These films introduce people to a new point of view and tell “certain stories that aren’t told”