This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Solvable.

I'm Ronald Young Jr.

Growing up, there was not a single positive reference that I remember in media or popular

culture or anything.

Like, I grew up with Peter Pan and, like, the whole, like, what makes the Red Man

Red.

And then we got Disney's Pocahontas, which everyone thought was a sort of good

depiction of natives. And it did make some limited strides. But then that meant that everyone

would just, when I said I was native, would like sing Colors of the Wind to me.

You might remember this conversation I had in 2021 with Dr. Adrian Keene, a citizen of the

Cherokee Nation,

scholar, and author of notable Native people. We were talking about the erasure and invisibility

of indigenous people. We agreed that there was a disconnect between the way natives are portrayed on

film and television and the realities of native and indigenous life. What I love about movies and cinema is that, like, you can create a world,

and if you do it right, an audience will go along with you,

and they go into your world that you've created, and they give themselves over to that.

And I already had a leg up because the world I come from is so unknown.

That's filmmaker Sterling Harjo, a citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. I already had a leg up because the world I come from is so unknown.

That's filmmaker Sterling Harjo, a citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma.

He's the creator and showrunner of reservation dogs.

It's an FX series about a group of Native American teenagers coming of age on a reservation in Oklahoma.

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