Aired on PBS-TV's "America ReFramed," director Brooke Pepion Swaney's short-feature documentary is a noteworthy addition to what is hoped to be a growing catalog of cinema by First Nations filmmakers. It will surprise nobody that it concerns fallout and despair over yesteryear's virtual extermination of American Indian families, but the twice-told material is still affecting and compassionately rendered.
At the center is actress/writer/yoga instructor Kendra Mylnechuk Potter. She is of Indian descent, adopted in her Oregon childhood by a loving and supportive white household that raised her in melting-pot affluence. Now married and becoming a mother herself, she wishes to know more about her true parentage.
After opening adoption agency records, Kendra reunites with her long-lost birth mother April, clean after addiction and years on the streets. Kendra finds they are two generations of forced deprivation and relocation: as a baby, April herself was ripped away from the Lummi Nation (centered around Flathead, Montana), as part of the US government's cruel mid-20th-century policy of forced assimilation and ethnic erasure inflicted on tribal children, summed up by the catchphrase "Kill the Indian, Save the Man."
Miraculously, April was able to reunite belatedly with her own father, now deceased, who became a high-profile tribal elder-mystic and a recorded vocalist of the Lummi oral traditions. Mother and daughter apply for formal Lummi citizenship, but as much as the close-knit people embrace them, there are also impossible expectations that both will return to live full time on Lummi tribal land.
There is a strong sense of indigenous people shattered by various forms of genocide, dislocation, and diaspora trying to mend their culture back together, distilled into the two heroines and made relatable. The narrative covers a long span of years, with even filmmaker Swaney (of Blackfeet-Salish descent) wondering aloud if the pain, uncertainty, and loss her lens captures are worth the toll on her subjects, and whether the project should continue. Fortunately, it did, and any viewers interested in America’s past and present should witness the results. The educational documentary interrogates the lingering echoes of past injustice. Recommended.
What public library shelves would this title be on?
Daughter of a Lost Bird should nest comfortably in libraries and institutions with Native American orientations and interests. Geographically, it is in well to Pacific Northwest and upper Rocky Mountain regions in particular.
What academic subjects would this film be suitable for?
The material directly addresses Amerindian heritage and culture, and of course United States history (especially the modern west). Public policy and social studies instruction could also take some lessons from the material. Social work courses that rotate around adoption issues may also take notice. With females overwhelmingly in front of and behind the camera, the title might also fill a niche for women's studies classrooms.
What type of classroom would this documentary resource be suitable for?
The just-over-one-hour run time is slightly awkward for classroom slots but should not be a dealbreaker. High-school to graduate-school level students are an ideal viewership.