A new documentary called “Generation Warrior” premieres at Central Wyoming College in Riverton on the evening of Tuesday, June 24. The film follows eight Native youth from the Wind River Reservation over four years, as they navigate the challenges and celebrations of early adulthood.
The evening will also double as an opening reception for the art exhibition “Native Currents,” curated by Nita Kehoe and Al Hubbard and featuring the work of contemporary Indigenous artists.
Filmmakers and participants will have a Q&A with the audience after the screening of “Generation Warrior.” Plans for where the documentary will be streamed after its Riverton debut are still in the works.
Lynette St. Clair (Eastern Shoshone) and Jordan Dresser (Northern Arapaho) co-produced the film. They sat down with Wyoming Public Radio’s Hannah Habermann and shared a behind-the-scenes look into the project.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Hannah Habermann: You’ve been working on this project since 2018. How did this all get started?
Jordan Dresser: The director, Bobbie [Birleffi] grew up in Wyoming and she has ties from here, so she assembled different people like me and Lynette to help find individuals who would tell this story about reservation youth.
We were just trying to find people who were willing to tell stories in good ways and share in a way that was authentic, not only to themselves, but also for our community as well. It was a commitment for these kids because we followed them for various different years and during difficult times during COVD, after COVID and their ups and downs of life.
It kind of goes in play with the fact that there's a lot of content right now being filmed about reservations. You had Reservation Dogs, you have North [of] North on Netflix, you have a lot of different things, so it's exciting that we get to share these slices of life and have people get a peek into what it's like to be young and Indigenous.
Lynette St. Clair: We've had a lot of negative publicity about the Wind River Indian Reservation. One of the perspectives that I wanted to bring out to light was that Indigenous communities are not as scary and not as awful as we're portrayed constantly, and we wanted to make sure that we were able to tell the story not from a deficit perspective, but from a perspective of real, authentic content.
HH: Who are these eight people? Can you give a little snapshot into who's featured in the film?
LSC: Halle Robinson, she's one of our featured people. It's Halle and her companion, Hudda Curry. They're both very sports-active, and so it shows their relationship that they had as young high school sweethearts.
Another one is Gabby St. Clair. Her story is really talking about what it's like to leave the reservation and pursue her college career out of state, away from family and away from the support network that so many of us need when we're out of state and working or even going to school.
JD: Gene [Trosper] is somebody who is really trying to find themselves and express themselves in various different ways and [they] talk a lot about what does that mean for them?
And then you have Darious [Tillman], another young individual who's navigating not only what does it mean to be Indigenous, but what does it mean to be an Indigenous leader and take part in your culture, in your ways, in a way that feels not only authentic to them, but also how it changes and reflects their life.
Also my niece Taylee Dresser, her story as well, and how she's trying to express herself and find herself, not only through hoop dancing but also through the curve balls that life can give you.
And also Carmen Underwood and her partner. Her partner Matthew [Underwood] is in the military and Native people have historically gone into the military for various reasons.
What is that world for them like, being away from here, from Wyoming, and how do they find themselves and also build their family while holding onto themselves?
If you piece it all together, it just shows all the different sides of what it means to be Indigenous, especially young, where it's complicated and there's different layers to that.
I think the non-Native view about being 18 is like, ‘Okay, you're 18 and you go to college and you start your life and you move away. But that's difficult for Native people because we have such strong family ties. A lot of times, we stay with our family because we not only love them but we want to help them in different ways. Sometimes that non-Native, traditional model of education doesn't work for them. So how do they navigate and make things work for themselves in ways that feel meaningful?
HH: What are some other common threads between these stories that you'd like to point to?
LSC: This film demonstrates the spiritual connection that all of our youth and our people resort back to when it comes to facing challenging times. Being away from our families and everything, we still stay connected through those spiritual connections and we still practice those protocols and those ways that we've been taught.
I think that's also one of the major factors of how our people are able to make it when they're remote, and they're not here on the reservation.
Carmen, her husband [Matthew] is in the Marines, and they stay connected through attending cultural activities, because he's stationed in Hawaii and she's able to attend cultural activities there.
Sometimes when the people from the mainland go over for powwows or shared cultural experiences, she’s always so happy to be able to join her Indigenous relatives there on the island.
HH: The documentary is titled “Generation Warrior,” and I'm curious for both of you, what does that title mean?
JD: To me, it speaks about the fact that as Native people, we're very resilient. We go through a lot and we always face life head on. “Generation Warrior” just speaks about them being young warriors in training and them basically being those next set of leaders who are going to carry our people through, through difficult times.
They endure their share of heartaches, but they're facing them all. To me, that's what I love about the story. I just hope it's inspiring for other Native youth.
LSC: Every generation that we've had since time immemorial, they each face adversity and they've had to find ways to overcome those challenges.
The generation from the 50’s, they faced the relocation challenge, where they were removed from reservations and placed in these suburban areas and cities. They've had to face those challenges and find ways to overcome those.
Then in the 70’s, you have people who were fighting again for civil rights, but also for recognition of our spiritual ways:The Native American Graves Repatriation Act and the Religious Freedom Act, those things that those generations have fought to bring forward and and protect.
So every generation has a cause or a challenge that they have to protect and fight for. But I think these young people, they're attending college or they're working out in the community or they're in the service, or they're doing their own thing and just making it in life, facing challenges and overcoming adversities.
They have to be able to make it and demonstrate that warrior mentality to make it on their road to becoming adults and finding their own causes for the people. That's what “Generation Warrior” means to me.
HH: What were some standout moments for you while making this film?
JD: What's been exciting is to see the growth of all of these young adults and how they've come to their roles, but also how they stay true to themselves.
I'm just excited to see how they've navigated all these life changes, all the ups and downs with everything, and they still do it in a good way and they still do it with a smile. I think that's something that’s really exciting to watch. But also, where do they go next with all this? What are the next steps for them?
What's exciting about this project even more is that we filmed so much with them over the years that these films serve as time capsules, and it captured a lot of their family members and their knowledge and captured those family moments. So, to me, I'm just really grateful that we have those and we could preserve them forever.
LSC: Just watching them as they grow and their strength that they have found within themselves, each individual story has their own glow and has their own area where the challenges that they face are there. But they’ve warrior-ed through it and they've made it to the end of the film.
They're still out there working to make their presence known in the world. But every story is unique and I think just watching each of them for me, just to see their growth, was a standout moment for me.
