BROKEN RAINBOW (TV)
Summary
This Academy Award-winning documentary features examines the history of and fight against Public Law 93-531, also known as The Forced Navajo Relocation Act. The bill, signed in 1974, demands that around 10,000 Navajo people move off of Hopi land in Arizona by 1986. Many Native American individuals speak out in strong protest, explaining the many economic and social perils of being forced from their homes. The land, which contains many rich natural resources greatly desired by energy corporations, has been home to both the Hopi and Navajo people for centuries; they have relied largely on farming and their livestock for sustenance and income. Journalist Jerry Kammer explains the tribes' strong connection to their land, though Arizona Congressman Morris Udall opines that the people should accept the unjust law and "get on with it."
The Native Americans first began to experience violence and loss of their land with the arrival of Christopher Columbus and later with the European settlers, notably during the 1864 deportation known as "The Long Walk." That entailed making thousands of Navajo people march from Fort Defiance in Arizona to Fort Sumner in New Mexico, resulting in great suffering and death. The 1868 Treaty for Fort Laramie ostensibly put an end to hostilities and forced most of the remaining Native Americans onto reservations, though there were no definitive boundary markers. Native American children were routinely sent to white boarding schools, where they were stripped of their languages and customs. In 1882, the federal government drew an "arbitrary rectangle" to define the Hopi land, though at least 500 Navajo people were permitted to live within the boundaries. Fermina Banyacya describes how the two tribes lived and traded with one another in relative harmony, but the construction of the Sante Fe Railroad brought alcohol and unfamiliar diseases, among other things; the government gradually expanded the Navajo reservation area until it entirely surrounded the Hopi land.
When oil was discovered on the land in the 1920s, an ersatz Navajo tribal council was formed to force the people to sign contracts allowing the government access to the oil without meaningful financial compensation. The Hopi, who had their own leadership structure, refused to accept such a council, though they, too, were gradually manipulated and had many of their livestock seized. Native American soldiers were an essential part of the Allied victory in World War II, particularly the "code talkers" who used their Native American languages to communicate secret messages, but the post-war population boom then led to the construction of coal-fired power plants in Western states. Lawyer John S. Boyden used fraudulent means to have himself appointed as the Hopi council's attorney. At least 300 families lost their homes when Peabody Coal signed several leases and began strip-mining the Black Mesa plateau area, an action seen as sacrilegious by many Hopi and Navajo people.
The Native American people, who should have become "America's richest minority" thanks to the resources on their land, in fact received tiny percentages of the income gleaned from the coal, oil, uranium and natural gas found in the Four Corners area. Furthermore, the workers were not compensated when they began to suffer health problems, including cancer and birth defects, from their work in the coal mines and with radioactive materials. The 1970s saw a significant rise in "red power" social protests, including the "Trail of Broken Treaties" movement and occupations at the Peabody plant. In response, Boyden and other politicians fostered "a climate of hysteria" in which they claimed that the Navajo and Hopi people were likely to engage in bloody war with one another over the matter, eventually leading to the creation of the Relocation Act law.
However, New Mexico Congressman Manual Lujan declared that most of his fellow politicians did not truly understand the complex issue. Metal barriers were soon erected on the disputed land, and plants were destroyed and livestock seized in order to force the Navajo people out. Chilson McCabe describes living on the reservation for many years and eventually serving his country in the Vietnam War, only to lose his livelihood when his livestock and land were taken. McCabe explains that his mother, who raised eleven children on her own, died shortly after their relocation to a trailer in Flagstaff, Arizona, hundreds of miles from where the family had lived for several generations. The film concludes by stating that Public Law 93-531 has not yet been repealed, and that "force may be used" to remove the remaining Navajo people.
Details
- NETWORK: Cinemax
- DATE: November 30, 1999 6:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:08:59
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 103470
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Public affairs/Documentaries; Native Americans; Navajo Indians; Arizona; Indigenous Peoples Collection
- SERIES RUN: Cinemax - TV, 1987
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Elliot A. Taikeff … Producer
- Victoria Mudd … Producer, Director
- Maria Florio … Producer, Writer
- Roslyn Dauber … Associate Producer
- Tommie Smith … Associate Producer
- Lisa Sonne … Writer
- Pam Pierce … Writer
- Laura Nyro … Music by
- Paul Apodaca … Music by
- Fred Myrow … Music by
- Rick Krizman … Music by
- Martin Sheen … Narrator
- Buffy Sainte-Marie … Voice, Translator's Voice
- Burgess Meredith … Voice, Historical Voice
- Semu Huate … Voice, Native Voice
- Jerry Kammer … Interviewee
- Morris Udall … Interviewee
- Fermina Banyacya … Interviewee
- Manual Lujan … Interviewee
- Chilson McCabe … Interviewee
- John S. Boyden