POV acknowledges the unceded lands of the many First Nations people, upon which we live, work and tell stories.   We also acknowledge the unceded lands of the Arrernte and Garrwa people in Mparntwe and Borroloola, Australia, where this film was made. We pay our respects to all their elders past present and emerging. 

FILM SUMMARY

Ten-year-old Arrernte Aboriginal boy Dujuan is a child-healer and a good hunter and speaks three languages. Yet Dujuan is failing in the Australian school system and facing increasing scrutiny from welfare authorities and the police. As he veers perilously close to incarceration, his family fights to give him a strong Arrernte education alongside his western education. We walk with him as he grapples with these pressures and shares his truths.

This guide is an invitation to dialogue. It is based on a belief in the power of human connection and designed for people who want to use In My Blood It Runs to engage family, friends, classmates, colleagues, and communities in conversation. In contrast to initiatives that foster debates in which participants try to convince others that they are right, this document envisions conversations undertaken in a spirit of openness in which people try to understand one another and expand their thinking by sharing viewpoints and listening actively.

The discussion prompts are intentionally crafted to help a wide range of audiences think more deeply about the issues in the film. Rather than attempting to address them all, choose one or two that best meet your needs and interests. And be sure to leave time to consider taking action. Planning next steps can help people leave the room feeling energized and optimistic, even in instances when conversations have been difficult.

For more detailed event planning and facilitation tips, visit https://communitynetwork.amdoc.org/.

A NOTE TO USERS

Dear POV Community,

We are so glad you are facilitating a discussion inspired by the film In My Blood it Runs! Before you begin, we’d like to encourage you to prepare yourself for the conversation as this film invites you and your community to discuss the experiences of Indigenous people in Australia and America and that conversation requires a learning and unlearning about the truths of our history that have not been typically taught in schools and universities. If they have, they may have been taught in ways that marginalise First Nations perspectives. As such, it is not uncommon for anyone learning about the experiences of Indigenous people for the first time to feel unsure about how to approach discussing the violence committed against First Nations peoples, or about how these ongoing injustices continue to have an impact today. This guide, and our additional resources offer educational materials that will support you in your process of challenging assumptions and recognising the need for more critical and intentional learning. We encourage you to educate yourself as much as possible. Our Helpful Definitions and Concepts and our Delve Deeper Reading List is a great place to start! Additionally, you can visit theIn My Blood it Runs websitefor a wealth of information that has been co-created with cultural advisors, film participants, and the communities represented in the film. As a facilitator we hope you will take necessary steps to ensure that you are prepared to guide a conversation that minimizes harm, while maximizing critical curiosity, growth, and connection. We invite you to share some insights with us about how your conversations fostered transformation in your own community!

Key Participants

Dujuan Hoosan- Ten-year-old Arrernte/Garrwa boy who is a child healer and speaks three languages.

Nana Carol Turner - Dujuan’s maternal grandmother, elder, and a collaborating director of the film. She is a strong advocate for Arrernte language revitalization and against the Australian foster care system that takes Aboriginal children from their families.

Megan Hoosan - Dujuan’s mother who highlights how she loves, cares, and advocates for her son

Margaret Anderson - Dujuan’s paternal grandmother, elder, and a collaborating director of the film. She is an advocate for Arrernte community led schools and against the Australian juvenile detention system.

James Mawson - Dujuan’s Father and is also a collaborating director on the film.

Key Issues

In My Blood It Runs is an excellent tool for outreach and will be of special interest to people who want to explore the following topics:

• Language Revitalization
• Settler Colonialism and Schooling
• Elder Knowledges/Community Knowledges
• Systems of Discipline and Punishment
• Land and Country Sovereignty
• Aboriginal Activism and Rights
• Embodied ways of knowing and being
• Aborigional and Indigenous Educational Resurgence
• Restorative Justice & First Nations Systems of Justice
  

• Epistemology: refers to ways of knowing, the nature of knowledge and truth and inquires about the sources of knowledge. A theory of knowledge that can be contextualized, geopolitical, embodied, an act of resistance and disobedience, and influenced by power.

• Pedagogy: refers to the practices and methods used for teaching and learning within school systems and community and family learning spaces.

• Racialization: Multiple ongoing processes of racial formations linked to macro political, sociological, and economic contexts that are then attributed to groups of people. These racial formations are socially constructed.

• Reciprocity: refers to the ways people care for one another, care for the environment, show gratitude without an endpoint in mind. It is dependent on establishing relationships that are respectful not just with humans, but also with more-than-human kin (i.e. Land, water, cosmos, ancestors).

• Relationality: refers to relationships with people, relations with the environment/Land, relations with the cosmos, and relations with ideas. Indigenous peoples identity is grounded in their relationship with the land and their ancestors.

• Settler Colonialism: The invasion of a territory that is already occupied and an act that uses violence, institutions, and force to justify that occupation. Therefore, it is a structure that involves the practice of taking Indigenous lands, denying Indigenous rights to those lands, and forming government and communities on those lands.

• Colonialism: A system of control by a country over an area or people outside its borders; the establishment, exploitation, acquisition, and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. This includes the exploitation of resources and enslavement of people.

• Aboriginal & Indigenous: Both are collective terms used to describe the original peoples of the land and their descendants. All Indigenous Nations have words in their own language that they use to define themselves, therefore use the term that Indigenous people chose to use themselves.

• Western/Colonial schooling and knowledge: Schooling and knowledge that comes from the Eurowestern tradition and was forced onto Indigenous nations during colonialism. Usually Eurowestern schooling focuses on objective truths and “official” knowledge which does not allow for other ways of thinking and learning.

• Country, Land, territory: refers to a living entity with a consciousness. For First Nations communities their connection to the Country forms the essence of their identity, ways of knowing and being, culture, and spirituality.

• Education (system): refers to the ways the Australian education system, the colonial education system, or mainstream education fails Indigenous children. This system teaches a settler/colonizer history and reinforces a settler/colonizer language.

• Medicine and healing: refers to the sacred traditional health practices, approaches, knowledge, gifts, and beliefs of Indigenous peoples. The ways that they integrate their Indigenous knowledge of traditional healing for the wellness and healing of their community and more-than-human kin. This can be inclusive of ceremony, plant medicine, prayer, stories, songs, music, being in relation, physical/hand techniques, etc.

• Arrernte: Aboriginal people who live on Arrernte lands or whose ancestors are original to Arrernte lands (territory in Australia) and who through self-determination continue to revitalize their languages and cultural practices.

• Historical memory: it refers to narratives and histories that are shared through familial memory, spiritual memory, embodied memory, dreams, stories, etc.

• Ancestral homelands: refers to the Lands that Indigenous peoples ancestors are original to. As descendants, Indigenous peoples continue to honor and be in relation with their ancestral homelands which include their relations with animals, plants, waters, skies, and each other.

• Sovereignty: refers to a nation’s right to self-govern and establish their own laws and citizenship. Sovereign nations practice their cultural traditions, ways of knowing and being, and determine their own future.

• Storytelling and stories: refers to an oral tradition that has been used to pass knowledge from generation to generation. This knowledge, theories and ways of knowing and being are essential for Indigenous people to teach and learn about their relationships, cultural ways, sacred stories, history, values, spirituality and more.

• Settler and/or colonizer: refers to those who want the land, come to stay, and permanently occupy and assert unlawful ownership over Indigenous Sovereign Lands.

• Indigenous resurgence: An intellectual and cultural movement that shifts from settler colonial narratives and reframes and redirects towards Indigenous traditional cultural practices. It refers to Indigenous methods of political resurgence grounded in Indigenous thinking, theorizing, and Indigenous intelligence.

What is the film about?

In My Blood It Runs offers a critical perspective on Aboriginal experiences and ways of knowing and being, as well as, the ways that western schooling systems negatively (and oftentimes, violently) affect Aboriginal youth. The film depicts the struggles of many Aboriginal communities, both historically and contemporarily, in the colonial nation-state of Australia. The removal of Aboriginal youth through the foster care system, erasure in curricula, the relationship between schooling and incarceration of Aboriginal youth, and the illegal occupation of Aboriginal Country are key components that the documentary addresses. Additionally, this film highlights the creative strengths of indigenous and ancestral knowledge, the care-based practices of Dujuan’s community, and the wisdom of young people. Although Australia recognizes Aboriginal and First Nations people, Aboriginal People’s fight for sovereignty and recognition are not taken seriously and often regulated by state control (Moreton-Robinson, 2020). Additionally, schools as institutions are connected to (and shaped by) histories of colonization, and as Aboriginal scholars and educators remind us that ongoing colonial and racist perceptions of Aboriginal identity impact Aboriginal youth’s educational experiences (Shay and Wickes, 2017). Like schools in the United States, education systems in Australia have an ongoing legacy of racism, especially toward Aboriginal youth, although many educational agencies proclaim that there have been big strides in eradicating racial tensions within schooling (Bodkin-Andrews and Carlson, 2016).

In My Blood it Runs center’s Dujuan’s story and experiences, and in doing so reframes the way this story about an Indigenous community is told. By centering the experience and wisdom of an Aboriginal youth, this film resists centering the colonizers’ perspective and refuses deficit-based stereotypes or prejudice embedded in colonial histories. Dujuan is an Arrernte child healer and a student in the Australian schooling system who is labeled as a “bad” and “failing” student by his white teachers. Throughout the film we see the ways that Dujuan’s family remains committed to his Arrernte education alongside his western education. In My Blood It Runs demonstrates the important role elders and family members have in advocating and fighting for Dujuan and other Arrernte youth to learn the Arrernte language and sustain their culture (Paris & Alim, 2014). The film was created through the collaborative partnership amongst Dujuan, his family, Advisors chosen by Dujuan’s family including Arrernte Elders, film producers, Sophie Hyde, Larissa Behrendt and Rachel Naninaaq Edwardson and film director Maya Newell. While the film was made on unceded territory in Australia, the themes, concerns, and structural issues facing Indigenous people it presents can (and should) be considered in the context of Indigenous peoples in Turtle Island, unceded territory now considered America/United States.

What themes will the film surface?
There are four overarching themes that the film addresses: Elder Knowledges and Language Reclamation & Revitalization, Settler Colonialism and Schooling, Disciplining and Incarceration, Indigenous Sovereignty and Country (Land) Relations, and self determination. In the following sections viewers are provided with a more detailed introduction to each theme.

Elder Knowledges and Language Reclamation

The United Nations declared 2019 as the international year of Indigenous languages and extended this proclamation as the decade of Indigenous languages to span from 2022-2032 (UNESCO, 2019). UNESCO’s goal is to bring awareness about the importance of Indigenous languages and the linguistic rights of Indigenous peoples. It is critical to recognize that these language revitalization efforts are more than just protecting a language, but Indigenous languages are interdependent with Indigenous peoples sovereignty, Land relations, ways of knowing and being in the world, and cosmologies. Said another way, language is a small (but crucial) part of a whole way of naming, knowing, relating, living, being, and thriving in the world. Hermes, Bang, and Marin (2012) ask, “Would it be better to invent new Ojibwe words to describe educational, standardized concepts like "triangle" or to challenge the standards to accept the Ojibwe morphemes of shape?" (pp. 388). Thinking with the above quote in relation to language revitalization projects, it is evident that the goal is not to have students learn to speak a standard version of Ojibwe, but through language to connect to their specific geographical landscape, Land, home, and community (Hermes et al., 2012). Marrisa Muñoz (2018) states that “for first peoples, a relationship with the Land serves as a foundation for all knowledge” and that “within each Indigenous language is a specific, nuanced understanding of how life is related within their specific ecology” (pp. 67). Language is always in tune with the cycles of nature, one that does not follow a western logic of control despite the dominance that western languages and structures have to dictate what comes to be known as the standard. Therefore, language reclamation is not meant to center western understandings of language that focus on proficiency of semantics, phonemes, syntax, and grammar. This type of standardized language will never be able to assume the legacies of Indigenous knowledge systems and relations to the Land. Instead, a language reclamation (McCarty & Nicholas, 2014) approach to language and culture is about the knowledge that is carried through the songs, stories, prayers, sciences, oral and artistic traditions, and values learned through “doing and being” (pp. 111). These language reclamation projects should be Indigenous led and guided by Indigenous elders because of their wisdom and knowledge.

In the film In My Blood It Runs, Nana Carol, Dujuan’s maternal grandmother, demonstrates the ways she and other Arrernte elders engage in language reclamation efforts. She is aware that in his western education Dujuan is not going to be taught his language. Nana Carol believes it is critical for Dujuan to practice Arrernte and be proud of his Aboriginal upbringing and ancestry. Elders play an important and pivotal role in language reclamation efforts and disrupt narrow understandings about learning only occurring in schools with certified teachers. For example, she embraces Dujuan’s healing gifts, and reminds him that he has the ability to (re)member and pass on his knowledge and help his community. She also encourages Dujuan and other young ones to practice Arrernte through the tradition of storytelling and learning with the Land. Throughout the film Nana Carol talks about the importance of teaching the Arrernte language because it is tied to Aboriginal culture, traditions, and their ways of knowing and being in the world.

Settler Colonialism and Schooling

Scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith notes that it is important to remember that colonialism is not only about the collection of “new discoveries” that were stolen and taken from Indigenous peoples to be kept in museums, libraries, and universities. Colonialism is also about the “re-arrangement, re-presentation, and re-distribution” (Smith, 2013; p. 62) of knowledge, the multiple ways it manifests, and how Indigenous peoples have been and continue to be affected. Settler colonialism is the invasion of a territory that is already occupied and an act that uses violence, institutions, and force to justify that occupation. Therefore, settler colonialism is a structure, not an event (Wolfe, 2006). For example, history textbooks used in schools are full of dominant narratives that are written from the colonizers perspective and center settler actions as innocent, brave, and justifiable, and in the past. These accounts of history written by settlers, become the “official” curriculum in schools and contribute to Indigenous erasure and violent ideas of settler superiority. Settler colonialism in school systems also manifests itself in violent ways through “curriculum built specifically around the aim of cultural annihilation” which embodies a form of “curricular genocide” (Au, Brown, Calderon, 2016; p. 43). Curricular genocide attacks Native children’s identities in physical and symbolic ways through attempts to assimilate them and teach them that their culture is inferior to white culture (Au, Brown, Calderon, 2016). Despite a long history of colonization with regards to schooling and educational institutions and opportunities (see histories of Native Boarding Schools), Indigenous children and youth have and continue to resist and enact their agency.

The film In My Blood It Runs, sheds light to what Lomawaima and McCarty (2006) state that Indigenous peoples have always “carefully designed educational systems” (p. 27) to transmit their complex bodies of knowledge. Dujuan is portrayed as a “bad student” in his western school classroom, while in his Arrernte community he is recognized for his healing gifts, speaking three languages, and continuing the legacies of ways of knowing and being of his ancestors. In the film, Dujuan’s wisdom, gifts, and ancestral knowledge are obvious strengths that are overlooked, denied, or misunderstood by his white teachers. There are various moments in the film when Dujuan explicitly mentions that Australia is Aboriginal Country (Land) and that in school they teach him white peoples version of history. Dujuan demonstrates a level of deep consciousness and wisdom in the ways he critiques the school system and how it attempts to assimilate him. However, his criticism of the curriculum he is taught is understood from the teacher and administrator perspective as “bad behaviors” and thus, puts Dujuan at risk of being taken from his family and put in foster care.

Disciplining Policies & Incarceration

Discipline in schools has been well documented and continues to be a discourse within schooling systems. Racialized students in particular, are dehumanized and criminalized almost immediately when they enter the school and are trafficked into systems of incarceration that include juvenile detention centers, jails, and even prisons (Love, 2014). Bettina Love (2016) gives an example of Black youth being subjected to this state-sanctioned violence, when a six-year old Black girl was handcuffed and then taken to the police station because the young girl was having a tantrum at school. Not only is this act sanctioned by schools, they are so normalized within education systems that handcuffing a young Black girl is no longer seen as violent and racist, but a part of disciplining procedures. With the history of Native American Boarding schools, the use of fear, intimidation, and violence was a common practice within these institutions (Grande, 2015). In particular, schools were seen as a way to eliminate Indigenous peoples since Native American boarding schools prohibited Native youth from speaking their language, practicing their cultural beliefs, and from wearing their traditional clothing and regalia. Even to this day, in the United States and around the world students continue to be banned from wearing their First Nations and traditional clothing. As Sandy Grande (2015) explains, “Indian education was never simply about the desire to ‘civilize’ or even deculturalize a people, but rather, from its very inception, it was a project designed to colonize Indian minds as a means of gaining access to Indian labor, land, and resources” (p.23). Even though the above examples are from the United States, Aboriginal Australia is also impacted by western education and we see parallels on how schools as colonial institutions have deep colonial and racist histories, masked as “procedures of disciplining”, that continue to affect students today. In the film, we see different approaches to “misbehavior” and discipline - one from the educational system that threatens to send Dujuan to foster care and another from his community.

The experiences of how discipline is taken up from the perspective of the colonizer (i.e. teachers and schools) juxtaposed to an Indigenous context (Dujuan’s community) offer important insights into different ways of knowing and being in the world. For example, misbehavior in the classroom is judged from Dujuan, as a student, resisting what he is told is the “good” way to behave or questioning the ways that the lessons do not include his ancestral knowledge and experiences. It is apparent that within the classroom colonial practices are still present. We see connections in the discipline tactics are structures that are informed by intimidation and demands for youth to assimilate to parameters of “good” or “bad” as determined by state-sanctioned agencies that have histories of removing Indigenous children from their families and ancestral homelands. Juxtaposed with this, is the way that Dujuan’s family understands what his “misbehavior” communicates to them and their ways of responding. When he runs away from the camp, for instance, his community understands this as a call that Dujuan needs support, and that they are accountable for the healing that he needs in that time. Ultimately, the differences between settler knowledge of discipline and punishment and the example of Indigenous knowledge practices that speak to community care and healing, are illuminated in the context of behavior and schooling. In the settler context, Aboriginal youth are threatened by an education system that does not learn from their wisdom, or consider their insights on how to remake and educational environment that centers Indigenous knowledges, experiences, and ways of being in the world.

Indigenous Sovereignty and Country (Land) Relations

Just because Indigenous and Aboriginal people have been forcibly removed from their territories, does not mean that the Country (Land) is no longer Aboriginal or Indigenous. Therefore, all Country (Land) that people reside on in Australia, U.S., Canda, Brazil, Chile, etc. have always and will always be sovereign Indigenous territories. Although under state control, many Aborignial and Indigenous people are still in legal fights to recuperate their ancestral territories. Therefore, people who are not ancestrally from Aboriginal Australia or Indigneous Lands are guests and are settlers. Often there is a narrative of how settlers need to be conscious and make a home with their environment and to take care of their surroundings. However, this narrative is clouded by the fact that Aboriginal and Indigenous People have always had a relationship with that environment and that it is the settler who must contend with their presence on already occupied Indigenous land. In other words, there cannot be “shared futures” with settlers if there is not a deep interrogation of the social and political project of settler colonialism and the social and historical contexts of places (Bang et al., 2014; Nxumalo, 2019). In order to truly be in solidarity and in relation with Aboriginal and Indigenous people, educators need to be explicit in addressing settler violences; be clear about the diverse aims of decolonization; and be very intentional in understanding the dynamic ways of knowing and being that are specific to understandings of land by Indigenous peoples (Tuck, McKenzie, McCoy, 2014, p.14). This responsibility is often left to the educator, since teacher training programs continue to operate from settler perspectives and normalize the erasure of Indigenous perspectives on sovereignty.

In My Blood It Runs is a powerful example of how Aboriginal People are fighting for their right to be seen as sovereign nations. Aboriginal People continue to have a strong relationship with their ancestral territories and we gain insight into this relationship by the way Dujuan and his family talk about going to the Country. Dujuan explains that it is important to go to the Country and stay connected because of the medicine and teachings that are good for him and the Aboriginal people. Therefore the fight for sovereignty in Aboriginal Australia, as well as other places in the world, is a fight to preserve and sustain their relationships with Country. The Country is representative of Aboriginal people’s connection to their identity, spirituality, family, language, and culture regardless if they live in the Country or in an urban place. Due to the displacement, dispossession, and forced removal from ancestral Lands, Aboriginal people continue to assert their sovereignty through their connection to the Country. The real question for those who are settlers is, are you willing to give back the Land and Country that is not ancestrally yours? Are you ready to fight alongside Aboriginal and Indigenous people, regardless if that means relinquishing your settler privileges? Who are you in relation to the already occupied Aboriginal Country and Land?

BEFORE BEGINNING THE DISCUSSION:
We encourage you to practice a Land Acknowledgment before you begin the conversation. In this way, you will frame the conversation in respect and care for the Indigenous people and communities whose land you are occupying; and you will provide a model for your community. To learn more about Land Acknowledgment practices, to find language to use in your Land Acknowledgment, you can use thisresource.

PROMPT ONE: STARTING THE CONVERSATION

Immediately after the film, you may want to give people a few quiet moments to reflect on what they have seen. You could pose a general question (examples below) and give people some time to themselves to jot down or think about their answers before opening the discussion. Alternatively, you could ask participants to share their thoughts with a partner before starting a group discussion.

• If you were going to tell a friend about this film, what would you say?
• Describe a moment or scene from the film that you found particularly striking or moving. What was it about this scene that was especially compelling for you?
• If you could ask anyone in the film a single question, whom would you ask and what would you want to know more about?
• Did anything in the film surprise you?
• What aspects of the film felt relatable? What felt familiar? If nothing, then what felt new and unfamiliar?
• Can you think of a time in your life when you held an implicit or explicit racist belief? Upon reflection, where did those implicit ideas come from and/or how were you taught to think that way?
• What does learning about stories of Aboriginal children such as Dujuan make you wonder about the experiences of Native American children and youth in the United States?
• What was your experience learning about First Nations history or Native American history in schools in the United States? How have your thoughts changed after viewing In My Blood it Runs?

PROMPT TWO: Elder Knowledges and Language Reclamation

A central character to the film was Nana Carol, an Arrernte elder, who is Dujuan’s maternal grandmother. Throughout the film you see how she embraces Dujuan’s healing gifts and see’s Dujuan as an important part of Aboriginal futures. These futures include young ones knowing and honoring their language because it is interconnected with their Country (Land) relations. Therefore, she advocates for Arrernte led schools that include the elders and the community and teach the importance of revitalizing their language. Discuss the following questions on these connections between elder knowledges and language revitalization.

• After a bath with bush medicine, Nana Carol and Dujuan engage in a conversation. At one point Nana Carol tells him, “speak in Arrernte!” Why do you think Nana Carol’s intentions are? What does she want for Dujuan?
  • Do you have any elders in your life that have encouraged you to remain close to certain types of knowledge, lessons, or traditions?
• Nana Carol and Dujuan just arrived in their homeland. Dujuan says in Arrernte, “I’m coming to homeland” and Nana Carol says, “you mean coming back” and encourages him to say it again in Arrernte. Do you speak a language original to your homeland? Why is it important to think about language in relation to the territory or homeland?
• During a visit to their homeland, Nana Carol sits with Dujuan and other children around the fire. She teaches Dujuan and the children words in Arrernte to describe their surroundings, sing a song, and engage in storytelling. What can we learn about the role of elders, such as Nana Carol, in the social justice work of language revitalization?
  • In what ways do you understand the commitment to Arrernte language practices to be important in the lives of the children?
  • In what ways is Nana Carol a teacher? How is she different from the teachers in Dujuan’s schooling environment?
• Nana Carol says that the white people at school educate them (Dujuan and other Aboriginal children) the way they want to educate them, but she “needs them to speak their language, to carry on their language”. What role do schools play in language maintenance and revitalization?
  • Are schools always supportive of familial and cultural practices?
  • In what ways should schools be more attentive to cultural knowledge and why?

PROMPT THREE: Settler Colonialism and Schooling

Although not explicitly mentioned in the film, we see aspects of settler colonialism, which is the invasion of a territory that is already occupied and an act that uses violence, institutions, and force to justify that occupation. As Dujuan explicitly mentions, Australia is Aboriginal Country (Land) and therefore Aboriginal people are the rightful inhabitants of what is now known as Australia. Schooling, as an institution, is not benign and is in fact a culprit of settler colonialism as we see how schooling creates categories of who is a “bad student” that ultimately affect Aborignal youth. The removal of Aborignal youth from their families by foster care relies on school “performance” to finalize these removals; an act of settler colonialism and Aboriginal displacement. Discuss the following questions on these connections between settler colonialism and schooling:

• What were you taught about First Nations history at school? Should our education and history lessons include the Black Lives Matter movement and what it means for Black people, People of Color and First Nations people?
• Are there elements of your identity you feel mainstream society does not honor? How do you think your educational journey would have differed had you been forced to learn in a language other than your own? Are you confident you would have had the same experience in school and beyond?
• Dujuan talks about the memory and history that runs in his blood. Why is this history not legitimized in school? What is the purpose behind the erasure of his Aboriginal history?
• Why does Dujuan have to live far away from his ancestral homelands to get an opportunity to attend school?
• Nana Carol wants her children to be educated, “so that they know the system when they grow up.” What system is Nana Carol talking about? Why do you think this matters to her?
• During a lesson at an Australian school, a teacher tells Dujuan and his classmates that The Australia Book isn’t a story, but “it is information or non-fiction that is fact”. What do you think about this? What have you learned about stories vs. facts in school?
  • What are the potential impacts of teaching history from one perspective and presenting it as factual?
  • Why is it important to think critically about who is telling the story of the past?
• How does Dujuan describe the history he learns at school compared to the history he learns at home? How does the history learned in his Australian school strengthen the ongoing legacy and impacts of settler colonialism in schooling?
• What do you think Dujuan is feeling and thinking when the teacher is reading the book about the spirit and dreaming? What evidence from the film support your analysis?
  • Have you ever felt that curricula in schools didn’t quite fit your identity? Can you imagine a scenario in which that might be the case? Why or why not?
• Dujuan and his peers are told by the teacher that a standardized test is just like a coloring activity. What do you think about this? What are the implications of this definition about standardized testing?
• Why is it that for Abriginal families, maintaining their family together, and avoiding the foster care system, depends on school performance within a western education system?

PROMPT FOUR: Disciplining Policies & Incarceration

In the film you see multiple ways that Dujuan is being disciplined. For example, he is sent to the “time-out corner”, intimidated by the principal about the foster care system, and is expelled from multiple schools for his “behavior”. Additionally, we see how the education and foster care system work in conjunction to send young Aboriginal youth into the foster care system which leads into forms of incarceration. Discuss the following questions to engage in a dialogue about disciplining policies and incarceration practices.

• What is your memory of being 10 years old? Could you imagine being incarcerated at this age, or as an adult? How would this affect your life, family, work relationships?
• What do school officials and other officers say about Dujuan regarding his “behavior” in school? In what ways is their “official” descriptions of his behavior harmful or short-sighted?
• What disciplinary actions are taken to address Dujuan’s “behavior”? How are these disciplinary actions out of alignment with his home community’s response? What can you infer about the differences between the way westernized knowledge frames behavior and care and indigenous ways of knowing the same behaviors?
• In what ways can we see Dujuan’s identity as an Aboriginal healer come into tension with the schooling system? Why do you think these tensions exist? In what ways could the schooling system be more equitable and supportive of Dujuan as an Aboriginal youth?
• How are the police, jail and/or prisons, and school discipline related, especially when we think of their response to underrepresented students (Aboriginal, Indigenous, Black, poor, LGBTQ+)? What relationships can you draw between the practices of schools and criminal justice institutions?
• Think about these following words: misbehavior, trouble-maker, delinquent, bad student, at-risk. Where do you think these words come from? How do schools use these words to label students? In what ways are these labels connected to colonizer’s knowledge practices and power?
• To conclude the film, Dujuan’s family decide to send him back to his father’s ancestral homelands. In what ways is going back home to his Lands a form of education? What do you think he will learn being back home that he wouldn’t be able to just by going to school?

PROMPT FIVE: Indigenous Sovereignty and Country (Land) Relations

In the film you see and hear Dujuan and his family talk about going to the country. Dujuan explains that it is important to go to the Country and stay connected because of the medicine and teachings that are good for him and the Aboriginal people. The Country for First Nations peoples is more than just a place to visit. Rather, the Country is representative of Aboriginal people’s connection to their identity, spirituality, family, language, and culture regardless if they live in the Country or in an urban place. Due to the displacement, dispossession, and forced removal from ancestral Lands, Aboriginal people continue to assert their sovereignty through their connection to the Country. Discuss the following questions to engage in a dialogue about Indigenous sovereignty and Country (Land) relations.

• From the film, what did you learn about the Aboriginal People and Torres Strait Islanders from Australia, especially the Arrernte/Garrwa Aborigonal People?
  • Have you ever considered what traditional lands you are currently living on? Why or why not?
• Explain some of the ways that the Arrernte/Garrwa community in the film have a relationship with their ancestral homelands?
• Why is it important to know that Aboriginal People are the first peoples of Australia, their history and activism, and how they are still fighting for their rights today?
  • How can this knowledge also be applicable where you currently live? Why is it important to develop a relationship with the land that you are currently occupying and what can you do with that knowledge?
• How is language and culture related to identity, education, and learning? Think about what the elders say in the film and why Dujuan goes back to his ancestral homelands.
• Who are the original peoples from where you live, what are some of their stories, and where are they now? Why is it important, wherever you are, to acknowledge the original people of that territory/land/place?

In My Blood It Runs is not just a film, it’s also a campaign for change. The Arrernte and Garrwa families and communities behind the film have guided a multi-year plan that dovetails the film release. You can support their solutions by backing their campaign focusing on three main goals: education reform, juvenile justice reform and anti-racism. Learn more at: www.inmyblooditruns.com/takeaction

We encourage you to seek out and discover more information about the Indigenous territory you are currently occupying.
Here is a tool to learn more: https://native-land.ca/.

You can also initiate a dialogue between a local Indigenous community organization or leader(s). This could look like having participants suggest Indigenous community members that they already know and/or researching the history of Indigenous people in their local area and then create a letter, email, or action plan to initiate communication between them as community members and the respective Indigenous community member/organization.

Thinking of your sphere of influence or networks, how can you support the agency of First Nations communities? This could be reading a book, donating to First Nations led cause or signing a petition. How can you practice allyship in your daily life?

RESOURCES

1. IIYC - an international organization centering Indigenous youth voices and supporting Indigneous communities through activism, education, and ceremony.
2. Native-Land.ca | Our home on native land - Native Land Digital is a Canadian not-for-profit organization, incorporated in December 2018. Native Land Digital is Indigenous-led, with an Indigenous Executive Director and Board of Directors who oversee and direct the organization.
3. Native American Children's Literature Recommended Reading List - A PDF of Indigenous literature created by the First Nations Development Institute
4. Indigenous Comic Con - Comic Con highlights the best in Native and Indigenous pop art and Indigenerdity.
5. Indigenous Cheerleader - Their mission is to REMEMBER, RECLAIM and RESTORE Indigenous languages and cultures to help create a better and more culturally-sustaining education for children and beyond.
6. Indigenous Education Tools - A program designed to develop resources and practices that will have exponential impacts on efforts to improve Native student success across a variety of sectors.
7. Home | SBI - Sovereign Bodies Institute (SBI) builds on Indigenous traditions of data gathering and knowledge transfer to create, disseminate, and put into action research on gender and sexual violence against Indigenous people.
8. Seeding Sovereignty - An Indigenous-led collective that works to shift social and environmental paradigms by dismantling colonial institutions and replacing them with Indigenous practices created in synchronicity with the land.
9. Settler Colonial City Project - a research collective focused on the collaborative production of knowledge about cities on Turtle Island/Abya Yala/The Americas as spaces of ongoing settler colonialism, Indigenous survivance, and struggles for decolonization.
10. The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition - Their vision is focused on Indigenous and cultural sovereignty. Their mission is to lead in pursuit of understanding and addressing the ongoing trauma created by the US Indian Boarding School policy.
11. Indigenous Children’s Survivance in Public Schools by Leilani Sabzalian - In this book, Leilani Sabzalian counters deficit framings of Indigenous students. One of her goals is to develop educators’ anticolonial literacy so that teachers can counter colonialism and better support Indigenous students in public schools.
12. An Indigenuos People’s History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz In this book, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them.
13. As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
14. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
15. We are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom - Inspired by the many Indigenous-led movements across North America, We Are Water Protectors issues an urgent rallying cry to safeguard the Earth’s water from harm and corruption—a bold and lyrical picture book written by Carole Lindstrom and vibrantly illustrated by Michaela Goade.

About The Authors

Pablo Montes
Pablo Montes is a PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin in the Cultural Studies in Education Program. He is the son of migrant workers from Guanajuato, Mexico, the ancestral territories of the Chichimeca Guamares and P'urhepecha. He currently serves as the Youth Director for the Indigenous Cultures Institute with the Coahuiltecan community in the Lands of Yana Wana (spirit waters of central Texas). Additionally, through a generous grant by the University of Texas at Austin’s Green Fund, he is working with co-author Judith Landeros and other Indigenous people to create a Land Based Education Curriculum. His interests include the intersection of queer settler colonialism, Indigeneity, and Land education.

Judith Landeros
Judith Landeros is a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin studying Cultural Studies in Education with a focus on Indigenous girlhood, traditional healing knowledge, and schooling. Her family is from Michoacán and Jalisco, the ancestral territories of the P’urhepecha and Chichimeca. She is a former bilingual early childhood teacher and advocates for the inclusion of Critical Indigenous Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Land as pedagogy within teacher preparation education programs.

Thank you to all who reviewed and contributed to this guide:

Maya Newell, Director of In My Blood it Runs

Rachel Naninaaq Edwardson, Producer of In My Blood it Runs

Rachel Friedland, POV Senior Associate, Programs & Engagement

Discussion Guide Producer, POV

Courtney B. Cook, Education Manager

This resource was created, in part, with the generous support of the Open Society Foundation and the MacArther Foundation.