"Renewing the Spirit" Panel Discussion
Native American Healing Garden Community Gathering
32nd Annual American Indian Film Festival
Danza Xitlalli, Aztec Dancers Performance
Dinner Honoring Native American Heritage Month
American Indian Film Night: The Border Crossed Us

Native American Sisterhood Alliance invites you to hear a panel of four incredible Native women talk about their commitment to renewing the spirit of Indigenous communities.

Joan Benoit- Executive Director of the Native American AIDS Project
Gayle Burns-National HIV/AIDS Counsel Member, Former IFH Board Member, Prevention Case Manager, Medicine Warriors Committee Member
Pennie Opal Plant-Business Woman, Activist, Artist, Writer
Dr. Melinda Micco-Educator, Activist

Joan Benoît has been the Executive Director of the Native American AIDS Project since 1999, leading NAAP from a small program within a large organization to the only Native American HIV-specific organization in California. Joan was born into the Turtle Clan of the Potowatomi Nation and the Eagle Clan of the Anishanaabe Nation and is an enrolled member of the Chippewa of the Thames, First Nation.

Joan has 15 years of experience in the HIV care and prevention field. She has developed and implemented HIV care and prevention programs within Native American communities, integrating traditional Native approaches with western interventions to create effective and innovative programming to meet the needs of the most at-risk populations in American Indian communities. Joan was a 2002 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Price Fellow for HIV Prevention Leadership, the only Native American to serve in this capacity. Joan has also served as a member of the Native American Dialogue Group, a group that acted as a liaison between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Indian Health Service, advising on issues regarding HIV, Hepatitis, TB and other infectious diseases. Joan has been on numerous boards of directors for various non-profit organizations throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, has served on several federal grant review committees and provided professional consultation for the National Native American AIDS Prevention Center, as well as participated in planning committees for local and national HIV prevention and care conferences.

Gayle Burns, HIV Prevention Case Manager, became involved in the council to help serve to the best of her ability the Native American community and other populations at high risk for HIV and other STDs in the San Francisco Bay Area. At the present time she is serving on the New Approaches to Prevention Committee.

Gayle works for the Native American AIDS Project as prevention case manager and also serves as a Board member to Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland, California. She is a Southern Traditional Dancer and dances traditionally at some of the Native American Pow Wows. Gayle likes good art, good music, and she and her husband ride their Harley motor bike when they have a chance.

Pennie Opal Plant, of Yaqui, Cherokee, Choctaw, Algonquin, European ancestry, was born and raised in the San Francisco East Bay. She is a business woman, activist, artist and writer who does what she can to help make the world a better place for future generations and life on Mother Earth.

Melinda Micco (Seminole/Creek/Choctaw) received her doctorate in Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research has focused on multiracial identity in American Indian and African American communities, primarily in the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. She is the author of "African Americans and American Indians" in Encyclopedia of North American Indians (1996) and co-editor and author of "Inside-Outside Stories and Seminole Racial Posture" in the forthcoming book Pretending To Be Me: Ethnic Transvestism and Cross-Writing, "Tribal Re-Creations: Buffalo Child Long Lance and Black Seminole Narratives," in Vol. 16 of Literary Studies East and West (Summer, 1999), and two articles forthcoming (2004-05) “To Be or Not To Be Indian": Construction of Identity for Native and African Americans in African Americans and Native Americans: Explorations in Narrative, Place, and Identity and Blood and Money: The Case of Seminole Freedmen and Indians in Oklahoma in Crossing Waters, Crossing Paths: Black and Indian Journeys in the Americas. She is working on a book A Nation Divided: Seminole Indians and Seminole Freedmen in Oklahoma.

She has served as historian and consultant for the Seminole Nation in Oklahoma and for the documentary films "Black Westerners", "Black Seminoles: A Fight for Freedom," and "On the Trail of John Horse: Biography of an Unknown Hero." She has spoken on the subject of Black and Indian history and identity at many colleges and institutions, including the Universities of California, Berkeley, San Diego and Santa Cruz; Stanford University; the Auburn Avenue Library in Atlanta, the Smithsonian Institute, the Atlanta History Center and Dartmouth College.

Beef stew, vegetarian galoshes, and frybread will be served!

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We invite you to join us so we can introduce the garden to the Bay Area Native Community. Light refreshments will be served.

Two native students @ Mills--Leah Herrera & Esther Lucero, wrote and were awarded a grant to create a Native American Healing garden on the Mills campus. Its purpose is intended to serve the needs of the local native community by providing a space in which to grow native healing plants. In the spring of 2007, Leah and Esther, along with other NASA members, local community members, Zoe Holder, Ruth Villaseñor and Manny Lieras blessed the garden space in the spring of 2007. It is NASA’s wish to open the garden to the surrounding community and welcome any suggestions and advice on which plants should be added to the garden. So far, the garden contains white sage, mugwort, rosemary.

We want the garden to continue to thrive and evolve with community energy and thus invite your active participation on this day, and many to follow.

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The American Indian Film Institute (AIFI) and Title Sponsors, the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians and the Seminole Tribe of Florida, proudly announce the 32nd annual American Indian Film Festival, November 2-10, 2007. The American Indian Film Festival will premiere over 70 innovative feature films, shorts, documentaries, public service announcements, and music videos from USA American Indian and Canada First Nation communities. The 2007 American Indian Film Festival is a nine-day event with an anticipated attendance of over 6,000.

AIFI's Tribal Touring Program, a Native youth film workshop program supported by tribal host partners, will also be screening its films on Friday, Nov. 9. This year AIFI will showcase youth films from the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community, AZ; Hoopa Tribe, CA; and the Confederated Indians of Graton Rancheria, CA.

The American Indian Film Festival will also offer film finance and film distribution seminars on November 7- 8. The seminars will bring noted industry professionals to San Francisco to teach, inspire and share their knowledge with this and the next generation of filmmakers.

AIFI’s American Indian Motion Picture Awards Show, honoring filmmakers and showcasing contemporary Native American talent, will be held on Saturday November 10, 2007 at the Palace of Fine Arts beginning at 6:00 pm. Fourteen awards will be presented, including Best Film, Best Actor and Best Documentary. The awards show will feature a mix of live entertainment from both established and emerging Native artists and performers, including special performances by multi-talented singer Jamie Coon, violinist Swil Kanim, the Yaaw Tei Yi Tlingit Dancers of Alaska, and acclaimed recording artist Robert Mirabal.

Members of NASA plan to attend The American Indian Film Festival on Thursday, November 8th. If you are interested in attending, please email Dr. Melinda Micco, melinda@mills.edu for more information.

For more information about the film festival: http://www.aifisf.com/press/press_070904.php.

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Danza Xitlalli is a community-based ceremonial Aztec dance group that practices traditional ceremonies as a way to strengthen cultural pride in our community. We dance under the banner of Mexico's "Mesa del Santo Nino de Atocha", one of several organized branches of Aztec dancers who have kept this tradition alive since pre-Columbian times. Maestra Macuilxochitl and Maestro Francisco Camplis started Danza Xitlalli more than 20 years ago in San Francisco. Since then the group has grown in size and responsibilities, helping other groups get established in communities throughout the Bay Area.

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Come and enjoy the company of the Mills community, Native American music with Michael Bellenger of the All Nations Drum Group, and a mouth-watering Native American spread!

This event is cosponsored by Bon Appetit.

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