Season two of ‘Native America’ to include Diné excellence

ALBUQUERQUE – A current PBS program, “Native America,” will bounce back with season two showing modern-day Indigenous communities, including Dinétah.

While season two is set to start airing on Tuesday, Oct. 24, the Navajo Nation can view the first showing in advance on Oct. 7 at the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock.
Native America is a nationally broadcast show that first aired in October 2018.

The first season’s episodes went thousands of years back to ancestral Indigenous communities in North and South America to talk about traditional scientific knowledge and overall lifestyle during that early age.

The show won’t time travel for season two; instead, it will share information about Indigenous communities today.

Jennifer John, Diné producer for Native America Calling, is from Beclabito, New Mexico. She is Dził Łání and born for Tódích’íi’nii.

John said the production for season two began in December 2021 during the height of COVID-19, so the storytelling behind the Indigenous communities carefully considered tribes in the United States.

At the time, the Navajo Nation was trudging on from Covid restrictions and curfews, taking slow, cautious steps to open the Nation.

But hesitancy to return to the days before 2020 was still at its height, bled into producing season two for the PBS program.

After seeing the physical and imaginary roadblock to the Navajo Nation and other reservations that were still completely shut down because of Covid, John said Providence Pictures, a production company in Rhode Island, then brought about the idea, “Why not get the Indigenous creatives involved themselves?”

John was then brought in to help produce the show.

“This was my first position in media – It’s been really amazing to build relationships with our participants,” said John. “We had to reach out to tribal representatives to get permission to film out there in these communities, to share the beauty of the Navajo Nation as I know it, and it was exciting.”

Alongside Emmy award-winning cinematographers, John wanted the land and people to be visualized as the best as she’d ever seen them.

Throughout production, John said it was a great collaboration between the Native and non-Native film crew that captured the natural beauty of Native people in the U.S.
There will be a total of four episodes, each episode an hour long.

Three of the four episodes feature Diné sharing their passions and stories from Dinétah.

The last episode of the season, titled “Language is Life,” features Navajo Nation Museum Director Manny Wheeler. The show focuses on his work in translating Hollywood films to Diné Bizaad.

Wheeler not only shared his process of dubbing the famous movies, but he also planned and collaborated with the producers of Native America to bring the episodes to the Navajo Nation to be shared early.

When John and others sat down to research who they would be reaching out to, they looked at countless people who do fantastic work, and John said sometimes those people would be doing great jobs, but after the airing time.

Audience members should expect to see Aaron Yazzie, Diné, a mechanical engineer for NASA, and Mariah Bahe, a champion boxer, who share their love for their professions.

John worked with other Native producers who added more talent from different tribal communities to participate in the four episodes.

The viewing of the films at the Navajo Nation Museum is accessible to the public, and they are ready to be loved and admired.

“It was great to show Dinétah and the rest of Indian Country to the best of its ability, to show why we as Native people love these lands and are so devoted to it,” said John. “I have so much pride in that.”

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