CULTURAL HORIZONS OF WISCONSIN
Program #3
Places With Faces
Closed Captioning Script
December 19, 2001

AUDIO

I am a dreamer.
I am one person no one else can be.
I am from another country.
I am of the Wolf clan.
I am German.
I am learning my past.
I am the future.
I am me.
I am kind to others.
I am part of my community.
I am a soccer player.
I am bilingual.
I am talented.
I am this and more.

Lou:  I didn’t know you were going to drag me all the way out here!

Ally:  Mr. Kelly said we were supposed to make a videotape of our favorite place, and this is mine.  How about right here?

Lou:  OK…we’re rolling!

Ally:  My favorite place is this hiking trail near my house.  My family comes here a lot.  I like looking at deer, and getting away from the city life.

Baron:  Nice work, Ally!  If your family enjoys hiking together, that’s part of your family culture.  But did you ever stop to think how many people in Wisconsin enjoy doing things outdoors?    Things like boating, snowmobiling, or camping. 

Ally:  So, I guess the environment has something to do with Wisconsin culture.
Baron:  That’s right!  A lot of things that make Wisconsin special have to do with our state’s landscape and environment.  

Katharine:  Sure!  The things people do for fun, or to earn a living, have a lot to do with whether they live in a city, or on a farm, or in the north woods.

Baron:  We’re going to be thinking this week about how culture and place are connected.  That’s why I asked you to think about your favorite place.  I’m looking forward to seeing more of your videos!

Fei Yin:  My favorite place is this tree in my backyard.  I come here when I want a peaceful place to read or think.  When I grow up and move away, I think I’ll still want to come here.

A long time ago, it was said that our people moved from the east toward the west.  They were told to travel until they came to a place where the food grows out of the water.

This particular reservation is the largest of the Ojibwe reservations in Wisconsin.  And it’s basically areas that were reserved by our ancestors.  When they got here in the Midwest, they found a lot of rice fields, a lot of rice areas, and they’ve settled around those areas.

Maintaining our culture is important.

I was 12 years old the first time I went out ricing.  They just gave me a pole, and they made me pole around and I got used to it.

Sometimes its hard cause you’re always moving your arms and you’re picking up this rice and it’s about a couple of pounds every time.

You just like grab it, and you get some, and you tip it over and you go, don’t hit the sticks, you just hit the top of the rice, like that.

The Ojibwe have a world for wild rice, it’s manomin (Ojibwe language word), which basically means the good seed. We go out in a canoe, two people in a boat, one person hits the rice.  The boat is propelled by another person who’s got a push pole.  And that person pushes the boat through the rice.  The rice is too thick to be able to paddle.  And they just continue that process all day, until they are either tired out or they got a nice boatload.  But they can bring them back.

I think it’s important for our young people to carry on these kinds of traditions cause this is something that was given to us by a gitchimanidu (Ojibwe language word) or the Great Spirit.  And without it, then we’re no longer Ojibwe people.

I really like living on the reservation.  It’s fun; you get to do a lot more stuff, like fishing and hunting.  I like living here because all my ancestors lived here.
We would like to have young people everywhere assist us in treasuring these kinds of natural resources, and helping to preserve and protect.  My clan is the Eagle, descended from the eagle.  We’re all related, all people, all plants, all animals, all fish, all birds, all trees, and it’s important for people to know these are the relations, and to treat them with respect because they are relations and we sustain each other.

Nick:  I’m glad the Ojibwe people at Bad River reserved the land there.

Julia:  Yeah.  The rice sloughs are cool!  

Baron:  Ricing provides the Ojibwe people with food, and a way to earn money.  But it’s also important for social and spiritual reasons.

Nick:  I never thought before about people having spiritual feelings about a place.

Baron:  American Indian reservations are special places.  Indian people that don’t live on their tribe or band’s reservation often visit to reconnect with their family, their history, and their culture.  They also have a strong sense of stewardship.  That means they work very hard to protect their reservation, and preserve the resources found there.

Nick:  The environment is important to my family, too.  My favorite place is Lake Emma, where we go camping each year.

Julia:  My favorite place is my house.

Joseph:  Mine is at my piano.

Baron:   Now, who else has a video to share?

Stephanie:  When I visit my grandma’s house, we so many fun things together.  Sometimes the best places are where you spend time with your family.

We’re here in the Eagle Heights Community garden.  We have an incredible diversity of cultures.  You can look at these gardens and see a cropping system from a different part of the world.

This is our family garden.  This is very special because all the families participate and we love it.

My American name is Anastasia, and my Korean name is Michi.  There are a lot of things in the garden I like to eat, but not these, they’re hot.

Rabbits and other animals come and eat the plants and they’re afraid of people, you know.  My grandma thought it would be a good idea to put like a fake person.  It really works, actually.

When you pick this green onion, you are not supposed to pull whole roots out of the ground.

We have some Korean vegetables in our garden.  And sesame can eat, and we also have the balloon flower.

Whenever I come out here to the garden I feel calm because out here its very, its not noisy at all and its kind of like a new life kind of thing because you feel free. 

Right now we’re standing in front of this plot, which is our children’s plot.  We decided they should learn more about gardening, so we signed them up for their own plot.  And their job is to take care of it.

It’s an important time for the family to share family time.

My job in the garden is weeding, watering, and organizing the plants, making sure everything stays nice and healthy.

Ah, I come from southeastern Africa, small country called Malawi, and as you can see my style, the way I garden is very different from most people, and I garden the way I would garden back home.  Makes me feel like I’m me, you know I’m an African woman.  We all participate in planting of the rows, the beds and what we want to plant.

My family and I like telling stories to each other.

I was at school and I was walking in front of Emir and Emir did not say a word to me.

It’s fun to work in the garden and I really like working in the garden with my family.

The worst part about being in the garden is the mosquitoes.

Fei Yin:  It was interesting to see how people from Malawi and Korea planted familiar things in their gardens. 

Victor:  Yeah!  The gardens helped those people feel connected to their old homes.  I think that’s important.

Fei Yin:  I bet lots of people arrange things to make them feel more at home when they move to a new place.  

Baron: That might mean decorating a room in a certain way, or it might mean doing work like gardening in a traditional manner.  Do any of you have family or ethnic stories that relate to gardening?  It would be great to get some special plants for our greenhouse!

Beng:  Lots of Hmong people like to eat these squash, so I brought some seeds to plant.

Jasmine:  I grew this birdhouse gourd in my family’s garden.  Now it hangs in our backyard.

Candice:  When my family moved to Wisconsin, my grandmother gave us part of a very old ivy plant. 

Nick:  I learned that my German ancestors might have eaten this type of potato.  They’re called fingerling potatoes.

Jasmine:  Hey, do you think they’ll sprout if we plant them?  

Tony:  How’s it going?

Skylar:  Great!  I’m editing my videotape.

Tony:  It seems like everybody else chose a quiet spot for their favorite place.  My favorite place is the football field!  I love to play there.

Skylar:  I think a favorite place can be anywhere you want!

Katharine:  My favorite place is the stage at school.  I even like looking out over all the empty seats!  Sometimes I perform here, and when I do, I actually create something new in this space.

Hi. I’m Cora Monis and I work at Latino Arts at the United Community Center on the south side of Milwaukee.  People recognize the United Community Center building by noting oh yeah, were the building with the colorful murals on the outside.

We live in a downtown area where there’s a lot of buildings. There’s not a lot of big open spaces so we use what we have.  We have a lot of empty walls, so why not use that empty space and brighten it up with some of the kids artwork?

Hi, my name is Yesenia.  I’m 12 years old, and I’m working on a mural for my community.

I’ve lived in Milwaukee since I was born.  Putting this mural up will be doing something good for the community, like making a mark of myself there.  Like putting my footprint on this building.  I’m expressing part of my culture.
For these series of murals, we had the kid’s research and read some important works by Hispanic authors.  We wanted to inspire them with the works of writers from their own culture.

After we studied the author, we started flattening the clay so we could cut out the images.  Once we cut them out, we had to just put them in the right place, where they would fit.  After we finished designing it, we cut the mural in tiles, which would be warmed in the kiln.  We have to put the tiles back together then we paint it and we’re done with our mural.

It’s really important for the kids to connect with their community.  In a positive way, really, become a part of their neighborhood and not feel like it’s a faceless, nameless place where they could pass through and never be noticed.  The mural gives the children a real sense of belonging.  It’s just an opportunity for them to make something entirely on their own.

I’m interested in this because it’s better to help the community, not destroy it.  Doing graffiti, breaking windows, destroying buildings is nothing you should be proud of.  The mural is something you would be proud of.  And that’s what I did.

Stephanie:  It was awesome to see that mural come together!

Lou:  Yeah!  Those kids helped design their own space.

Stephanie:  And they shared some of their Latino culture, too

Baron:  People in cities can create their own cultural space where they feel at home, just like people in rural areas.  And people who share a space—like a neighborhood, or an island, or even a classroom—can develop their own culture, too.

Fei Yin:  Working on that mural looked like a lot of fun.

Andy:  Mexican people have a tradition of painting murals on walls.  

Joseph:  And some Indian people in Mexico also make yarn pictures to share their culture.

Fei Yin:  So we’re making some to decorate our space!

Baron:  Terrific!  You’re all finding wonderful ways to express yourself, and connect with your environment.  I think we’ve seen today how a sense of place can be an important part of many people’s culture. 
Skylar:  Hey guys, I’m all finished!  Come check this out….

Skylar:  My favorite place is the exploratorium of Cultural Horizons…