🇺🇸 We Are Still Here: A Story from Native Alaska l Al Jazeera Correspondent
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- Опубліковано 31 жов 2018
- Every summer, Amira Abujbara boards a nine-seater plane at a tiny air taxi office. It is the same plane, with the same pilot, that she has flown in almost every year of her childhood.
The 50-minute flight will take her over a snowy mountain range, a volcano and an elaborate tundra of blueberries and mushrooms, tea leaves and caribou moss, wildflowers and spider webs.
She is heading to her mother’s childhood home and the place where she spends her summers - the remote Alaskan village of Iliamna. Without any roads connecting it to the outside world, this is her only way of going ‘home’.
Iliamna, which is an Athabascan word meaning “big ice” or “big lake” sits on the shore of the lake that shares its name. The largest in Alaska, it spans more than 2,500 square kilometres, is pure enough to drink from and is home to the biggest sockeye salmon run in the world.
Iliamna shares a post office, school, airport, medical clinic and two small stores with the neighbouring village, Newhalen. Together, they have fewer than 300 residents.
It is a far cry from her father’s home country, Qatar, where Amira spends the rest of the year.
Her father is Qatari and her mother is Dena’ina - a subset of the Athabascan Alaska Natives.
Amira was born in Alaska and is registered as an Alaska Native.
When her father married her mother he promised her parents that they would return regularly and so Amira and her sister spent their summers in Iliamna.
Their grandmother ran a bed and breakfast for fishermen, so she would help make the beds, clean and prepare the meals for her guests. She learned how to subsistence fish - catching, smoking, brining and canning salmon during the summer months to store for the rest of the year.
For the villagers, their home is a beautiful and fruitful land, but it is also a place of incredible hardships.
Tiny villages are dwarfed by the vast wilderness that surrounds them, and while the region is rich in natural resources, many Alaska Natives struggle to remain above the poverty line. According to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, over any five-year period between 1993 and 2013, an average of 11 percent of the state’s rural population moved into urban areas. Those aged 18 to 24 are the most likely to leave. But life in the city can be overwhelming for those used to the safety net of a tight-knit rural community.
Then there are the alcohol and substance abuse rates: in Alaska, age-adjusted rates of alcohol-induced deaths are 71.4 per 100,000 for Alaska Natives and 12.1 for whites.
Suicide rates for Alaska Natives are almost four times the national average, and Alaska Natives are far more likely to succumb to each of the state’s leading causes of death - cancer, heart disease and unintentional injury - than their white counterparts.
In Alaska, Native children are nearly three times as likely as white children to die before their fifth birthday.
The situation Alaska Natives face can, perhaps, best be summarised by a note in the minutes of a meeting of Newhalen residents. In a list of wishes for the community’s future, one states simply: “To still be here.”
But why is this community so at risk and will a proposed gold and copper mine, located close to the villages, endanger it further still? Residents know it offers the promise of jobs, but there are fears it could ruin the salmon run, and with it, their way of life.
We Are Still Here tells the story of a community fighting to preserve its culture and its connection to the land.
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I am Native Alaskan. I was adopted at 1 and a half years old. My Mom had me go with the Winnebago youth center to learn about Native culture. My adopted Family are Caucasian. The other children called me a Wannabe Native. It was cruel but I didn't let their harassment stop be. I want my Children and their children to learn about their Native Alaskan heritage. I am doing my best to learn. I've always wanted to go back and spend time in Alaska. I fear I won't be able to achieve that dream.
Please dont give up. You can achieve much more than you realize! You only have one life, and we must know what we come from.
I’m adopted too, I was 4. I hope you can learn and interact with your roots and pass that along to your kids.
I wish I had such powerful roots. I have nothing.♥️❤️♥️
U will keep trying Allah will give u if u work hard an installation u will.
You will it's going to require time but you are native and you are already spiritually connected you have been on you way you just dont understand it but you will soon enough I know I am yavapai apache....
You can make it up to Alaska
Thank You, Al Jazeera for making and letting this documentaries watch for free. Beautiful, hardly heard stories💚
Thank you for watching our documentary! We appreciate your support.
Wow, thank you so much for this documentary!!
Love Native Alaskan culture ❤
40:10 "I rather have no job than kill all the fish." Good to know that there are still true heroes around. She is a very brave women and she has a pure heart.
Thank you.
Thanks for this! I loved how soft Amara is in her encounters. So enjoyable to watch and listen to. No rudeness. No prejudice. No arrogance nor entitlement. Just honest, and curious❤️
When I lived in the village (y-k delta coastal area) we'd travel two and a half hours out of town to our fish camp. We'd spend about two weeks out there processing salmon. We'd set our nets and go check them a few minutes after the tide changed because the water would be still for about 20 to 30 minutes. Then, the woman would cut the fish in a particular way to dry the meat evenly. Once they were semi-dry we'd smoke them in our smoke houses. When they turned a deep, golden brown color we'd cut them up into small pieces and poke them in to 5 gallon buckets. Then, we'd pour seal oil to the brim of the buckets to preserve the fish throughout the winter. That was one of our ancestors main sources of food that they relied on when food got scarce toward the end of winter. I can remember my cousins and I running to the bank of the river to count how many fish our nets caught, and we'd count out loud all together. Those poor women, they had to immediately cut the salmon up before they spoiled. Those women were tough, and hard working. My favorite memory of fish camp was when our "clan" would play lap game together. The adults and children would play together while the grandparents watched on the side lines. That's were my heart is; at fish camp.
Nicely said Cody!
I’m Yupik a tribe of Alaska and thanks for making this video
I’m Yupik also ☺️
Yupik dude here, Bethel area but I am from Nunapitchuk
Excellent. I hope the beautiful people and their culture and land can be preserved, especially with the rising seas. Thank you.
Quyana for making and sharing this documentary! I really enjoyed it. It was nice to see my region while I’m away from home for school :) it helped me feel less homesick
beautiful documentary! very informative and heart-felt. I loved your reporting style.
This is a beautiful documentary. Loved watching you use the Ulu, I love mine and have several. I love the Alaska Natives, lived with them for 23 years, they adopted my younger children into their clans. I miss living there. And it is ashamed that these outlying villages are so poor, food so expensive, but the alcoholism and suicide rates are so high.
Beautiful Alaska & Qatar, and graciously beautiful Amira :)
Beautiful piece! The Mom use to be my teacher in the American School of Doha.... Love Qatar always!!
This is a Great Documentary. I really respect the Native People. Someone should Write a Dictionary or Book with the Upic Language before it Disappears. It would be really Sad to have a Native Language be gone forever. They should Teach all the Upic Languages to keep it going. Thanks for the Work you did in Filming this. I’m sorry if I’m Spelling Upic Wrong.👍👍❤️
There are Yup'ik language dictionaries in print today and have been for many years. And they do have Yup'ik language immersion schools that operate nowadays, both in Anchorage and some native villages which is a very good thing!
I am Athabascan, thank you for making this! I can't wait to go back so I can learn more. Walking through the Totem Park, Sitka was so amazing.
This is really interesting, thank you for sharing it, your interviewing and speaking style is very zen even when talking about serious topics.
That was an awesome documentary! I loved it!
Beautiful presentation ! Thanks.
Ticking Alaska in my bucket list for traveling sometime in future.
What an awesome community! This was very interesting to watch & maybe visit 1 day..thank you✌
Beautiful film and journalist.
Very nice, thank you for your video
Yes! Great Video. Thank You
Another awesome AJ doco,being native New Zealand Maori i can relate to the villagers attempts to hold fast to their culture,language and ideals,our people experienced similar? But the landscape..just wow,last great wilderness
sonny billy william is from your region?
@@md.muzahidulislamsamrat8037 Yes Sonny Bill from this neck of the woods?
Amira, parabéns pelo lindo documentário aqui do Brasil.
My great great great great grandmother is Native Cree. None of my family has ever talked about our native ancestry but i have always been drawn to their way of life and wish i could connect with family still living this way today.
My great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandmother’s father’s mother was 1/10 Cherokee!
You Canadian.
Nice piece. Thank you.
This is an Awesome Video thanks for it .
Great work Amira!!
Masha Allah very nice video Allah bless you all
Mothers CARE is more Powerful than Commando Forces Fortify itself anywhere in our Globe forever.
I am so aware of that feeling of not fitting in anywhere. It's an awful feeling, isn't it? This is why I find life just as simple when I'm with a cultural blend as when I am alone. A good life is all about being surrounded by people who feel similarly, because all who seek the same race, roots and religion are so up tight. They are literally so bound to protecting the individuality of these sorts of things, than their personal freedoms and individuality, and this is why I love America because where these sorts of people exist, there should be no teritorialism, no desire or need to take up all the land and all things in it. I believe the only reason people become teritorialist is because it is instilled that it becomes almost an instinct to protect property due to being pushed out. This is why I'm already aware that Native Americans and people who reside in places such as Gaza, and West Bank, the beaches of India and Florida some of the Polynesian Islands, certain portions of Africa, China, Japan, Ireland, Italy, even parts of England, and the Norse and First Native, and Native Americans all have one thing in common.. Throughout history, they have been yielding, and I feel like we all in one voice said, "Enough is enough." Simply put, there are jerks in every corner of the world. There should be one place to escape them.
this video is amazing. why have i only seen it now? indeed, it is important to preserve the culture and language. i totally agree with that. even my home country's language is eventually dying: university policy, city influence, you sound cool... it is saddening. i hope the Alaska natives will be able to bring their language back.
Very nice,
Amira ❤️❤️❤️
Shukran Fiona
Amira, thank you for sharing
Wow....two cultures from two different parts of the world.
❤
Amira Abujbara, you are so beautiful personality or lady
ive worked at a few of those lodges based close to iliamma. there are a lot of instances where natives break into the lodges during the off season (and occasionally when clients are still there) and steal alcohol or whatever they can get their hands on.
Peoples of the Land of Alaska, should protect their land from the destructive effects of any mine etc. You are still in time. The hand of the human being can be destructive, this is the sad true specially for the ones who have kids specially for them.
I’m tatar native Siberia
I could see you being the next Christiane Amanpour . I'll be following your career. Really excellent job on what was clearly a very heart felt project. I hope the Pebble Mine fails.
I'm yupik from the Bristol bay area and I am also against pebble because money is temporary and our land preserves food. All the food, snacks, etc we buy from the stores are extra when we can just go out to our tundra, sea, and get our food.
I wanna live here!
I subscribe RT,DW ,CTGN, teleSUR and I m watching Al Jazeera because want know opinion other peoples in the world not only the "oficial" media of USA and México.
Happy family gr8
Ameera your a smart independent educated well spoken woman from a great background beautiful lady inside and out love that native and Qatari that's lovely combo girl. ❤
Her Mom is a truly beautiful woman with gorgeous facial features 💖
I found this very interesting and to be differant cultures im native from Canada and brought up in Boston Massachutes and now live in Canada moved here after 3 children i also watch a lot of youtube because i can travel and see everything and lazy way of travel watching youtube but to see all cultures the way they were and now has changes in every cultures
What is the village? I saw they say Yupik but I am curious where. I used to live in Bethel
Money is short term, the land will be here forever
I am Caucasian and live in Alaska the man from Pebble mine towards the end already in visioning that project so sure of himself like nothing will ever go wrong. Just boils my blood . He tries to use the argument that since you have a cell phone that is made with precious metals , that is his defense for going through with another mine. But when all the fish and all the trees are cut down tell me how are you going to eat money? We need to take care of mother earth.
Like I always say, nowhere IS somewhere.
Does anyone know of any affords packages that tour native Alaska? Also I’d love to support local native businesses, so if there is any packages that are native owned? I guess?
If you want to visit native Alaska I’d recommend traveling to Utqiagvik in Alaska.
Amira your are lovely wearing that Kuspuk.
11:40 The grandma has a certain Filipino accent
She is Filipino! They all are except the Arab girl!
@@fionaokeefe1906 didn't they say they were native Alaskans?
17:15 The log stool.
are they from Japanese heritage ?
Arctic Natives are even more underepresented then Amerindians
I am 100 percent native I would like to know what aamerindian is...
Are they native american?
Birch? I like alder.
This is insanely poignant and beautiful
22:47
for all the green new deal supporters. listen to the experts here that actually use green energy.
Both wife and I are Native, the Mine is a bad idea, it will do more harm then good to the Native population.
*HI
If the colonies had British citizens, those colonists would have British accents right? so where did the American accent come from? was it an accent from US Native Americans?
You assume British colonists spoke English then as British people do now, and that isn't the case. A lot of British English dialects underwent sound changes (such as a loss of rhoticity) over the last few centuries that cased the accent to diverge from many varieties of American and Canadian English.
We were all indigenous once.......
Yes,so true?
She was from Alaska but not native. Very European looking. Strange film
Her Mother is Native Alaskan, her Father is from Qatar.
H . Tara t
Fukushima = Forget About Seafood
Had to choose the whitest looking native to represent huh...
Leave that fish alone!
You must leave that fish alone you outsiders and leave the indigenous people alone how they live. Keep out on their ancestral lands. You can visit them but don't interfere with their way life and how they manage their way of life in accordance with wildlife and environmental and natural cycles of life..