#RepresentationMatters

And if you can see it, you can be it.

-Billie Jean King

Representation matters, not only so we can see ourselves reflected back in our storytelling, not only so we can know ourselves and be known as we really are in our authenticity and integrity by others, without a colonial lens, but also so that we can expand the vision of who and what we can imagine ourselves to be.

When I was growing up, I didn't know anyone in the film industry. I didn't know anyone in The Arts As A Career. When I was young, the arts were seen as too reckless, too unstable -- my father worked as first a salesman, and then an architect; my mother taught English as a second language while she went to school to get a PhD. My maternal grandfather was Civil Engineer with a disdain for the arts; my grandmother was a SAHM who sold Avon for pin money (and was a talented artist). No one saw the arts as a real career for any sane or normal person. We had been told that an aunt had been an extra in a Star Trek movie, and we would look for her, but never find her. I didn't know until I was an adult that multiple ancestors of mine had performed in various Wild West Shows in the late 1800s/early 1900s, one even running away to Australia to perform in one, causing chaos in the State Department when they realized they had "lost" some Indians off the rez. I didn't know that when my great-grandfather, Charlie American Bear, was a child, he'd been at Madison Square Garden in New York City with his parents who were in a Wild West Show, and had caused national headlines for running away, only to be found at the movies.

Little Charlie American Bear ran away to the movies.

Yep. Sounds like someone I'm related to.

When I was growing up, I didn't see anyone who looked like me on TV or in the movies. My parents wanted me to be an architect like my father, an engineer like my grandfather, or a doctor. A professional with a professional degree, safe, stable, steady.

On a visit as a pre-teen to my grandparents' in Salt Lake City, Utah, I befriended a girl at church, Diane, who was unlike anyone else. It seemed like everyone in Utah was blonde-haired and blue-eyed, and dressed conservatively, and like everyone else. In a city where everyone was blonde and dressed the same (conservatively), Diane was different -- she had wild red hair, she wore black, and she wore combat boots with rainbow laces. She was unlike anyone I had ever met before.

Our Young Women's Group at church took us on field trip "Down Under", a surprise trip, not telling any of us where we were going. The buses took us to a small mountain overlooking the city, atop of which was an old, old cemetery, which interred many of the early Mormon prophets. Our Young Women's Leaders gave us a list of names, some charcoal and some paper, and instructed us to find the graves of early Mormon luminaries, and to take rubbings of their graves in a sort of scavenger hunt. Diane and I took off and, after observing the variety and artfulness and decrepit beauty of many of the ancient tombstones, decided instead to take grave rubbings of only the most interesting and beautiful tombstones instead. There were carvings of angels watching over the dead, and of lambs to signify ones lost too young. It was the most goth thing I had ever done, before I ever knew what goth even was.

Later that week, I was making lunch with my grandma, and she said, "I hear you've been hanging out with Diane [__________]", and I said I had been, and she said, "Do you know who her aunt is?" I said no, and she said, "Her aunt is [a movie star]. Her dad is [__________], [the movie star]'s brother."

I was astonished. I idolized her aunt. Her aunt was one of my favorite actresses, who had been in some of my favorite movies, and had shown me that there was more than one way to be a woman. One didn't have to be meek and subservient and "keep sweet"and defer always to the opposite sex above one's own values or inner knowing -- one could be strong, one could be brave, one could fight to protect one's people and one's chosen family. Her aunt's performances were a revelation.

That knowledge made her aunt and her aunt's work real, brought it all down to Earth, close enough to almost touch. Her work was a job, a real job, a real job that a person could have, that paid money, that people enjoyed, that impacted people's lives. That had already changed my life's trajectory. It was a job that person could do, that my friend's aunt could do, and if she could do it, I could do it too.

A few years ago, when my brother was dying, I got an audition for a small part on a Ryan Murphy show. I needed to get on a flight to Seattle that night to spend some time with my brother before he passed, so I asked for an extension, and took my ring light with me.

That night, at my brother's home in Washington State, his daughter asked me to read her a story from one of her books. The book she chose was about a little girl who loved the theatre, who auditioned but didn't get the lead, but went to every rehearsal and soaked it all in, growing with love and enthusiasm for the play each day. On opening night, the lead fell ill, and the little girl was asked to step in, since she had been to every play and knew the part and the blocking (staged movements) by heart. She did step in, and was a rousing success, and received many accolades for her performance. She'd done it, and done it well. She'd saved the day.

The next morning, I took all my overwhelming feelings of grief and I put them in a little box inside my heart, set it aside, and went to Target and bought a suit, and I came home to my brother's house, did my hair and makeup, and prepared to do my self-tape. My niece crept quietly into the room and asked me what I was doing. I said to her, "Remember your book? How the actors had to audition for the play in order to get the part? Actors have to audition for parts on TV as well, so that's what I'm doing here. This is the script I've been given, and I'll do it as I imagine it, and then I'll send it in, and they'll decide who to offer the role to, based on all the auditions they receive." My niece asked me if she could stay and watch, and I said she could if she stayed quiet and very still and out of my eyeline, which she did. I did a few takes, and then my slate (stating my name, height, and location), and then I was done, and I could change into regular clothes and finally just be with my brother in his final days.

I found out months later that I booked the part. I like to think that my brother had something to do with it from the other side. My beloved brother, my best friend.

Recently, my sister-in-law sent me a video of my niece. A screen test for a short film. She was brilliant. She was a natural. She was so good I started crying. I was crying because she had a chance I never had, she had opportunity, and people who believed in her, and supported her in a way I never did when I was that young. I was so grateful for that for her. She is the next generation, and she is getting support for her interests and talents earlier, which means my generation is healing enough to give that to her.

I don't know if this is a phase, or if she'll lose interest farther down the line. I have no idea if she'll want to make a real go of it when she's older. I do know that if I've done anything with my life, even if I never do anything else (God forbid), I'll have given her what I was given when I was a little pre-teen in Utah -- the knowledge that one's dreams can become a reality. A vision of the future.

That little Native girls can follow their dreams too.

That we can make a life of art, follow our own vision, our own guiding light, our own star. We can live a bigger life than the one that others have pre-ordained for us.

We can be creatively fulfilled.

We can be happy.

We can be happy.