Preparing to Facilitate
Participants will arrive with differing degrees of knowledge and lived experience with regards to the many topics that Manzanar, Diverted invites you to explore. It is helpful to prepare yourself and ground yourself in both knowledge and intention ahead of facilitation. As a facilitator we encourage you to take the necessary steps to ensure that you are prepared to guide a conversation that prioritizes the safety of those whose experiences and identities have been marginalized. This will allow you to set an intention (and sustain a generative dialogue) that maximizes care and critical curiosity, transformation, and connection.

The following are tools to support you and your community before, during, and after the screening + discussion.

Helpful Concepts, Definition, and Language for Framing

Settler Colonialism: The goal of settler colonialism is the removal and erasure of Indigenous peoples to take and use land indefinitely, and to establish property rights over land and resources. According to the “Settler Colonialism Primer,” by Laura Hurwitz & Shawn Bourque, “settler colonialism is not just a vicious thing of the past, such as the gold rush, but exists as long as settlers are living on appropriated land and thus exists today.” An ongoing structure, settler colonialism has sought to gain control over land, space, resources, and people by illegally occupying land then establishing coercive labor systems to extract resources from the land and establish economic infrastructure.

A settler is anyone who isn’t Indigenous and lives on the stolen land that we now refer to as the United States of America. However, under settler colonialism, groups are racialized in different ways according to the economic needs of the settler state. Some peoples were brought to settler states due to chattel slavery or indentured servitude. Others are descendents of European settlers.

Tribal Sovereignty: According to the National Congress of American Indians, “Tribal members are citizens of three sovereigns: their tribe, the United States, and the state in which they reside.” Tribal sovereignty is defined as, “the ability to govern and to protect and enhance the health, safety, and welfare of tribal citizens within a tribal territory. Tribal governments maintain the power to determine their own government structures and enforce laws through police departments and tribal courts.”

Counter-Narratives: Counter-narratives are stories that challenge widespread beliefs and discourses (Solórzano & Yosso, 2001). They often serve as powerful and rich data sources to present and elevate the voices of historically marginalized communities that have been left out, erased, or made invisible in the mainstream discourse.

White Supremacy: White supremacy is the source of race based violence, and it has also shaped the mainstream environmental movement and perceptions about conservation. White supremacy is an ideology promoting white people and the ideas, thoughts, and beliefs and actions of white people as superior to those of people of color. The systems of white supremacy also refers to interlocking institutions and systems: Political, educational, social, cultural and more. Within these systems, white people have a structural advantage, individually and collectively. White supremacy is ingrained within systems, including the environmental movement with prominent white male founders. American environmentalism’s roots have long standing prejudices against local communities and Indigenous peoples, and have historically prioritized conservation of “wild places” at the expense of people who live there. Local people are often written out of conservation narratives, which the environmental justice movement sought to change.

Environmental Racism: Dr. Robert Bullard, a leader of the environmental justice movement, defines environmental racism as “any policy, practice or directive that differentially affects or disadvantages (where intended or unintended) individuals, groups or communities based on race.”

Environmental Justice: The environmental justice movement began over thirty years ago at the First National People of Color Leadership Summit, where a delegation drafted the following:

• The 17 Principles of Environmental Justice
• The Principles of Working Together
  

These principles and practices significantly redefined and reconceptualized our understanding of the “environment,” and shifted from the environment being considered “pristine natural wilderness” to areas where people (particularly people of color), live, work, study, play, and pray. This subsequently allowed for the inclusion of issues such as toxic pollution, transportation, worker safety, and environmental health. The environmental justice movement seeks to connect the dots between environmental, economic, social, and racial justices. Environmental justice is the movement’s response to instances of environmental racism.

Japanese American World War II Incarceration: According to Densho’s Terminology Guide, the term “internment” that was used historically, fails to accurately describe what unjustly and illegally happened to Japanese Americans during World War II. “Incarceration” is the suggested and more accurate term. The Associated Press Stylebook, 56th Edition, (a guide for newsrooms, journalists, and reporters), was recently updated to reflect a terminology change from “internment” to “incarceration.”