This thesis analyzes the ways that Mixtec women directors employ cine comunitario to center Mixtec communal representation and ownership of Native Oaxacan narratives as opposed to Indigenista commercial cinema. Utilizing methods and theories from Indigenous Film studies and decolonial queer and memory work scholars and creators, I draw on Mixtec cosmological concepts associated with the four cardinal directions in order to frame and interpret the ways that two Mixtec filmmakers, Ángeles Cruz and Itandehui Jansen, speak to Indigenous knowledges, understandings of community, space, and gender, as well as what I define as “Indigenous carework.” I also explore the ways Mixtec women’s films expand concepts of memory work and offer ways of re/membering which successfully foster Indigenous well-being and futurity.

Centering the role of Anishinabe storytelling, this thesis aims to interrogate the kinds of worlds that the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe’s Tribal Observer and mainstream media throughout Michigan create with the stories each tells about boarding schools. I deploy quantitative and qualitative methods of frame analysis to confirm which elements are most prevalent in each source. Quantitative data reveals that the Tribal Observer and mainstream media vary in the frequency of publishing and most visible frames. Qualitative data reveals a “Federal Fix:” frame in mainstream media and an “Interconnected” frame in the Tribal Observer. In conclusion, this thesis finds that Tribal journalism is an integral component of Native Nation building.

“Through Stories, We Remain: The United Houma Nation, Historical Erasure, and the 1994 Bureau of Indian Affairs Proposed Finding on Federal Acknowledgement,” explores the ongoing struggle of the United Houma Nation to assert their identity and sovereignty amid historical erasure, treaty legacies, and legal challenges. This project combines oral histories, archival research, and community engagement to show how storytelling serves as both resistance and historical recovery for the United Houma Nation.