Image courtesy of Olga Valanos/Thunderdreamer Productions, LLC.

Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. In the Lakota language, Wazí Ahánhan Oyánke. A landscape of prairies and badlands pressed into the southwest corner of South Dakota, this is the home of the Oglala Sioux.

The reservation is also home to some of America’s most depressing facts and statistics: unemployment above 80 percent, shortest life expectancy in the United States, alcoholism rate hovering around 70 percent.

In Generation Red Nation, a “documentary of American politics gone haywire,” as director Olga Valanos (CAS’86) describes it, she highlights the perils of life on the reservation—or, simply, the rez.

“We are a nation that cares for other countries,” writes Valanos, “but we don’t know about the suffering of sovereign nations that lie within the boundaries of the United States. The situation on the rez needs to be declared a federal disaster.”

The documentary, a winner at the 2012 Red Nation Film Festival, shares the stories—and advice—of reservation elders and leaders. Asked for the key message, Valanos quotes one of her interviewees, substance abuse counselor Squeak Bourland, “Our people are dying while other people are getting rich.”

The Generation Red Nation trailer is available on the documentary’s official website.