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March 10, 1999Naturally Native AmericanActress reflects on her American Indian heritage
Record-Eagle staff writer TRAVERSE CITY - Actress Kimberly Norris Guerrero spent her Thanksgiving vacation poring through travel books in preparation for her first visit to northern Michigan this week. But nothing prepared her for Michigan's famously unpredictable weather. Guerrero, whose latest film "Naturally Native" is playing at the Bay Theatre in Suttons Bay through Thursday, arrived in Peshawbestown nearly two hours late Tuesday for a three-day residency with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, which is sponsoring the screenings. The culprit: a winter storm in Detroit. Guerrero plays one of three American Indian sisters in the independent film. She's best known for her guest-starring role in "The Cigar Store Indian," one of the top 10 rated episodes of "Seinfeld." She has also played American Indian characters in TNT's "Geronimo," "As the World Turns" and "Northern Exposure." But despite her dark good looks - courtesy of her Colville, Salish-Kootenai and Cherokee heritage - she never set out to be typecast. "I never thought about being an Indian actor," Guerrero said, as she munched on microwave popcorn in her hotel room overlooking East Grand Traverse Bay. "I never considered myself an Indian actor until I graduated from college. Up until that point I had just done commercials and I was never cast as a native person. I was just a person." After college at UCLA, where she studied theater arts and history, the first role that came up was a young Cheyenne woman in Montana in a movie called "Son of the Morningstar." "I thought, 'well, gosh, I should just go for it if they need an Indian girl,'" she said. "That's the first time it ever dawned on me that there were Indian roles out there. I would have never thought I would just pitch myself in there with everyone else. So fate kind of played its hand and all the roles I've ever played in Hollywood have been native." In "Naturally Native," Guerrero plays one of three sisters struggling to start their own cosmetics business based on traditional native herbs. Adopted as children by white foster parents after the death of their alcoholic mother, they're denied government financing for the venture because they aren't enrolled members of a federally recognized tribe. But in Hollywood, Guerrero said, "It doesn't matter what tribe you are or if you know what tribe you are. "They want you to have long hair, brown skin, brown eyes. And it helps to have the nose. Every little thing helps. It's a kind of sad twist of fate, but it lands on our side that we look Indian when we go out for Indian roles," she said. The movie, which was shot in Los Angeles in 1997 and screened at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1998, was financed by Connecticut's 400-member Mashantucket Pequot Indian tribe, owners of the world's biggest casino. It's the first mainstream feature film to be produced, financed, written and performed by American Indians. While its message touches on many other issues of importance to Indians - casino gambling, the portrayal of Indians in the media and Indian images used as sports mascots - Guerrero believes its appeal is much broader. "It's a woman's story, it's a family story," she said. "It's about sticking together and persisting and entrepreneurship. There's just some basic, human, wonderful issues that are brought out. "I think any person that has a good heart and wants to help their community and help their world to be a better place is going to find similarities between themselves and the girls in the film." In Peshawbestown, where Guerrero and Yvonne Russo, also an actress and the film's co-producer, will present several workshops Wednesday and Thursday, the message will be about healthy lifestyles and goals. But the actresses also will give participants a taste of acting and film production, using props from their movie. Acting out roles can be cathartic, they said, especially for youth faced with drugs, alcohol, violence and other difficult issues. "I've worked with youth now for eight years," Guerrero said. "I've been to almost every (reservation) in the Lower 48 and Alaska and I strongly believe that drama is one of the greatest tools to be able to voice frustrations, put yourself in situations. "It's a fun avenue and it's a natural avenue because I think almost every native person has a story teller inside him or her that's been stifled for so long." From Peshawbestown, the women will head to a Choctaw reservation in Mississippi and then on to film festivals in Texas and Iowa to continue to seek distributors for their film. While several companies, including Whoopi Goldberg's Columbia Tri-Star, have expressed interest in future American Indian projects, none has offered help so far. "We have some really good connections but right now we're just in the whole distribution process," said Russo. Whether or not the movie eventually enjoys the success of "Smoke Signals," a surprise hit also directed by and starring Indians, the pair plans to continue developing projects with American Indian content. "My dream and our dream is to have our own Native American network, to have our own native movie theaters, eventually a studio," Russo said. "We're the only minority that does not have anything on TV that's on our own channel. So we kind of have to fight for it, to educate, to get out there and do it." Additional screenings of "Naturally Native," which was co-directed by Valerie Red-Horse and Jennifer Wynne Farmer, are at 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Bay Theatre. Tickets are $3 for tribal members and $6 for others. Guerrero and Russo will be on hand five minutes before each show to answer questions. |
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