
“Over 500 years ago, my tribe arrived on the shores of India from Africa,” says the social worker narrator of Asha Stuart’s Lost Tribe of Africa. His ancestors fled enslavement, escaping into the forest in the Indian state of Karnataka where they live today, most of them Hindu converts. India’s 35,000 descendants of slaves from Africa’s Bantu Region are members of the Siddi tribe. Siddi means “enlightened one,” but the Siddi are “Untouchables” in India’s caste system. “How do you empower the youth in a world whose people think they’re less than human?” asks the narrator, whose life mission is to do just that.

Ramnath Siddi
Self

Smile

Santra and the Talking Trees

nîpawistamâsowin : We Will Stand Up

Birth/Mother

The Heart of Loisaida

Mr. X

Face to Face: The Schappell Twins

Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty

The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness

Small Talk

Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations

In the Realms of the Unreal

Love Always, Carolyn

Dig!

Jedi Junior High

Travelling with Tove

Haru, Island of the Solitary

How to Cook Your Life

Halftime

Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq