Also present are Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield, her half-sister Jacquie Red Feather, and Jacquie’s culturally adrift grandchildren Orvil, Lony, and Loother, who all struggle to understand one another, and the complicated cultural tradition they’re a part of. Among the attendees of the powwow are the lost and insecure Tony Loneman, a young man whose shame over having a face marked by fetal alcohol syndrome leads to his involvement in a scheme to rob the powwow Octavio Gomez, a drug dealer and the mastermind behind the scheme and Dene Oxendene, who’s hoping to honor his recently deceased uncle’s legacy by collecting the stories of other Native Americans living in Oakland for a documentary film. In the weeks leading up to the Big Oakland Powwow, a disparate but interconnected group of urban Native Americans living in Oakland prepare for the festivities, working through the losses and traumas they’ve suffered both in their own lifetimes and through the inheritance of an overwhelmingly painful cultural legacy of violence and racism. Part IV: Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield (5).Part IV: Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield (4).

Part IV: Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield (3).

Part III: Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield (2).

Part I: Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield (1).

There there tommy