July 2007 Coverstory ---Tonantzin Carmelo

In Hollywood, before there were cowboys and Indians, there were Indians. They were the Tongva people, and they lived here for thousands of years, and they live here still today. Local streets and towns still bear their names: Tujunga, Topanga, Pacoima, and Cahuenga are all words from the language of the Tongva people – The People of the Earth – the native people from the place now known as Los Angeles. Hollywood is Indian country.

Actress Tonantzin Carmelo, who last year became the first Native American woman ever nominated for the prestigious Screen Actors Guild Award, is a descendent of those people – a modern American with respect for the past.

Carmelo’s mother, Virginia, is the chairwoman of the Gabrieleno/Tongva Tribe. Just a few months ago, in January 2007, Tonantzin Carmelo helped write her tribe’s constitution.

"I was on the constitutional sub-committee that wrote it," she says. "It was made to protect our people and strengthen our government. We are a Tribe recognized by the State of California and are on our way to Federal recognition. Our constitution protects its citizens in perpetuity. Citizens cannot be dis-enrolled. This has been a problem with other tribes because of casino money. It is protectionist rather than exclusionary."

One of Carmelo’s many contributions to the drafting of the constitution came the first words of the document.

"We created it as a group, line by line," she says. "For example, in the preamble, I felt strongly about acknowledging our ancestors. It was another who thought of the words ‘in reverence.’ Many ideas were put on the table, but as soon as ‘in reverence of our ancestors’ was put down, the entire group knew it was right. To me, it was democracy at it’s best. Everyone had their say, and when it got to the last person, everyone saw the truth of it."

Carmelo says that her tribe’s constitution was based, in part, on the U.S. Constitution – which many scholars believe was itself based, at least in part, on the laws set down by the Iroquois League, which in the early 1700s consisted of the Mohawk, Oneida, Seneca, Onondaga and Cayuga Nations.

"I know that many things were borrowed from the Five Civilized Tribes when they wrote the U.S. Constitution," Carmelo says. "Like the Founding Fathers of the U.S., we were in a room; we debated; we agreed and we voted. The Founding Fathers modeled their constitution after the Five Civilized Tribes’. So it’s good that we were modeling our tribe’s after the U.S. Constitution, which was modeled after us."

Carmelo, who describes herself as a "cultural activist," works with the California Indian Story Tellers Association and is a board member and an actor for Native Voices at the Autry Theater Company.

"I’m an Aztec Indian dancer on my dad’s side," she says. "He raised me. I grew up dancing at different cultural events and traveling throughout Indian Country. My biological dad is a Latin musician whose family is from New Mexico. I met him seven years ago and now I play with him in his band. I sing and play percussive instruments."

   Growing up in Southern California, Carmelo started performing when she was very young, and was exposed at an early age to the ignorance that many non-Indians have about Indians.

"It’s not so much racism as it is ignorance," she says. "I worked at Knott’s Berry Farm at the Indian Trails Dance Show, and a lot of people would make the ‘lu-lu-lu’ sound – you know, the sound non-Indians think that Indians make. They try to be nice, and they put their arm around you and say, ‘I’ve always wanted an Indian squaw.’ I’ve actually had older people tell me that. And some young people picture Indian people as cartoons. Like with ‘lu-lu-lu’ – they make those funny noises. In grade school, they do this thing with the Indians and the Pilgrims. They expect Indians to live in teepees like they did a long time ago. They are the descendants of Pilgrims; they don’t wear buckled shoes and funny hats with white collars, but they think that we should look like Natives from the Pilgrim days. We know their culture because we are forced to, but they don’t know ours."

She is also painfully aware of the stereotypes and prejudices that have existed in Hollywood for decades – and still exist today.

"I think there is a prejudice still," she says. "They want to cast ‘lighter.’ Skin color is particularly an issue in the category of young leading lady. I see it on the screen all the time. In order to overcome that prejudice, people need to see it more and get used to it. We need to see color!"

After graduating from U.C. Irvine with a B.A. in Environmental Analysis Design,

Carmelo was cast in a musical theater anti-smoking show that toured Southern California schools, and from there landed roles on stage in Equity productions of "Jump Kiss" and "Please Do Not Touch the Indians."

Her first film role was in 2002, when she was cast as the lead actress in a film called "Street King," which she describes as "a not so great" gang movie based on Shakespeare’s ‘Richard III.’"

Not so great or not, it got her into the Screen Actors Guild – a proud moment for any actor.

"That got me my SAG card," she recalls. "It’s a huge thing in an actor’s life to get a SAG card. It’s a right of passage of sorts – but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to work!"

The biggest problem facing Indian actors, of course, is the lack of employment. According to the Screen Actors Guild, Native American performers are cast in less than one half of one percent of all speaking roles in film and on television. Year after year, Indian performers are rarely cast in "non-descript" roles – roles such as cab drivers, bank tellers, teachers, lawyers and doctors – everyday parts in which the race of the character is not specified and not pertinent to the story.

Fortunately, the days of "painting down" white actors to make them "look Indian" is largely a thing of the past, and when Indian parts are written, they almost always go to Indian actors.

Carmelo, however, is not a hard-liner on actors only playing characters of their own race.

"I’ve always thought that the problem with non-indigenous actors playing indigenous roles is that they don’t really know the experience of being native," she says. "Jon Voight played a native guy in ‘U-Turn,’ and he got it. But that was rare; most people don’t. As artists, if we understand what it is to be that human being, we can play that role. As an indigenous person from Los Angeles, I’ve had exposure to so many different cultures. As an actress, I’m going to use that experience and go after diverse roles. I think that goes for a lot of native actors. It’s a challenge to overcome typecasting from period pieces, but it is one that I and many native actors are working on. We are working on it."

But as scarce as roles are for Native actors, they are even scarcer for Native actresses.

"It’s even harder for Native women than for men," Carmelo says. "Most Native roles are for men. Very few are for women."

One of Hollywood's worst stereotypes about American Indians is that they are a people who live only in the distant past – usually in buckskin and on horseback. And that stereotype doesn’t produce many roles for Native actresses.

"The period pieces are mostly all men," Carmelo says. "Most of these movies focus on the Plains Indians, who are perceived as a dominantly male culture – the warriors and that kind of thing. They don’t deal with females that much. The writers don’t have a feel for it."

Nevertheless, against all those odds, a few good roles for Native actresses do come along every once in a while, and Carmelo landed one of them when she was cast in the 2005 epic six-part TNT miniseries "Into the West."

"I struggled," Carmelo says. "I did little commercials here and there, and some print work, and lots of theater. But paying-work was scarce. Once you get your SAG card, the next big thing for an actor is when you qualify for SAG health insurance. I didn’t make my insurance until I did ‘Into the West.’ That’s when I didn’t have to have a day job anymore – at least not for a while, anyways."

Produced by Steven Spielberg, "Into the West" starred Carmelo as Thunder Heart Woman, a pivotal character whose marriage to a white pioneer unites the two families – one white and one Lakota – whose stories are told over a span of six decades in the bloody 1800s during the white push into Indian lands in the West.

Carmelo won critical acclaim for her performance, even though the miniseries received mixed reviews. And in 2006, her performance in "Into the West" garnered her a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for her "outstanding performance" in a TV miniseries. And it was the first time an American Indian actress had been so honored by the Screen Actors Guild.

"She was the first Native female to be nominated for a SAG award," a SAG spokeswoman confirmed.

Then, on March 25, 2006, Carmelo’s performance in "Into the West" won her the prestigious award for "Outstanding Actress in a TV Movie" from the First Americans in the Arts at their 14^{th Annual awards show at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.}

"I’d like to thank my Creator and ancestors, the Gabrielenos," she said upon receiving the award. "This is our land, so welcome to our land!"

Along the way, she’d been cast in guest starring roles on several TV shows, including "CSI: Miami" and the TV remake of "Dragnet." And then she landed the role as a modern day attorney in the independent film "Imprint" – a supernatural thriller produced by Chris Eyre and Carolyn Linn that’s still looking for distribution.

"When ‘Imprint’ came along," Carmelo recalls, "I said, ‘Wow!’ It was shocking. I can play a modern Native woman and really get into this role; do it justice and bring something new to the storytelling that people haven’t seen much of before."

Filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation and on the 777 Ranch in South Dakota last year, "Imprint" was not an easy shoot.

"Tonantzin was wonderful," said producer Linn. "It was cold and we were in the middle of nowhere, and she delivered a wonderful performance. She plays a lawyer who comes home to see her dad, and spooky things start happening. She’s in every scene and she has to carry the picture, and she does."

"Imprint" producer Chris Eyre agrees. "Tonantzin carried the picture," he said. "She is one of the most talented actresses around. She’s so watchable and so natural. And she’s grounded."

Eyre, who is one of Native America’s top filmmakers, recalled that when he was in Los Angeles not long ago, Carmelo invited him to meet her downtown.

"I live in South Dakota," he said, "but I was in Hollywood taking some meetings and she invited me, not to some fancy Hollywood restaurant, but to a ceremonial dance they were giving in downtown L.A., across from the train station. So I got in my car and ventured downtown for maybe the third time in my life, and she was there with the Tongva dancers from her tribe, and about 20 other dancers from Central and South America and Mexico. And I stood there and watched them dance for an hour and a half. It was so beautiful. And that’s why I say she is grounded. She knows who she is and where she came from. I honestly think that’s her saving grace and her blessing. She is down to earth. She is grounded because she is a Native Los Angeles person. She knows Los Angeles as Los Angeles, and she doesn’t associate it with Hollywood, or confuse the two."

"Personally, I’m still trying to find my place in show business," Carmelo says, "and I think that probably goes for the Native community as a whole. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a few leading lady roles, including ‘Into the West,’ a period piece, and ‘Imprint,’ which was good for me because it was about a modern Native woman. I think good native roles are important for the actors and the audience, but we always have to battle for our progress."

Make-up Artist ---Jason Antonio Rachal

  Hair and Stylist----Ruth Pawluk

  Location Provided by LA Rec.and Park Dept. Services

NEXT PAGE---Navajo In The North by Rhiana Yazzie