As part of a celebration of Native American Heritage Month, the K’aalógii Coalition is hosting a three-part screening event, “Native Stories by and for Native People,” at SubRosa, an anarchist community space in downtown Santa Cruz. On Oct. 28, at the first screening night of the series, community members gathered to watch “Blood Quantum,” a science-fiction film incorporating themes of Indigenous futurism.
The founder of the K’aalogii Coalition is Ezekiel “K’aalogii” Salazar, a 2024 UC Santa Cruz alumni who identifies as a Diné, meaning “the people” in the Navajo language, and Chicane, as well as a two-spirited individual. Aiming to use film to amplify Native perspectives on issues such as cultural resilience and historical injustices, Salazar hand-picked three movies: “Blood Quantum” (2019), an “Indipocalyptic” (Indigenous apocalyptic) film; “Lakota Nation vs. The United States” (2022) a historical documentary, and “Fancy Dance” (2023) a drama focused on family values.
Though all three films have varying genres, the films highlight Indigenous struggles of maintaining culture and identity. Salazar noted these themes were absent in films from his formative years.
“Growing up, I consumed a lot of media,” Salazar said. “However, a lot of the media I grew up with either didn’t have any representation of Native communities, or they had harmful stereotypes [of Native communities], which really fed into how I viewed myself.”
Salazar previously served as a primary chair member of the Student Alliance of Native Americans and Indigenous Peoples (SANAI) at UCSC and an intern for the American Indian Resource Center (AIRC). Nearing graduation, he realized he would no longer have access to campus resources like SANAI and AIRC, and began searching for off-campus alternatives.
“There wasn’t really anything happening in Santa Cruz for Native and Indigenous peoples, so I was just kind of like, you know what? I’m just gonna take what I’ve learned from being part of the org and the center and start doing the events myself,” Salazar said.
The K’aalogii Coalition is an intertribal coalition dedicated to the BIPOC community. The coalition strives to spread awareness of BIPOC history and cultures and acts as a gateway to engage with other related movements in Santa Cruz.
Since its founding in fall 2023, the K’aalogii Coalition has hosted a wide variety of events to support BIPOC individuals and the wider community. They have also accepted donations that are then sent to various Indigenous organizations and tribes, such as the Amah Mutsun Tribe and Uniting Natives Culturally & Intertribally (UNCI).
As Salazar prepares for the next Nov. 25, he hopes to elevate Native American Heritage Month by creating a space safe to educate, entertain and spark discussion about Indigenous topics.
“Our communities have been making a lot of progress throughout Turtle Island, which we also call the United States,” Salazar said. “But it really felt like we haven’t been really making any change here in Santa Cruz. Like, there’s land acknowledgements and everything, but then it’s like, ‘what’s that?’ It’s like, ‘what else are you doing?’”
Salazar hopes by the final night, the audience will be able to take what they have learned in the films to better engage in a conversation about the effects of modern colonization on Indigenous people today, and how they can take charge in spreading awareness of the occurring problems modern Indigenous tribes and communities face.
“I’m hoping that with the screenings, we’ll be able to start the conversation about our past, future, resiliency, and empower our Native kin,” Salazar said. “That’s the most important part of trying to show representation through the media.”