Educational Media Reviews Online

There are gaps in the US historical record resulting from various causes and motives. Arguably no historical record of the Americas would be complete without a thorough investigation of the long oppression of its native people, yet this reckoning still seems slow in coming. This documentary reveals a little known episode in that history of oppression: the involuntary sterilization of Native American women between the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Focusing on the personal stories of three women included in the estimated thousands caught in this human rights abomination – which the government has yet to acknowledge or investigate – Amá examines the lasting trauma and stigma they have had to confront in their path to healing. However, perhaps due to the lack of an official investigation, the film’s background is not clear as to this practice’s origins or its scope. It includes interview segments with a retired global population expert who indicates that it grew as a result of unintended consequences of the War on Poverty in the Sixties. There is also evidence that longstanding efforts to control Native Americans generally played into the blatant or subtle coercion of these women in the Indian Health Services. In the end, this does not change the tragic outcomes for the victims whatever its impetus.

Amá is an important beginning into our understanding and reconciliation of the wrongs done to native women, regardless, one that will hopefully spark a more thorough investigation.