Daniella Zalcman and Native Americans in Media

Daniella Zalcman is a Vietnamese-American documentary photojournalist who founded Women Photograph, a database/resource of over 500 women and non-binary photojournalists across the globe. It's primary mission is "to shift the gender makeup of the photojournalism community and ensure that our industry's chief storytellers are as diverse as the communities they hope to represent." Zalcman's photo projects all focus on the impacts of western colonization and imperialism. Her most recent work, "Signs of your Identity. Forced assimilation and education for indigenous youth," has one three awards. 

Zalcman is actively working against stereotypes. She went to photograph Native Americans in Canada on some reservations, but found what she photographed contributed to negative stereotypes and images already perpetuated by the media that are more harmful to Native Americans: photographs of poverty and addiction. So instead, she came up with a photo project about the healing of the lasting effects of trauma felt by Native Americans who went through years of physical and sexual abuse in state, government, and church run boarding schools (up until 1996), and how the trauma experienced there has led to mental health problems, addiction, alcoholism, depression, and PTSD. 

Her photos bring awareness of cultural genocide that the U.S. and Canadian governments have not been held accountable for, the lasting effects of intergenerational trauma, and the process of forgetting and healing the years of abuse.