March 2008
 Yolanda
Cruz (Chatin) directs documentaries about indigenous
Oaxacans living in the United States and Mexico, for which she
has received support from The Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller
Foundation. In 2008 Cruz participated in “Native Women in
Documentary Film,” a community discussion featuring filmmakers
at various stages in their professional work, organized by the
NMAI Film and Video Center staff in Washington, DC. Cruz was the
California community liason for Video México Indígena/Video
Native Mexico, a national video tour organized by NMAI's Film
and Video Center in 2003. She is the author of Oaxaca Sabores
Simples: A Culinary Voyage through Indigenous Communities of Oaxaca,
Mexico. She received an MFA from the school of Theater, Film,
and Television at UCLA. Her thesis film Guenati'za (The Visitors)
told the story of an indigenous man working as a gardener
in Los Angeles and his return home to the mountains of Oaxaca.
Cruz received a BA from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.
She was born in Cieneguilla, Oaxaca, and is fluent in Chatin,
Spanish, and English.
"I like to encounter histories in the kitchen, in the country,
in the streets. I believe that dialogue is important to be able
to be understood by the rest of the world. Visual language is
universal."
Screened by NMAI
For More Information
Image credit:
Yolanda Cruz - courtesy of the filmmaker; Yolanda Cruz
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