Release date: 2006
Director & Producer: Jed Riffe

One of the four episodes from the California and the American Dream Series, California’s ‘Lost’ Tribes weighs the impact of casino gambling on Native American self-determination, explores the historical underpinnings of Tribal sovereignty, the evolution of Tribal gaming, and its effects on California’s Native peoples and their non-Indian neighbors.

In a few short years, some American Indian Tribes in California went from being the poorest people in the state to the richest – gaining extraordinary wealth from casino gaming. However, California Tribal members must still contend with a legacy of racism that thrives in the twenty-first century. In California’s ‘Lost’ Tribes, the first documentary to go beyond today’s sensationalistic headlines, tribal leaders tell their own stories of abundance, attempted genocide, survival, and resistance.