Dennis Robinson
Dennis’s mother Maria was the granddaughter of the high chief Alexei Yatchmenoff. She recalled, as a teen during WW2, being forced from home and instructed to pack two bags and go to a ship.
No explanation on what to pack or where they were going. Hurriedly, some of the families and church leaders hid religious icons and prized treasures in the walls of their homes, not trusting the US troops that had taken over the community. The entire Unangan community was taken away from their home and dispersed among different locations in Southeast Alaska. After a journey by sea, Maria awoke at Burnett Inlet where she and her loved ones were to spend the next few years in an internment camp. Many died. When they were eventually returned to Unalaska, they found their homes ransacked and destroyed, icons and heirlooms pocketed as souvenirs. The trauma and devastation to the families, the community, and to their own cultural history was unspeakable. And yet, recovery and rebuilding was the only option.
Throughout generations, healing came slowly. For over two centuries the people were referred to as “Aleut”, a name given to them by the Russians in the 1700s. In the past few decades, they’ve resumed their own name as the Unangax people. The scars remain, but there is hope for the future. Currently there is a resurgence of love and joy in the ownership of heritage. Proud young Unangans all over Alaska are gathering, learning to celebrate, recreate the art and expression of their ancestors, not just expressing the pain, but claiming the joy that it is to be Unangan.”
Listening to Dennis, I felt ashamed that I knew nothing of this part of American history. I started his portrait print by printing his profile and then recreated his body into the form of an ancestral Unangan hunter wearing the iconic visor and “chigdax” which was a waterproof parka made from the intestines of sea mammals. The chigdax has a quilted appearance, so each section of Dennis’ parka contains resilient indigenous flora of his wind swept island. Towards the edges, the plant life grows beyond its quilted borders much like the resilience and spirit of Dennis and his people, they cannot be contained.