Fran didn’t know what to say as she stood in front of four hundred Navaho in a gymnasium in Tuba City, Arizona. She and her friend, Max, had driven from Los Angeles to help in a battle against the government and mining interests trying to get their hands on Navaho coal.The Indians were suspicious of these naïve white idealists who could do as much harm as good, and who were clueless about the dangers involved in fighting the feds.

Fran was clueless in some ways. She had wanted for nothing while growing up on Long Island in the 1950s. She did not think of herself as a Jewish American Princess. Most of the time being Jewish was not a big deal to her. She definitely did not want to be a princess. She wanted good work. She had imagined herself as a partner in the family import business. Only after Leo, her baby brother, became a dancer did Fran’s father even consider taking her seriously. It was too late. Fran was already making a life of her own in L.A.

In a small gesture, driven by guilt, her father connected Fran with Max, the son of a friend of a friend. Max was a TV producer. Maybe he could open some doors for her. Max did. He got her some work in the industry, but he also opened another door when he introduced her to movie stars and left wing activists who were speaking out for native peoples. Fran was ripe for radicalization.

The folks in Tuba city were waiting to be convinced. Fran took another deep breath, closed her eyes, and wished she were somewhere else. Carlos Castaneda’s books where not going to help her now. Then she remembered that it was Rosh Hashanah. As her words were simultaneously translated into Navaho, she felt like she was speaking in tongues. ”Today is Jewish New Year, a time for reflection, thankfulness and remembering the dead. Some of my family survived the holocaust. Some did not. My people were stripped of their homes, their possessions, their dignity, and marched off to concentration camps while millions stood by and did nothing. I cannot, I will not stand by while my government commits cultural genocide on you.” When Fran left the stage, she went from Jewish American Princess to NavaJew. Max held his fist in the air and wept.

Her heart’s door had opened but Fran still had a lot to learn. She split her time between months on a movie project and months living and studying at the camps of bona fide medicine men keeping their culture alive. She learned how to listen. She learned to be respectful. She learned that to be truly accepted, she had to spend time with the women, hold their children, hear their stories, do their work. She learned to look at things with the eye in her heart, not the eyes in her head. When her parents phoned, they would ask about her movie work. As for her other work, they didn’t want to hear about it. They told themselves and their friends, “She’s making a documentary. She’s on location.”