The series's signature image is a slightly hazy black-and-white photograph. It has the classic look of the pictures Edward S. Curtis and John K. Hillers (both white men) took of Indian life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In fact, Bob Charlo, a Kalispel Indian, took it in 1992.
It's the Indian side of things "We Shall Remain" aims to show. Other than the occasional academic, most of the talking heads are Indians. Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson are portrayed, not inaccurately, as villains. Tecumseh and Geronimo are seen in heroic terms.
Charlo's photograph shows a teepee on an otherwise empty field in Washington state. An American flag waves from one of the sapling poles. It's an arresting metaphor for the superimposition of the United States on Indian history.
There's more to it, though. The angle of the flag and the elevation of the pole echo the image of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima. Among those who raised that flag was an Indian, Ira Hayes. What better symbol for the integration of Indians than the presence of one in so iconic an American scene? Except that after the war, Hayes suffered from alcoholism and was dead less than 10 years later: the hero as outcast. That's far more representative of the truth "We Shall Remain" has to offer than any projected symbolism is.
There's hardly any mention of integration in "We Shall Remain," nor should there be. There's nothing about segregation, either. The truth is so much ghastlier even than that. Banishment and extermination were the order of the day for centuries. Certain terms recur in "We Shall Remain" - "ethnic cleansing," "resistance movement," "under siege" - terms not commonly heard in high school history classrooms. "We Shall Remain" makes the pertinence of those terms all too plain.
