Making Your Voice, Your Power: A Docuseries for Native Voters
Civics usually shows up as a pamphlet, a lecture or a checklist. It tells you what an office is called and what it's supposed to do, and then it leaves you to work out why any of it matters to your family. For tribal communities in Arizona, that gap is wide, and it has a long history behind it.
So when the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona's Arizona Native Vote project asked us to help with voter education before the 2026 midterms, we didn't make a pamphlet. We made a ten-part documentary series called Your Voice, Your Power. All ten episodes are out now, and here's the trailer:
Why this series matters
The right to vote came late to Native people in Arizona, and it came hard. Here's the short version of that history, from ITCA's own timeline:
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1924 | The Indian Citizenship Act makes Native Americans U.S. citizens |
| 1928 | In Porter v. Hall, the Arizona Supreme Court rules Native people "persons under guardianship" and turns them away from the polls |
| 1948 | In Harrison v. Laveen, the court reverses itself and recognizes the Native right to vote |
| 1970 | Federal law bans the literacy tests that kept most Native Arizonans from voting after 1948 |
| 2008 | Arizona Native Vote begins, after the state's voter ID law falls hardest on Native voters |
24 years: the gap between Native Americans becoming U.S. citizens and Arizona recognizing their right to vote.
That history is why we think this series matters so much. A vote is how a community protects everything else it cares about: its water, its health care, its schools, its land and its say in decisions made far away. When people can see exactly how a governor's office, a county recorder or a ballot proposition reaches their own lives, voting stops being an abstract duty and becomes a practical tool. That's the whole mission of the series: to help Native voters walk into the booth informed, confident and clear about what's at stake.
One question per episode
Early on, our SITREP research turned up something important. People weren't staying home out of apathy. Staying home was a reasonable response to a long record of broken promises, and any honest series had to face that before it asked anyone to show up.
So we built the series around questions, not lectures. Each episode takes one part of government and asks one plain question about it, answered by tribal leaders, legal experts, public servants and community members in their own words. Here are all ten:
| Episode | Title | The question |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Office of the Arizona Governor | How does the Governor's office affect tribal communities? |
| 2 | Office of the Arizona Secretary of State | What does the Secretary of State have to do with your vote? |
| 3 | Office of the Arizona Attorney General | How does the Attorney General impact tribal nations? |
| 4 | Office of the Arizona State Legislature | How does the Legislature shape the lives of tribal communities? |
| 5 | Ballot Propositions | How can ballot propositions affect tribal communities? |
| 6 | The Federal Government | How does the federal government affect tribal nations? |
| 7 | Coordination Between Arizona and Tribal Nations | How does the state coordinate with tribal nations? |
| 8 | County Elections and Tribal Nations | How does county government affect tribal nations? |
| 9 | Two Nations, One Voice | What does it mean to be a Native voter on or off tribal lands? |
| 10 | Your Voice, Your Power | Why should Native voters take part in state, local and federal elections? |
The series is nonpartisan from the first frame to the last. It never tells anyone who to vote for. It shows why the vote matters and how to use it well.
A small crew on purpose
The best interviews in this series happen when people forget there's a production in the room. That's hard to do with a big crew, a truck full of gear and a dozen people standing behind the camera. So we kept our crew on set to about five people most days, and never more than ten.
About 5: the size of our crew on most shoot days, so every interview felt like a conversation.
A smaller footprint does a few things at once. It lets us set up quickly in council chambers, offices and homes without taking them over. It lets us move when the day changes, which it always does. And most of all, it gives the people on camera room to think out loud, pause and say the honest thing rather than the rehearsed one. That's where the real reactions come from, and they're what carry a series like this.
Nine months of production, one year end to end
From the first call to the final episode, the project took about a year. Nine months of that was production: interviews, location shoots and the long, careful work of turning hours of conversation into ten clear episodes.
| Stage | Time |
|---|---|
| Production | 9 months |
| The whole project, start to finish | 1 year |
| Episodes | 10, plus a trailer |
Ten episodes is a lot of story to keep straight. Every episode had to stand on its own for someone who only watches one, and still build toward the closing episode for someone who watches all ten. Here's Episode 4, on the Arizona State Legislature:
Where it's playing
All ten episodes are free to watch on Arizona Native Vote's docuseries page and on YouTube, and the series has already played at two film festivals. The series is presented by the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona and created by Arizona Native Vote, in collaboration with the Arizona State University Indian Legal Clinic. We're proud to have made it with them.
The full story of how we made it, with the research behind it, is in our Your Voice, Your Power case study.
If you're telling a civic story
If you work for a tribal nation, a public agency or a nonprofit with something important to explain, we'd love to hear about it. Civic stories don't have to be dry, and they don't have to talk down to anyone. The people closest to an issue usually explain it best, and our job is to give them the room to do it. If that sounds like your story, message us.
Sources
- Your Voice, Your Power docuseries, Arizona Native Vote
- Arizona Native Vote Election Protection Project, Arizona Native Vote
- History of the Native Vote in Arizona, Inter Tribal Council of Arizona
- The Frank Harrison and Harry Austin Voting Rights Scholarship, Inter Tribal Council of Arizona
