Experience Native American Skate Culture With Apache Skateboards | SKATE TALES S2 Ep 3
we're going off-road so much dust oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god that was close to that house i'm madder zaps and i'm on a mission to explore skateboarding outside edge hop in as we travel the world meeting skateboarding mavericks to find out what skating means to them [Applause] [Music] [Music] what's up skate tales we're in globe arizona on the border of the apache reservation where the native american skateboarder doug miles jr and the apache skateboard crew keep the culture alive [Music] have you guys heard of apache skateboards which way do i have to go to to find them go all the way till you go to san carlos all right we'll see you guys later look at the size of that teepee depachi must be nearby [Music] where's doug have you seen doug is doug around knock knock knock come on in bro hello brother oh man it matters how you doing man come through man nice to meet you douglas miles jr is one of the scions of a new wave of indigenous skaters fusing their roots in native american culture with the modern movement we know and love is skateboarding born and raised in arizona san carlo's apache reservation he was introduced to skateboarding by his father the acclaimed fine artist douglas miles senior doug senior painted a deck for his son and given the instant groundswell of interest this created he founded apache skateboards a project whereby the indigenous youth of north america could recognize a connection to their own culture within this relatively new form of expression native americans have proven incredibly resourceful in developing and nurturing new iterations of their ancient culture and doug jr spent his formative skating years touring other native american reservations teaching youngsters how they could become drawn into skate culture without losing sight of their own heritage sometimes when you can't find space for your own chapter you got to rewrite the book hello [Music] random dogs dress dogs were just walking around yeah since how long you guys had this company about 20 years 20 years that's the first one that yeah that's the first one right there that's the very first one reprinted at in orange county california acme skateboards i remember in the 70s i was riding a skateboard and so when he got into it i remember i was like oh yeah that was a lot of fun i started apache skateboards around probably around the turn of the century doug jr i needed a skateboard one day and i took him to the mall and i didn't have enough money but i had 25 dollars and i said dog you know can't buy that board i said i could buy you this one though and i'll paint it when i get home because i've been an artist for a long time he says it's okay dad i just need the board and then after i painted one he took it all around here you know and then i said what did your friend say and he said they all want one so that's how it got started yeah so angelica is a it's a brand that i just i started a company as a clothing company so i was just making clothes and shirts and hats really just wanted to make dope ass hats this is my pro board from angelica it's all about vibe it's all about creativity like i made this my father he's an artist so we want to like um support artists and skaters and everybody who does like creative stuff like things like that this is the cover of the globe miami times which is a local newspaper we're just going to build the skate park in san carlos so i think they did the story on that i mean this is my first uh cover umber magazine the creative thinkers graphic journal sports issue actually at the front on the back both covers yeah so that was pretty rad this is the from the groundbreaking ceremony at the san carlo skate park arizona republic we were raising money for a skate park and you got it and we raised it yeah yeah we raised it matters we got it we're gonna take the oldsmobile to go through the diy right now apache skateboards reintroduced a lot of the our history into the the hands and put it in front of the faces of younger kids where we weren't really thinking about that stuff we weren't thinking like i didn't have no idea no clue about history back then until i saw the boards and then how did we get here what happened to figure out the where i came from and why we're here on the reservation [Music] what's your name jerry and jared pleasure this is it this is the spot the diy we had a gofundme account did the fundraiser to like instagram and social media and it just it was crazy because people just started posting and reposting and reposting and people from all over the country have just been super hyped and and helping out and couldn't have done it without these dudes you know like these are the homies and the homies that you guys are see skating you know they they did all this [ __ ] [Applause] my name is adam pinoyer and i'm a white male and apache you know from the reservation and this is where i grew up and where i started skateboarding now we were talking about the skatepark we're building right now with doug and now i'm trying to do it back for the kids i'm not asking for anything out of it i'm trying to keep it alive you know you can't let her die because that's uh activities for the kids to live on and survive on and you know try to like lead them away from you know the bad the bad experience that i've been through and i don't want them to go through that [Music] before i used to skate i was like naughty i wasn't really a good child but after i started skating i just started to just want to skate more and that's just what i do now i just skate so it's like it brings a lot of influence to a lot of you younger people who kind of don't have nothing to do here on the reservation except just we all know drugs and alcohol and stuff like that and so this is this is kind of a big impact see a lot of people come here that we don't normally see but it's just like it's good to see them coming out of their comfort zone to come and skate at least do something have fun just have fun in general the point is it keeps them away from depression that's another way of being happy like you're pushing down the sidewalk it's pushing out the bad energy to get positive energy in you that's how i see skateboarding on the reservation because that's all we got [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] huh [Music] [Music] yeah i think apache culture has always had art we've always created our own stuff we've always been very very creative people he started this my father uh he created this this type of style that you kind of see but he was he was an artist since i was even born and everything that you see in here is still apache culture it's still the same thing it's just the older stuff grew into what it is now and we just met up with dad and we're gonna go see his artwork his dad's and trey's authentic apache art right here yes sir hell yeah yeah so this is a spacecraft gallery and this exhibition has been put together by my sister oh i seen you made some posters oh yeah what do you think about them skate jam sounds about right homie trey's got art uh my popsy's got art and my sister's got art which is this one right here too this is reuben ringlero he is uh the original apache filmer yeah you know art has been a big thing in skateboarding and it's also a big thing in apache culture so what you see here is art from our culture and just us you know creating i think of it it's crazy there's like four generations of skateboards yeah four generations in one room should we check out the art yeah i think we as indigenous people we're very creative it's in our our blood as creative people and what we're doing is just a modern way of that whether it's videography graffiti you know it's another way for us to express our creativity you know besides skateboarding but that's what skateboarding does i don't think we could do that i don't think we would have gotten there maybe without big doug's help you know when you're seeing trey doug and reuben from apache skateboards you are seeing this history of apache people played out in a modern context because they are young men they are young leaders and they are leading community yeah art has always been a part of apache culture and i think cultures around the world can see the face on the front like there's a little indian face is a way to preserve culture but also to teach and promote culture at the same time while being creative what about life on the rest like it's like a whole other country or we have our own laws and we have our own regulations and we have our own government there it is it's still it's still controlled by the united states but this was like a prison camp dude in san carlos apaches there were some over here but they not not really because it's the desert and there's no water and [ __ ] apaches come from the mountains so wherever we are in arizona and you go into the mountains the higher mountains that's where they're from everyone's from the most beautiful places in arizona the most beautiful places from new mexico that's where we're all from that's where we're supposed to be there's not very many jobs on the reservation which creates a little bit of a harder times it's hard it's hard on the [ __ ] res bro [Music] and he's from latvia he's never had fried bread before yeah i don't think so so i sought fry bread every day i've been here for over 25 years okay all right thank you thank you very much it's nice and warm so before eating this we're gonna enroll i'm trying to become an apache you want to get my friend here enrolled in the tribe what what do i have to do will you stamp my cast [Music] yeah it's it's like now i'm apache awesome thank you so what's inside these things this is a fiber with beans you got a simple version it's fried bread with beans and there might be cheese in there [Music] amazing i love the bread that was mine but you can have it so we see some skaters skating a porch right there gonna ask them to join us the session and the skate part this is the younger ones hey what's up man hey i'm with the matters apps from element from the skate team you guys should come skate the park right now yeah that's what we're doing right now yeah come through bro all right yeah we'll be over there so this is downtown and what do the leaders say about skating out here they like it because our we like our new leader because he he's the chairman and he's the one that wanted to build the skate park so he took some of his funds and he put it to the skate park the new one so he's cool he's fun his own time yeah there's my pops uh big mural he's he's a muralist too your dad did this one yeah my pop said that you know skateboarding is more widely accepted now in the world and the community but back then it was the first step to you know making skateboarding more accepted here in san carlos this community is a very open community in a lot of ways especially when it comes to kids if it's good for kids then they're going to support it like right now the chairman supports skateboarding yeah this is where me and trey kind of grew up skating together since we were kids man 12 years ago i believe i was about 16 at the time we couldn't stay out of here when they're building construction here we would hop the fence and skate just the little parts that they already built and we get chased off here all the time and eventually we took down the entrance and the fence and they just gave up and we're here every day ever since [Music] [Music] solid [Music] this is elijah right here he rides for angelica he's been ripping here in san carlos since i was a little kid [Music] [Music] definitely grown over the years uh you can definitely see the generations like doug is one generation and there's my generation there's a couple kids who have another generation i haven't been back here in a while but as i you can clearly see the community skating is well alive and strong yeah it's grown a lot it's grown a lot but it's grown because they go work with kids in the community they show kids how to skate and they include kids out to skate so they built the community and they built the culture they are the culture we are making culture in its new culture it's not like regular mainstream skateboarding culture either it's different yeah it's skateboarding but it's completely different we do what we want here we do it the way we want to do it we don't have to follow any rules we don't have to follow the rules of mainstream skateboarding or we don't have to follow their rules why because they don't live here so we're here at apache burger it's one of the very few restaurants on our reservation we're going to get matters of apache burger it's a staple in our community it's a fry bread with two patties and a classic american cheeseburger inside of a fry bread it's time for an apache burger look at the size of that thing wow wow apache burger thank you [Music] ecstasy [Music] we're about to play horseshoe and your goal is to swing and try to get your horseshoe like a ringer around the post this game's not that easy [Music] but he did tell me that the woman the mother is in a high appraisal in the apache culture like people respect the women women a lot in apache culture women can do whatever they want and be whoever they want to be i've heard that we are a matriarchal society and that women play a slightly more important role i'm always blessed to be an apache and to learn more about my culture and you know so that's a good shot aim with your whole body you want your feet to be across like this yeah just perfectly where do i live you're looking right at your arrow [Music] apache means to be hard-working apache means to be unstoppable apache to me means to be high performance [Music] apache to me means to be relentless it means to be uh powerful apache means to be tough that means yeah all those things for sure [Music] now we're gonna skate some street around globe i don't mean the shoe company i mean the city of globe we're gonna skate around [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] that was awesome hey thanks homies thank you yes okay we're gonna give away some boards shoes thanks to element in dc we're gonna do a little contest for the natives just gotta figure out how to carry all this but i think it's doable all right forget about it sailing sailing now we're going to do a little skateboard contest on this transition right here all right the congress begins in three two one go and we got our first winner come on all right and we've got enough it's nine here you go you got these ones all right [Music] skateboarding the community uh i think skateboarding on the rest is is growing and it's continually and it will grow because the community is starting to support it they're starting to build skate parks more skate parks than what they had before you know there's other communities that are seeing what communities are doing so they're like hey skateboarding's popular there's something growing there so we should do that too you know and it's just going to keep growing [Music] all right everybody kick flick contest's over patchy skateboards it's uh inspiring a lot of people to get out there in their community and make a change that they have the power to do that with anything with whatever they're good at they can they can change or bring a positive change to wherever they're at with whatever they're good at so for sure that should be all right this one [Applause] you want to have that confidence being anywhere out there that you can be all right that's fine you know i want to be able to be put out there somewhere and be like okay i know where i am i know those mountains over there and i know those mountains over there and i know it grows here and i'm fine not i don't feel like anything i feel okay i'm fine that was scary we found the tarantula oh it is a hawk is it a hawk [Music] oh wow can you feel the power of the nature flowing through you yes i think i can feel it this isn't bad the driest it's been actually yeah we usually just use this little strip that's already dry and just kind of like needle through it but this is like the best it's been this is part of skateboarding ditches sometimes you gotta shovel sometimes you gotta build some dams divert the water another direction and soon enough we'll be skating this thing [Music] hmm [Music] [Music] so what is skateboarding to you skateboarding to me is my gift it's my it's what god gave me skateboarding is it's not everything to me but it's what god gave me to do for the rest of my life that's what god gave me to to do to bless the world with it's i am skateboarding you know like it's me it's what i'm here to do is why i'm on this planet it's why i'm here you
2022-05-21 22:45
