A week ago at a meeting in Ortonville, my partner and I met Karina Kafka, a young videographer who's heading off to Atlanta for the next step of her promising career. Mike was especially taken with her professionalism and the topic of her work, Murders and Missing Indigenous Women, for like many Native American families, he's lost a cousin and an aunt to the MMIW crisis.
Kafka's already making the news in rural Minnesota.
In Saturday's West Central Tribune, Tom Cherveny reports in Ortonville, Minnesota, videographer, mother of woman who disappeared fight for missing Indigenous women:
Monica Fast Horse feared the worst when the daughter on whom she relied for rides to dialysis and other care failed to show up at her home one August day in 2021.
She hesitated before reporting her missing to the police, but knew immediately something bad had happened. Her missing daughter was always dependable in caring for her. And, Fast Horse explained, she was caring for her missing daughter's 5-year-old daughter.
“My first mistake was waiting too long the first day,” Fast Horse, of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, told videographer Karina Kafka as a camera recorded.
“A Mother’s Love,” a video documentary created by Kafka, aims to raise awareness about the plight of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. The documentary is told from the mother’s perspective.
Fast Horse speaks directly to the challenges that followed once she reached out to law enforcement and the media in hopes of finding help in locating her missing daughter.
. . .Kafka, who grew up in Ortonville, is a 2021 graduate of Augsburg University with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and cinematography. Of Asian descent, Kafka said the widespread media attention about the disappearance of Gabby Petito, a white woman murdered at age 22 in August 2021 by her fiancé, got her thinking.
“If I was missing, would my face be on the news, in the papers? Probably not,” she told an audience who gathered with her and Fast Horse for a screening of her video documentary at the YES! House in Granite Falls on March 15.
Kafka said that observation led her to become passionate about the need to raise awareness about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. She sought out someone whose story could be told.
She learned in an article in The Guardian about the ordeal experienced by Fast Horse and got in contact. Since producing the documentary, Kafka and Fast Horse have joined to offer screenings to other communities, such as Madison.
Kafka produced the documentary with a budget of zero. She was the entire production crew. . . .
Fast Horse's fears were eased when one of her daughters, who has a degree in information technology, was able to get into the missing daughter’s Facebook account and track her whereabouts. She now knew her daughter was alive, Fast Horse said.
After roughly 18 weeks, Fast Horse said her daughter returned with a knock on the door. She came home thin, with dark circles under her eyes, and not wearing the clothes she had been wearing when she disappeared, according to Fast Horse.
A person she thought was a friend had given her a ride the day she disappeared, Fast Horse said her daughter eventually told her. She had been taken away and often kept locked in a closet, fed a diet of mostly peanut butter despite her allergy to peanuts, and was beaten, said Fast Horse.
“They broke her,” said Fast Horse.
To this day, her daughter will tell her very little about what happened.
One thing was clear: The persistent campaign by Fast Horse to find her missing daughter mattered.
Read the entire article at the Tribune. Want to watch the documentary? Cherveny reports:
The documentary can be viewed by contacting Kafka on her Facebook page.
Related posts
- Via Star Tribune op-ed page: update on Minnesota's MMIR (MMIW) Office
- South Dakota AG Ravnsborg unable to fund office for missing Indigenous persons
- Not just a "bargaining chip" for Paul Gazelka, MMIR office finds place in public safety deal
- House Judiciary Finance & Civil Law Committee sends bill for MMIR office to Public Safety
- [VIDEO] Shakopee Town Hall discussion about state rep. Keeler's effort to establish MMIR office
- National MMIW+R awareness day: scenes from Sisseton, South Dakota; St. Paul, Minnesota
Photo: Karina Kafka, left, and Monica Fast Horse hosted a screening of the documentary "A Mother's Love," followed by a discussion to raise awareness about the plight of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women at the YES! House in Granite Falls on March 15, 2023. Contributed to West Central Tribune by YES! House.
If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post.
Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.
I'm on Venmo for those who prefer to use this service: @Sally-Sorensen-6
Comments