In 2005, D-Q University, California’s only tribal college, was shut down after a 35-year struggle. Since then, the school’s board of trustees, past students, and community members have tried to reopen the school against all odds. This 30-minute video documentary is structured around a group of occupants who illegally live at the closed D-QU campus amid threats of arrest by the school’s board of trustees. FINDING D-QU looks at the often-conflictive relationship between the board and the occupants. This current struggle frames the history of the school, beginning with D-QU’s establishment in the midst of civil rights activism in the late 1960s. The documentary outlines the original vision of D-QU as a space for self-determined higher education and the hope this dream brought to its many students. The film illustrates the ways in which D-QU’s ongoing struggles reflect pressing issues in other American Indian communities.

FINDING D-QU provides a lens through which to critically examine the wider American Indian movement toward self-determination and sovereignty in its historical context and as it exists today. FINDING D-QU focuses on the historical struggle to maintain a self-reliant educational institution for Indian students and the hardships, successes and failures that come with the movement to reclaim education for Native people. The documentary explores questions concerning past struggles at D-QU, the current situation and the possible future of California’s tribal college. The history of DQ-University reveals that the original people of the Americas continue to struggle to decolonize their culture, traditions and educational systems.