Miko Kings

Content Warning: This section discusses racism and violence. Outdated and offensive terms referring to Indigenous Americans are included only in quotations.

“A little red hen is picking at his moccasins. He tenderly picks her up. ‘You don’t like being boxed in on allotment land, do you? […] Me either.’”

Hope Little Leader, the best pitcher on the Miko Kings baseball team, contemplates the potential ramifications of the film that’s being made about their story. The Miko Kings will be recognized through the film, but the white filmmakers are inevitably reinforcing racist stereotypes. When Hope picks up the small hen, the perspective shifts from the micro, the Miko Kings, to the macro, reflecting on everything that Indigenous Americans have faced since their land was colonized. Like the hen, Hope feels trapped in an allotted amount of land.

“Photography has always had the ability to record the visible world with a kind of notional truth.”

One of the themes in Miko Kings is the importance of how history is recorded, framed, and told. When Lena first discovers the leather pouch in the wall of the house she’s inherited, the photograph of the Miko Kings team is the item that stands out to her the most. It simultaneously provides no initial context for the painful history that Lena knows the men faced while also giving her a glimpse into the kind of people these players were. In many ways, the photograph transcends time and initiates Lena’s quest for more information about the Miko Kings.