By the time she worked on an episode of the television series “Reservation Dogs,” UCLA alumna Tazbah Rose Chavez (Nüümü, Diné, San Carlos Apache) had already built a career in writers’ rooms. Still, a question from a Hollywood executive upended her sense of past, present and future as a writer. The exchange would stay with her, sparking a realization that helped her reflect on her path from poet and pre-law student to filmmaker, and eventually to the creative team behind the Emmy-nominated series that redefined Native representation on screen. But more on that actual conversation later.
In many ways, Chavez’s own story mirrors the kind of reflection and discovery that UCLA’s Common Experience program encourages among new Bruins, inviting students to engage with a shared work that sparks campuswide conversations about identity, empathy and social responsibility. This year’s selection of FX’s “Reservation Dogs” continues that tradition while also complementing the accompanying campaign, “The Power of Storytelling,” which highlights how shared narratives can bridge communities and amplify diverse voices.
It’s also a rare moment when the Common Experience selection is co-created by one of UCLA’s own. Chavez, who earned her bachelor’s degree in American Indian Studies in 2010, brings a distinctly Bruin perspective to the program’s themes.
Newsroom caught up with Chavez, who served as a co-executive producer, writer and director for “Reservation Dogs” (and who has also worked across several acclaimed network and streaming series) to talk about how storytelling is not only a creative practice, but also an act of reclamation, connection and joy.
Some responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.
How do you think “Reservation Dogs” demonstrates the power of storytelling, and what do you hope new students take away from the series?
I think that having “Reservation Dogs” be the Common Experience is the epitome of telling one’s own story. Native people were some of the first people who were ever put on film when the camera was invented, but not really until the last five to six years have we had complete narrative control over our own stories in the television space.
Then there is also “Reservation Dogs” as a story, showing viewers the First Peoples of this nation in our modernity and our contemporary existence. I think the show really lifted the veil off of global audiences’ understanding of who Native people are in terms of our world views — that we’re funny and that we like the same things as other people do — and that there are these universal experiences that human beings are having.
I think students will be able to relate because this show is really based in the high school years, and centers around grief and resiliency, as well as the power of community, which is what a lot of students in college have to find. I also think that any time people can learn about the history of the countries that they live in, it’s really important.
You’ve mentioned in interviews that you’ve loved writing stories since you were a child. Do you remember what some of these early stories were about?
My first story that I can remember was in the first grade. We had to write and illustrate our own story, and I took mine very seriously: I laminated it with box tape, punched holes in it and tied it with yarn to make the binding. I think that story had to do with a robot and a dog.
There’s also, on my dad’s bulletin board in the kitchen at home on our reservation, a poem that I wrote in the first grade about being a powwow fancy dancer: why I like to do that and how it makes me feel. And in the corner of the paper, there’s my first-grade picture.
From a very early age, I was interested in expressing myself and expressing my inner world. I started out as a poet. I was identified very early by my teachers, my parents and my friends as being a writer before I even recognized that it was something I could do full-time.
How did you recognize that being a creative could not only carry impact on the things that mattered to you, but also be a viable career path?
I didn’t know that film was a thing that I could pursue professionally. I thought it was a hobby, and I thought poetry was a hobby. I wasn’t really encouraged to pursue it in higher education. So, I did an American Indian Studies degree at UCLA with the intent to do Federal Indian law at the law school there.
One of the most formative classes I took as an undergrad was a writing course called “Comedy and Culture,” taught by Monica Palacios. It was the first time I was exposed to comedic writing in the form of short stories, and it really opened my mind to what comedy on the page could be.
In my early 30s, I was part of AT&T’s Hello Lab Filmmaker Mentoring Lab, where I wrote and directed the short film “Your Name is English.” At the time, I was still working in the beauty industry as my full-time job, and hadn’t yet written for television.
Several years later, after I had already staffed on two shows, I was asked by an executive, “When did you decide you wanted to be a TV writer?” It was such an interesting question, because no one had ever asked me that before. I told him that I never decided to be because I didn’t know I was allowed to be. I just sort of kept writing and found myself in all these different paths of writing, and I found myself back in TV after a short film I made. I feel like for students, if they are storytellers, it’s our duty to empower them to pursue it because it can be a viable path.
You’ve taken many UCLA Extension courses since getting your bachelor’s degree from here. What has that experience been like?
I loved my time at UCLA. There’s just something when you step onto that campus that gives you so much ambition — it just makes you feel like you really can sort of do anything. UCLA Extension has made me feel like I am earning additional opportunities by putting in extra work. A lot of people doing Extension classes have jobs; they have families.
And I feel like UCLA Extension is a testament to somebody’s drive to stay a forever learner. It’s nice to be in classes with other adults who are trying to find what their “thing” is after working these other careers. I was in classes with people who were in entertainment law who had realized, “Wait, I want to be on the creative side.” And something like UCLA Extension allowed them to get that education.
