An Indigenous Canadian Director Channels Traumatic Memories Into Film
The New York Times
Tracey Deer based “Beans” on her experiences as a child during the 1990 Oka crisis, a confrontation between the Mohawk people and the government.
Tracey Deer can still remember the sound of rocks hitting the car, her panicked mother’s orders to “Get down!” and the loud smash as a back passenger window shattered, showering glass over her screaming little sister.
Deer, an Indigenous Canadian filmmaker, was only 12 on Aug. 28, 1990, when a white mob hurled stones and racial insults at vehicles filled with Mohawk women, children and the elderly, all trying to evacuate a reservation near Montreal. The Oka crisis, a dispute between Canadian authorities and the Mohawk people over land rights, was reaching its height, and the frightened children crouched on the floor until Deer’s mother could drive on.
“My sense of safety was stolen from me,” Deer said. “My sense of self-worth, as of that moment, was nonexistent.” But after spending most of her adolescence consumed by anger, she said in a video interview, “I ended up finding a way to channel that instead into my drive to prove all those people wrong.”
