ALANIS OBOMSAWIN and the Power of Documentary Filmmaking
LIKE MANY INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, the distinguished Abenaki film-maker Alanis Obomsawin grew up in a society that was taught to hate her and people who looked like her. When she was younger, she realized that was something she wanted to change. “I think I was 12 years old when I decided that. I was fighting against the educational system that for so many generations taught children to hate us. It’s as simple as that,” explained Obomsawin. “For many generations, those [school] books taught the history of our country, and the basic reason was to take [it from us] and to make sure that people would dislike us and hate us.”
As a young adult, she went on to speak with children in classroom settings about
