Indigenous culture was prominently featured at “Race Reels,” a movie watching event showcasing protagonists of color, organized by juniors Elise Kutka and Aviv Schwab-Jacobson for Native American Heritage Month. It was held at the Brookline Teen Center (BTC) on Wednesday, Nov. 20 from 5-6 p.m. This Race Reels was the first one of the year and the first to be held at the BTC.
Kutka said she and Schwab-Jacobson attended several Race Reels last year planned by their teachers as part of their Racial Awareness Seminar curriculum. Race Reels was discontinued this year, but they decided to organize their own Race Reels because they felt local teens could benefit from the same experiences they’d had when learning about people of color.
“In Racial Awareness, there are no quizzes or tests, but there is just a lot of information that you learn and need to understand,” Kutka said. “It really stays with you, because you know that it’s important, since you realize along the way that they are real people and that it’s impactful.”
Schwab-Jacobson said she hopes Race Reels will teach others what life is like in Native American families, a topic many people in Brookline know very little about and may not often consider.
“We have [Race Reels] to raise awareness about different racial identities, their different perspectives and maybe some of the discrimination those identities face,” Schwab-Jacobson said. “Race Reels are also just a space to talk about [discrimination] and how it might develop in our community.”
The first film, “A Long Line of Ladies” by Shaandiin Tome and Rayka Zehtabchi, was a 22-minute documentary following 13-year-old Ahty Allen and her family, who are part of the Native American Karuk tribe. In the months beforehand, Ahty’s community helped her prepare for her Ihuk, or Flower Dance, a coming of age ceremony for young women who have begun menstruating. Ahty looks forward to the challenge of fasting blindfolded for four days because the removal of her Ihuk blindfold, for her, symbolizes being reborn as a woman.
In the intermission between the two films, Kutka and Schwab-Jacobson led about 15 of their peers in a discussion centered around the emotions of the protagonist as her Ihuk approaches and the ceremony’s connection to the local Karuk community. Sophie Finkelstein, a senior who attended Race Reels, said the discussion made her want to go to another Race Reels in the future.
“I liked how we had a conversation,” Finkelstein said. “I definitely was expecting to just sit around, but we got to talk to people. It was a great experience.”
The second film, “Kicking the Clouds” by Sky Hopinka, was a 15-minute-long reflection on family. It began and ended with an old audio recording of the grandmother of the producer learning Luiseño from her mother. Their family ancestry is revealed to the audience through an interview with his mother, who speaks about her experiences attending boarding school, living in low-income housing and being a single mother, as well as how she was able to break the cycle for her children.
Finkelstein said she initially decided to go as a way to earn extra credit, but ended up learning about a Native American practice she had never known about.
“I thought it was interesting to learn about Indigenous culture through their traditions,” Finkelstein said. “It was cool how it was a very joyful film in many ways and really celebrated the intricacies of Indigenous culture in America.”
