CLUB NATIVE - TRAILER

http://webtest.nfb.ca/webextension/club-native

On the Mohawk reserve of Kahnawake, located just outside the city of Montreal, Canada, there are two firm but unspoken rules drummed into every member of the community: Do not marry a white person and do not have a child with a white person. The potential consequences of ignoring these rules-loss of membership on the reserve, for yourself and your child-are clear, and for those who incur them, devastating. Break the rules, and you also risk being perceived as having betrayed the Mohawk Nation by diluting the "purity" of the bloodline.

In Club Native, filmmaker Tracey Deer uses Kahnawake, her hometown, as a lens to probe deeply into the history and contemporary reality of Aboriginal identity. Following the stories of four women, she reveals the exclusionary attitudes that divide the community and many others like it across Canada. Deer traces the roots of the problem, from the advent of the highly discriminatory Indian Act through the controversy of Bill C31, up to the present day, where membership on the reserve is determined by a council of Mohawk elders, whose rulings often appear inconsistent. And with her own home as a poignant case study, she raises a difficult question faced by people of many ethnicities across the world: What roles do bloodline and culture play in determining identity?

Club Native is a candid and deeply moving look at the pain, confusion and frustration suffered by many First Nations people as they struggle for the most important right of all: the right to belong.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Kahnawake
• Mohawk
• bloodline
• First
• Nations
• people

[sh4ll00w]

53% here, my older brother is 73% lol go figure, same fatherand mother !? what are we dogs? categorized by a pedigree? BS!

[bringingthepeople]

I think we shouldn't exclude people based on how they look or any form of blood quantum but we should encourage our children and relatives to look for other indigenous partners. Instead of just hanging around non-natives (sending our kids to private schools etc) we can actually be part of our own culture, visit other communities, attend native events and be involved in our own issues. This way, we're more likely to meet someone, whatever nation they might be.

[scottdog87]

@thedogrukonus yeah but stop bringing up the past man im native to we are never going to move forward if we dont forgive.most of my friends are white and they love me for who i am not like it 1492 its 2011.

[wovokanarchy]

I think everyone should just self-identify and determine that they are "Indian" , Indigenous, or Aboriginal and there wouldn't be anymore problem about ''blood quantum". Just self declare like all these people are proposing.

[r2d23678]

100% full checking in!

[thedogrukonus]

About 95 million Native Americans were killed.

[Uwohilatlitigv]

I am Mohawk/Cherokee and damned proud of it! I've even learned both languages ALL ON MY OWN. To my Mohawk friends, I am called Akwekhserario. To my Cherokee friends, I am Uwohilatlitigv. Native pride for all those who share our blood!

[xI3elialx]

@IamMohawk She:kon! im from Wahta Mohawk Territory in Ontario! nice to see a Mohawk brother or sister!

[nizhoni1616]

This is a tough issue I think. I'm half blooded, so I guess I sit right on top of that divide. I agree that we shouldn't have to be classified like pedigree dogs, or prove to ANYONE what we know to be true in our hearts, but how then do you keep all those leechers away? At least in my case, I know there to be tons of, well, white people cluttering up my rez & ancestral lands trying to freeload off the government and say they're something they're not.

[nebraska8441]

@maevista

good and I approuved.

[nebraska8441]

Alle my excuses but an indian is what it is he in his heart and if he acts as such as they are half-blood or not. Your calculations are ridiculous and I am myself a half-blood but I don't know sincerly if the roots of an Indian calculations or the rate of red and white blood cells. Frankly!

[erikerik666]

"1 oz. of native blood", "i think im less than 50%"