Michigan documentary filmmaker Audrey Geyer knows what most people talk about when it comes to Native Americans -- casinos or mascots. But she says there’s so much more to their story that isn’t being told. With her new documentary, called Our Fires Still Burn, Geyer shares the past history and contemporary stories that have made Michigan’s Native American tribes into what they are today.
"I think that so much of Native American history is hidden and suppressed almost in the school system," Geyer says. "I think it’s a very ugly, kind of, just awful part of our history in so many ways that it’s not talked about because of that.”
That hidden, ugly history is vast. But in her documentary, Geyer focuses on one specific part: the American Indian Boarding schools built during the 19th and 20th centuries. Schools in Mt. Pleasant and Harbor Springs lasted well into the 1900s.
"There are so many interviewees who in the documentary re-iterated the fact that when they were growing up, they were taught to hide their Native American identities. That because of fear of being killed, taken from the home."
Geyer says many compared them to concentration camps, and inside, speaking your native tongue was often strictly forbidden. Geyer chronicles the stories of survivors’ families in Our Fires Still Burn.
“What was the purpose of the boarding schools? Basically it was the United States trying to deal with the Indian problem," says one Native American official in the documentary. "Well, let’s educate! Culturate them through education. Kill the Indian, save the man. And how do you kill the Indian? You kill his spirit.”
That history still manifests itself today, Geyer says. As those stories pass from generation to generation, the worries about how Native Americans are perceived by outsiders haven’t gone away.
"There’s a lot of distrust through the generations that gets passed on to the next generation around identity and heritage," she says. "There are so many interviewees who in the documentary re-iterated the fact that when they were growing up, they were taught to hide their Native American identities. That because of fear of being killed, taken from the home."
Geyer says that even as our culture has made progress in righting wrongs, this identity crisis still persists for many Native Americans. But Geyer says she also sees hope -- in places like museums, workshops and cultural centers. Geyer says these programs are re-introducing nearly extinct languages and sacred ceremonies.
“It’s just so critical that they’re not lost," she says. "And for the American society, as well! You know, that these things live on and start to eventually thrive, I think is so important.”
Geyer says when she screens the documentary for Michigan audiences, it’s this view of Native Americans – not as stereotypes from the fifties, but as real, living people with a real history – that she wants to show her viewers. And she says that new perspective surprises her audiences the most.
“So I find from the reaction, that most non-Natives are just taken aback by the content of the documentary, in the sense that they feel so ignorant about these topics! And the history. And what is going on now," Geyer says. "They feel like a lot of it is so new to them, and they’re excited they’re finding out these basic things. But they’re also shocked that they haven’t known about them.”
"That these things live on and start to eventually thrive, I think is so important."
