Every country has their heroes. From the well known to the obscure, these are the people we look up to and admire for their sacrifices and bravery. These are the people we should we should strive to never forget. The new documentary Mary Two-Axe Earley: I Am Indian Again tells the story of one of these heroes.
Two-Axe Earley grew up on the Kahnawàke reserve, a community to the south of Montréal. When she was 18 she moved to the United States in search of work. It was there that she married and raised a family with a white man. At the time, under the Canadian Indian Act, this was enough to strip her of her Indian Status and take away any land and treaty rights she had. If she had been born a man and had married a white woman, the same conditions wouldn’t have held true. So Two-Axe Earley launched a seventeen-year campaign to change the unjust law.
Mary Two-Axe Earley: I Am Indian Again takes a look into the way life used to be for not only Indigenous woman in Canada, but for women of all backgrounds. They had to fight for everything they deserved, and not everyone agreed with what they were doing. Even their own tribes and families fought against them. Filmmaker Courtney Montour uses a series of interviews with those who knew Two-Axe Earley best. There’s even an old audio interview with Earley herself. She takes a close look at this phenomenal woman who helped make changes to Indigenous women’s rights forever.
The subject of Mary Two-Axe Earley: I Am Indian Again remains just as relevant today as it did in the past. And through this film you can get a meaningful glimpse into what it’s like to fight discrimination in Canada.
- Release Date: 4/29/2021
