On Thursday, March 9, at 12:35 pm Studium Generale will screen the documentary Dear Georgina followed by a discussion with Dr. Mishy Lesser of the Upstander Project.
Dear Georgina, a 15-minute documentary, tells the story of Georgina Sappier-Richardson, who was removed from her home and Passamaquoddy community in Maine by child protection services. She would never see her parents again. Terror and abuse followed over 16 years in four different foster homes. Dear Georgina follows this Passamaquoddy elder from Motahkomikuk as she tries to fill in the blurry outlines of her identity.
Georgina is just one of many thousands of Indigenous children with similar stories.
Following the film will be a discussion with Dr. Lesser, the Learning Director for the film and for Upstander Project. An Emmy award-winning researcher, Dr. Lesser has authored Upstander Project’s many learning and viewer guides and is a Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Affiliate. Dr. Lesser was a Fulbright Scholar in Ecuador and spent 12 years learning and working in the Andes. She is a descendant of Ashkenazi Jews whose ancestral language is Yiddish and lives with her husband in the territory of the Massachusett Tribe.
Join the discussion in the Little Theater on the Port Angeles campus or via Zoom at https://pencol-edu.zoom.us/j/89779530051, Meeting ID: 897 7953 0051.
This event is free and open to the public and is co-sponsored by Peninsula College’s Magic of Cinema, Studium Generale, and ʔaʔk̓ʷustəƞáwt̓xʷ House of Learning, Peninsula College Longhouse.