The Echoes of Erasure: Marie Clements’ ‘How We Stand’ Confronts the Violent Legacy of Displacement

In her latest cinematic endeavor, How We Stand, writer-director Marie Clements delivers a haunting, generational meditation on the structural violence inflicted upon Indigenous peoples in North America. Following the critical acclaim of her previous epic, Bones of Crows—which meticulously unearthed the intergenerational trauma stemming from Canada’s residential school system—Clements turns her lens toward the United States. How We Stand is an ambitious, stylized, and deeply personal examination of the 20th-century policies that sought to systematically dismantle Native identity through displacement, medical abuse, and cultural commodification.

By weaving together the fractured lives of three sisters, Clements crafts a narrative that is as much a thriller as it is a historical reckoning. It is a film that refuses to let the viewer look away from the "hidden" history of the 1950s and 70s, forcing a confrontation with the ghosts of the Indian Relocation Act and the forced sterilizations that occurred under the guise of federally funded healthcare.

A Chronology of Dispossession

The narrative arc of How We Stand is anchored in the mid-century collapse of the Indigenous family unit. We are introduced to the protagonists as young girls in the post-Dust Bowl landscape of 1950s Oklahoma. Their mother, Angela—portrayed with a heartbreaking, weary stoicism by Cara Jade Myers—is a woman defined by the absence of her husband, presumed dead in World War II.

Clements frames this prologue in the aesthetic of a classic American tragedy, reminiscent of The Grapes of Wrath. The palette is washed out, dominated by the parched, dusty hues of a life stripped of opportunity. The catalyst for their undoing is a flyer: a promise of government-backed prosperity in Los Angeles. This was the reality of the Indian Relocation Act of 1956, a policy designed to lure Native Americans away from their ancestral lands and into urban centers under the guise of economic integration.

The family’s arrival in Los Angeles serves as a brutal pivot point. The promised job and housing vanish, replaced by a dilapidated shack and the cold indifference of a city that views them as an inconvenience. The sequence culminates in a harrowing police raid on a clandestine community gathering held in the tunnels beneath the L.A. River—a site of refuge that becomes a graveyard for their mother. This tragedy acts as the structural fissure in the sisters’ lives, as they are cast into the foster care system, their paths diverging into adulthood.

The 1970s: Navigating the Fog of Assimilation and Activism

The film shifts to 1973, a decade defined by its "funky" grooves and vibrant aesthetic, which Clements uses as a sharp contrast to the underlying rot of institutional racism. We follow the three sisters—Jessie (Amber Midthunder), Miranda (Alyssa Wapanatâhk), and Janey (Isabel DeRoy-Olson)—as they struggle to exist within a white-dominated society that views them as either curiosities, stereotypes, or "problems" to be solved.

The Three Paths

• Jessie (The Assimilated): Adopted by a white Canadian couple, Jessie has spent her life trying to sand down her identity to fit into mainstream white culture. As a doctor entering her residency at a clinic run by her husband, Daniel (Darren Mann), she represents the "model minority" illusion, until the casual, biting racism of her in-laws begins to shatter her carefully constructed reality.
• Miranda (The Activist): A survivor of the system, Miranda channels her rage into political action. Her narrative is framed through an audition for a Hollywood western—a meta-commentary on the industry’s role in mythologizing the destruction of her people. Her interaction with director Bob Stills (Eric Johnson) is a masterclass in the "liberal" racism that romanticizes the "Noble Savage" while simultaneously dehumanizing the reality of Indigenous existence.
• Janey (The Haunted): The youngest sister, bearing the physical and psychic scars of medical trauma, serves as the film’s emotional center. Her wanderings through the city lead her to confront the fetishization of Native history, particularly through her interactions with a police psychiatrist who maintains a private "Indian room"—a collection of stolen artifacts and colonial spoils.

Supporting Data: The Reality Beneath the Fiction

While How We Stand is a work of fiction, its narrative stakes are firmly rooted in documented history. The Indian Relocation Act of 1956 was a centerpiece of the U.S. government’s termination policy, aimed at encouraging Native Americans to abandon their reservations. Historical data indicates that the policy largely resulted in increased poverty, loss of cultural identity, and the creation of urban ghettos where Native populations were disconnected from traditional support systems.

Furthermore, the film highlights the chilling reality of the Indian Health Service (IHS) and affiliated clinics during the 1970s. Investigative reports from that era, and subsequent historical scholarship, have confirmed that thousands of Native American women were sterilized without informed consent, often coerced or deceived by federally funded health clinics. By integrating this medical trauma into Janey’s storyline, Clements provides a human face to statistics that have been buried by institutional silence for decades.

Implications: The Psychology of the "Indian Room"

One of the most potent metaphors in the film is the "Indian Room"—a recurring motif that houses the stolen artifacts of the past. The psychiatrist character functions as a representation of the systemic preservation of colonial violence. He admits to his fear of the "violence" in the room, yet he remains its curator.

This duality is the core implication of the film: the way white society "collects" Indigenous culture while simultaneously erasing the people themselves. Clements suggests that as long as history is kept behind glass, categorized, and commodified, the trauma of the past cannot be healed. The film argues that true reconciliation requires more than an acknowledgment of historical crimes; it requires the dismantling of the structures—the clinics, the film sets, the "collections"—that continue to define Indigenous identity through a white, colonial lens.

Critical Analysis and Performance

Marie Clements’ direction is marked by a bold, often surrealist approach to trauma. While some dialogue choices lean toward the didactic, the film is elevated by a powerhouse ensemble. Amber Midthunder is a standout; her performance as Jessie is a masterclass in restraint. Her ability to convey internal conflict through micro-expressions—the subtle tightening of the jaw, the avoidance of eye contact—captures the experience of someone who has been told their entire life that they are "technically" Indian, but never "truly" one of them.

Isabel DeRoy-Olson faces the most grueling challenge, balancing the volatile, often dreamlike state of Janey with the film’s shift into magical realism. The finale, which sees the sisters reclaiming the L.A. River—a site of cinematic history for Hollywood, but a site of trauma for their family—is a powerful reclamation. By washing away the "collection" of the past, the film offers a cathartic, if stylized, vision of restoration.

Conclusion

How We Stand is a challenging, necessary piece of cinema. It premiered to significant buzz at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and is currently seeking U.S. distribution. In an era where the film industry is finally beginning to reckon with its role in the erasure of non-white histories, Marie Clements provides a vital, uncompromising blueprint for how to tell these stories.

The film serves as a reminder that the "relocation" of the 1950s and the medical abuses of the 1970s are not ancient history; they are the bedrock upon which modern, unequal relationships are built. By centering the perspectives of those who were meant to disappear, How We Stand ensures that, at the very least, they will no longer be ignored.

Grade: B+