Lucy Wang on Anna Mae Aquash

Credits

Director: Julie Hébert
DP: Sevdije Kastrati-Dill
Editor: Elisa Cohen
2nd Camera: Andressa Cor
Sound Mixer: Nancy Kwon
DIT / Camera Assistant: Megan Pham
Production Manager: Jeanine DiTomasso
Production Assistant: Adriana Gordon

Post-Production Supervisor: Courtney Graham
Dialogue Editor: Daniel Raphael
Colorist: Eric Mason

The Look What SHE Did! Artists of Los Angeles series is funded in part by the California Arts Council.

Topics

Activism

“Go for it, be bold, you can make a difference too.”

ANNA MAE AQUASH, a Mi'kmaq Indian born in poverty in Nova Scotia, lost her mother and was on her own as a young teen. A resilient and independent girl, she fought for justice for Native Americans, and in fact turned down a college scholarship to continue to help her people. Ultimately, Anna Mae became a powerful organizer with AIM, the American Indian Movement, but she was killed under mysterious circumstances that remain controversial today. Writer Lucy Wang tells us the story of this fierce and dedicated woman.

Our storytellers share these astonishing women with us conversationally and unscripted; we fact-check afterwards and note any major discrepancies for accuracy.

Storyteller

Lucy Wang

Lucy Wang is an award-winning, published and produced writer. Her play JUNK BONDS won an award from the Kennedy Center and Best New Play from the Katherine and Lee Chilcote Foundation. Her screenplay FILL OR KILL won a coveted spot in the Hedgebrook/Woolfpack Screenwriters Lab. Her one-hour TV spec won an award from CAPE and FOX, and she sold a half-hour comedy to ABC. Lucy has performed her one-woman shows CHINESE GIRLS DON’T SWEAR and IT AIN’T EASY BEING CHINESEY to sold-out audiences in L.A., NY and her hometown of Akron, Ohio. Lucy is a freelance healthcare journalist and teaches playwriting online. Her papers are archived at the Huntington Library in San Marino and the University of MA at Amherst.

Featured Woman

Anna Mae Aquash

A Mi’kmaq Indian from Nova Scoitia, Anna Mae Aquash was a preeminent AIM organizer. Abandoned by her mother at 16, she moved to Maine and picked blueberries to survive. She moved to Boston and worked in a factory, but her heart was focusing on education, resistance, activism and civil rights. At a protest in D.C., Anna found AIM and never looked back. She helped organize occupations and participated at Wounded Knee. Pursued by the Feds, she disappeared in late 1975. Her body was found on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1976. Her death is considered by many to be unsolved. She never abandoned her people or her cause. Justice for Indigenous Peoples, everywhere.