Beans – Documentary Reflection
April 8, 2025 By: Victoria Hodgson
Beans is a documentary on CBC that follows the story of a young Mohawk girl named Beans in the year 1990. At the time, Beans and her community of Kahnawake, located in what is now known as Quebec, are engaged in a stand-off with government forces. The film takes place during the 1990 Oka Crisis, a standoff between the Mohawk people and the Canadian government over land disputes and the expansion of a golf course onto sacred Indigenous land. Specific to the film, a land-management dispute over the expansion of a golf course onto sacred Indigenous land is what set the Kahnawake stand-off in motion. The stand-off lasted 78 days, throughout which the neighbouring Montreal and broader Quebecois community villainized the Mohawk people. Violent and racist attacks took place as the Kahnawake community advocated for the rights of their ancestral territory.
During the Oka Crisis in 1990, the Mercier Bridge was one of the key locations that was blocked by the Mohawk protesters. The situation grew tense when Quebec provincial police tried to dismantle the blockade. During a confrontation on July 11, 1990, a police officer, Pierre Laporte, was killed. Eventually, through negotiations and external pressures, the standoff was “resolved”. The golf course expansion was canceled, but the land in question was not returned to the Mohawks. The Oka Crisis wasn’t just about a specific piece of land—it represented a larger history of colonialism, marginalization, and environmental injustice. Moreover, the documentary and history of the Oka Crisis exemplifies how civil disobedience can play a crucial role in influencing environmental issues, specifically how protest movements can serve as powerful tools for defending the environment and challenging systems of power.