Fear changes lives OnTheRoadFeature: On-the-road documentary focuses on life-changing events
"My confrontations with fear have been my most life-changing events."
- Joanna Kohler
by Michele St. Martin
Local filmmaker and documentarian Joanna Kohler dreamed for five years of a motorcycle trip through Minnesota-a chance to combine her love of motorcycling with her desire to travel outside the Twin Cities. "I was born and raised here, but I've never seen much of the state," said Kohler, 29. She planned a three-week journey through Minnesota, talking to people along the way in pre-arranged interviews. Kohler made audiotapes of the interviews and took photographs of her interview subjects. She asked all of her interview subjects the same provocative question: "When did you face fear and change your life?"
Fear and change
Why use fear as a topic? As Kohler wrote on the blog she kept throughout the trip, "Fear has been a constant companion in my life, rational and irrational fears, fears around work, home life or personal reflections. My confrontations with fear have been my most life-changing events. What better way to embrace this companion and discover its many mutations, than by capturing the stories of this ill-mannered friend in the lives of Minnesotans who have faced their fears and changed their lives."
Gender differences
Before setting out on the trip, Kohler set up the interviews based on recommendations from her eight-member advisory board, as well as friends and family members. Along the way, she'd add the occasional person recommended by interview subjects. All in all, Kohler interviewed 36 people, the vast majority of whom were women.
One major difference between the men and women she interviewed was their ability to admit to or recognize fear. Kohler was surprised when several interviewees claimed to have never felt fear. While some struggled to remember their fears, others said they had never been afraid. "That was almost all men, one woman." she recalled. It was an especially significant difference because she interviewed so many more women than men.
Though she was skeptical about claims to have never felt fear, Kohler didn't show it. "Inside, I was like, 'no way,'" she said. "But it's not for me to judge. That's the tension of how I let them define their story."
Another gender difference she uncovered had to do with her subjects' feelings around education. Several older women described being "afraid to be smart," one describing her hometown as a place that "didn't value people being smart." Some of those who talked about education described themselves as going to college and being "transformed" by the experience of being exposed to different people who valued education.
The stories
Debra Leigh: Facing racism
Among the most memorable of the stories Kohler heard was that of Debra Leigh. Leigh, who heads the dance department at St. Cloud State University, feared leaving her hometown, Kansas City, Mo., to accept the job at St. Cloud State. Leigh, who is African American, left a city that is nearly half black for one where African Americans comprise just over 2 percent of the population.
It was a reasonable fear. Along with experiencing well-documented racist incidents in St. Cloud, according to Kohler, "The administration wanted to hire more staff of color; they were forcing change [without involving existing faculty]. Debra became a symbol of the hierarchy; others weren't so willing to work with her. She stuck with it even though there was a lot of resistance."
The resistance and racism she faced caused Leigh to look at how she could make change. In the 19 years Leigh has been at St. Cloud, she has become a leading voice in multiculturalism and anti-racism. Along with presenting at workshops and conferences, Leigh has helped found and lead organizations doing diversity work, and been active in raising funds to bring anti-racism and multicultural programming to St. Cloud State and the St. Cloud community.
In return, Leigh has had opportunities that she doubts she would have had elsewhere, including being a Fulbright scholar in Indonesia and teaching in South Africa. "Facing her fear really changed her life," Kohler commented.
Chrispina Lukel: Fatherless child
It was Leigh who led Kohler to Chrispina Lukel. Lukel was so different from Kohler that the documentarian initially resisted the meeting, wondering what she could learn from someone who had had such a dramatically different life. Their interview taught Kohler about the universality of human experience.
Lukel, a graduate student at St. Cloud State, is a nun from Tanzania. The experience that transformed Lukel was the death of her father at a young age. "Her father was dying of cancer," Kohler said. "His doctor was not going to tell Chrispina's mother, they just told [the family] to bring him home. They spoke in front of Chrispina, not knowing that she understood English. Two days later her father was dead.
"It was such a basic human experience ... I don't think I was expecting to hear a story that was so relatable." Today, Lukel identifies young people who have lost a parent, and she works to build relationships with them.
Donna Raymond: Coming out as deaf
Donna Raymond carried the burden of feeling ashamed of her deafness for most of her life. Feeling that shame is something she was taught in school.
Raymond grew up in a boarding school for deaf students where abuse was part of the curriculum and students were segregated by their ability to hear. Raymond, who today is profoundly deaf, had some hearing as a child. "Those who had any hearing at all were separated and forced to use speech," Kohler said. "She had her hands bound for hours at a time so she could not [use] sign [language]."
The shaming led Raymond to hide her deafness, even as an adult. "She would sign under the table with other deaf people," Kohler related.
Today, Raymond is open about her deafness. In fact, she recently won a Harley-Davidson sportster motorcycle, and she and her husband, who is also deaf, became the only deaf members of their local motorcycle club. She is the first deaf woman in Minnesota to earn a motorcycle driver's license.
So how did Raymond overcome her fear of admitting she is deaf? She did not want to cast her children, who are hearing, in the position of hiding her deafness and having to interpret for her. In the end, it was love that transformed her.
FFI:
To learn more about Joanna Kohler and to read the "Minnesota Motorcycle Stories" blog, go to www.kohlerproductions.com
Kohler is preparing the audiotapes of her interviews for podcasts of her journey, and is also contemplating a book featuring the interviews and photographs.
