Indigenous playwright urges 'conversations with love' surrounding vaccine hesitancy

Have you had a conversation about COVID-19 with someone who didn't want to get the vaccine? Was it tense? Awkward? Maybe even painful? 

These can be tricky talks for anyone to navigate, and they can be particularly difficult for people who've been harmed by government policies.

A series of online plays launched in December aims to help you have these tough talks.

In her work, The Case of You, Algonquin playwright Yvette Nolan imagines a conversation between two sisters who have different opinions on how to stay safe from the virus. 

Kelsey is a fully vaccinated mother. Her sister, Jo, is resistant to being vaccinated. She doesn't trust the medical system, but still wants to hug her niece.

The siblings get into a heated debate from opposite ends of a park bench. Both want the best for their family, and don't want the pandemic to disrupt their relationship.

Nolan, who's based in Saskatoon, wrote their dialogue after a conversation she'd had in her personal life caught her off guard. A loved one told her they weren't vaccinated, and she was speechless. 

"I froze," Nolan told Unreserved host Rosanna Deerchild. The playwright had thought she was prepared to have tough conversations, but found herself without words.

"It's emotional on both sides," she realized. "It's not just emotional for the vaccine-hesitant."

Skepticism à la Charlie Brown

Government policies have a long track record of harming Indigenous communities, said Nolan.

It's no surprise then, that messaging around health-care measures, like vaccinations, can be met with caution, she said.

"Racialized communities, Indigenous communities, we have good reason to not trust the government," Nolan said. "It's like Charlie Brown on the football — we keep trying to kick it and Lucy keeps pulling it away." In the comic, Brown runs at the ball, takes an earnest swing and falls onto his back. 

"And now we're at the moment where the government's going, 'No really, the vaccine's good for you,'" Nolan said. "And we're like, 'Yeah, yeah. We've heard those things before.' We've heard, 'This school's going to be good for you. The Indian Act is going to be good for you.'"

"Of course people are going to be skeptical," Nolan said. 

In this Facebook post, Dr. James Makokis, a family physician from Saddle Lake First Nation in Alberta, put vaccine hesitancy into historical context:

COVID-19 as trickster 

Nearly two years into the pandemic, Dr. Sarah Minwanimad Funnell is comforted by plays like Nolan's which encourage dialogue. But she's wary of the term "vaccine hesitant."

"It puts the blame on individuals and their choices," the Anishinaabekwe and Tuscaroran physician warned. "[COVID-19 transmission] is more complex than that." 

Funnell points out that sometimes a person may want to get vaccinated, but may have barriers to access.

"COVID is really tricky, it's sneaky," Funnell said. 

She believes the virus is here to teach us a lesson, much like a trickster — a character in many First Nations stories that often appears unexpectedly and plays tricks to teach messages.

"It's here to illuminate the discrimination, racism and inequities in our communities," Funnell said, like poverty, inadequate housing, unclean drinking water, addictions, barriers to health care, limited cultural resources, and other social determinants of health that have allowed the virus to move rapidly.

While she's grateful we have a vaccine, Funnell is frustrated that the Omicron variant proves the virus continues to be a "sneaky shapeshifter" and that we haven't yet learned the trickster's lesson.

"It's tragic," Funnell said. "It still makes me quite sad that we haven't changed what really needs to be changed." 

But she's hopeful messaging to encourage vaccine confidence will spread.

"Our people are really good at using humour," Funnell said, pointing to a video with Yukon comedian Sharon Shorty playing Grandma Susie, who has some questions for Coast Salish physician Dr. Evan Adams about COVID-19 "shots" and rumours she's heard about chips. 

Nolan's play is part of the series, Dialogues for the Vaccine Hesitant and Those Who Love Them. It's presented by the Vancouver theatre company Boca del Lupo and the Dr. Peter Centre.

The creators hope the series will serve as a tool to encourage dialogue.

"We need to keep having the conversations," Nolan told Deerchild on Unreserved. Conversations that don't include blaming or shaming, she said.

"If we can just keep choosing to respond in those conversations with love, with love, with love — then we have a hope of making a connection."