Alex Rice

Alexandrea Kawisenhawe Rice (born 1972) is a First Nations actress. She grew up in Brooklyn, New York where her father was an ironworker.

Early life

Rice was born into a Kanien'kehaka (Mohawk) family in 1972 in Kahnawake, Quebec, and is proud of her heritage. Through her father she is a member of the Rice family of Kahnawake, having descended from Edmund Rice, an early immigrant to Massachusetts Bay Colony. Two Rice boys were taken captive as a child in 1704 from Massachusetts, and taken to Kahnawake, Quebec where they were adopted by Mohawk families and became assimilated. Alex is descended from one of them.

Born on the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve in Quebec, Canada, Rice spent the majority of her childhood with her family in Brooklyn, New York. Her father was among a community of Mohawk ironworkers, who settled in what is now Boerum Hill. The men worked on skyscrapers and bridges, and the women made community. The Mohawk called their neighborhood "Little Caughnawaga", after their homeland.