MOUNT DESERT — Native Americans in Maine might as well be invisible, as far as most of the state’s Caucasian population is concerned.

That is the premise of the documentary film “Invisible,” which is scheduled to be shown Friday, June 1, at 6:30 p.m. at the Northeast Harbor Library. It examines what many see as a long history of failure by whites to accept native people as equals and, as a result, to treat them with indifference, neglect and, sometimes, abuse.

The hourlong film was written, directed and narrated by Northeast Harbor resident Gunnar Hansen. Asked why a story about the racism faced by native people is told from a white man’s perspective, Mr. Hansen said, “Because it’s a white problem. The native people suffer from it, but the white folks are the ones who have to address this because they are the ones who are furthering, blindly in most cases, the tradition of racism.”

ster parents. Some of the children suffered terrible abuse.

Many children from the Micmac and Maliseet tribes in Maine and Canada were taken from their families and sent to the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in Nova Scotia, where the goal was not only to educate them but to strip them entirely of their native cultures.

“Invisible” was produced by Mr. Hansen, Bar Harbor resident David Westphal and Penobscot historian James Eric Frances. All three will be at the June 1 showing at the Northeast Harbor Library and, afterward, will discuss the film and the issues it explores.

The free screening is sponsored by an informal group of Mount Desert Island residents that is supporting the work of the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

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