Rice was born into a
Kanien'kehaka (
Mohawk) family on the
Kahnawake reserve in
Quebec. 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 children in 1704 from Massachusetts, and taken to Kahnawake, Quebec where they were adopted by Mohawk families and became assimilated. Alex is descended from Edmund Rice's great grandson, Silas, who took the name of Tookanowras, but he was also baptized as Catholic and known as Jacques Thanhohorens. 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. There Rice attended local schools and trained to become a professional dancer at local dance studios; she developed a passion for acting when she landed a part in an educational video produced at her grammar school. She attended
Our Lady of Perpetual Help High School in Brooklyn. In 1990, after her father died and she graduated from high school, Alex and her mother Melody Rice moved back to Kanawake. She attended
Dawson College and
Concordia University in
Montreal, where she majored in library science. ==Career==