My entire extended family is from Saskatchewan and when I was very young I remember seeing a group of men fighting and stumbling around on a Regina sidewalk. I asked why they were acting like that and my older cousin said, “They’re Indians. What do you expect?” Someone else mumbled something about drinking and Welfare Wednesday, which I didn’t understand. Then we were ushered away.
In elementary school, my favourite subject was the First People of Canada. I loved learning about their art, their connection with the land, their myths and legends, their housing and the clan structures. I still, to this day, stare at museum dioramas and visit ancient archeological sites imagining what it would have been like to live in a traditional First Nations’ way.
Being born in Yukon Territory and then living in Prince George, I saw a lot “First People of Canada” who didn’t look or act anything like the wise and noble people I was learning about in school. They were the cliché image of the Indian in the derogatory “chug” jokes that I heard outside of school.
I didn’t understand what happened to the First People of Canada.
At university, I continued to study the First Nations with instructors who were aboriginal. That was when I read Resistance and Renewal — Surviving the Indian Residential School by Celia Haig-Brown. I still have my copy today because it had such a profound impact on who I am and how I think about every single social issue.
I started to understand what happened to the “First People of Canada”. From the 1880’s until 1986, the First People of Canada were victims of antidialogical action, which is one group dominating and controlling another group through invading the cultural context, imposing their own world view, silencing them and disrespecting their potential.
Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country.Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered an official apology on June 11, 2008. But the damage was already done.
Half of all children in foster care in Canada are aboriginal. Four percent of all aboriginal children are in care compared to .3 percent of non-aboriginal children. Although aboriginals only comprise three percent of the adult population in Canada, 41 per cent of women who are incarcerated are aboriginal and 25 per cent of men. There are almost 1,200 Aboriginal women who have been murdered or gone missing since 1980.
They’re Indians. What do you expect?
I expect to live in a country where every single Aboriginal child who is placed in foster care because his or her parents were raised in an institution and didn’t learn parenting skills matters. Every single aboriginal man who committed suicide because he was haunted by the sexual abuse he endured at a residential school matters. Every single missing, murdered, or incarcerated Aboriginal woman who only knew poverty, exploitation, addictions, and abuse matters.
I know there are people who will argue that the government has already spent enough money trying to “help” First Nations people. Others argue that the past was the past and aboriginals should get over it and assimilate.
First Nations people are not inferior, they are recovering from 100 years of abuse, family destruction, and cultural genocide. Trauma takes time to heal.
When someone says, “They’re Indian. What do you expect?” I hope you respond by saying, “Great things.”
Danielle Aldcorn is a registered clinical counsellor at Satori Integrative Health Centre. She can be reached at 604-274-7224.
