Good on them! I haven’t checked the news, but I hope they (we?) were able to make a point.

There was a survey from Quebec about aboriginals that was pretty depressing, and I hope the rest of Canada doesn’t feel the same way. Like the natives are “exaggerating”. It’s “not so bad”.

Really?

My father is metis. I have a native heritage I know nothing about. There has been a systematic ruin of the native culture in this country and it is pathetic.

I have seen it. I have seen my relatives brought to their knees. Or deny their culture altogether. Or struggle like I do.

This was mine, but it was taken from me.

- By the people who told me I didn’t “look” indian.

- By my father who didn’t care enough to pass on what he knew.

- By the schools and the systems that made him ashamed to be native and gave him a stutter.

- By his family who called him an Apple (red on the outside, white on the inside) when he married my mom.

- By the government who made me feel I needed their “status” to really be anishnabe

- By the same government who denied me that status because they took it from my grandmother when she married a white man (like they wanted her to).

- By my grandmother who didn’t hold on to her traditions and teach the next generation.

- By all of those who think my heart does not lie with the native people as much as it does in the rest of my heritage.

There is a collective unconsciousness. You may not believe me, but it’s there. And it lives in me. It lives in me for my grandmother who was assimilated, and my father who had a bigger war within him than I do. This native man went to church at the Martyr’s Shrine and did anyone think what that might do to a metis child? That it might make him hate himself in one way or another?

So block the highway. I hope it works.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 30th, 2007 at 1:44 am and is filed under Canadiana, Current Events, Navel Gazing, pissy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.