The Indian residential school was a government-implemented institution that engulfed all aspects of an Indigenous child’s life. As the long silence is being shattered and more survivors tell their stories, the full scope of the tragedy of residential school discrimination and abuse is gradually being revealed. In the documentary, Muffins for Granny, Nadia McLaren offers a raw perspective of the practices and repercussions of residential schools through interviews with seven First Nations elders. Their honest face-to-face accounts are paired with stark animated moments and home movie footage to illustrate this difficult chapter in Indigenous and Canadian history that, for many, is not over (McLaren, 2006). Through the strength of personal narratives,…
Neal McLeod’s “Rethinking Treaty Six” focuses on the creation and results of Treaty Six while documents 2.3, 2.5, 2.6 and 2.7 in Keith Smith’s Strange Visitors focuses on Treaty 7; both accounts highlight how there are different views of the treaties impact depending on the document and party involved. Written accounts were from the British perspective who imposed regulations while oral accounts were from Indigenous people who had to endure dire conditions following the treaties. Smith’s primary documents outline the articles in Treaty 7, the consequences that Indigenous people faced and oral accounts of the events. McLeod focuses on the need to reexamine history and the importance of understanding past events from an Indigenous perspective;…
Throughout the course so far, I have been able to gain a greater understanding of the First Nations peoples culture. As the course progresses it is noticed that as we keep going further into the past of the First nation's people, it keeps building on itself, due to the fact that there has been so much history covered up. Through the pieces of the literature studied in class, such as the novel Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese and the poem seven matches by Gord Downie and Jeff Lemire, I have been able to determine how the four major themes within the course, identity, sovereignty, relationships, and challenges are a part of the First Nations culture's past. The First Nations people are struggling with these themes, but are in a pace now where they are working to fix their broken past.…
First Nation culture is a big part of the Canadian curriculum. There are many First Nation programs and resources available now. From cultural teachings to help with addictions, there is always somewhere for them to learn or get help. There are schools made especially for people with a First Nation status and many seats in Universities and colleges are set aside and reserved for First Nation people increasing the opportunities for education. Canada is slowly adapting programs and education resources to meet the needs of the First Nation population with the goal of increasing their…
Sir Ronald Wilson’s voice is linked to arguments coming from the Human rights and equal opportunities commission and bringing them home report. His voice sets the tone of book in an aim to contribute to a subjective significant need to continue telling the stories of the indigenous people who have being suffering emotionally, physically and psychologically since being separated from their…
The title of the secondary source is called The Genocide Question and Indian Residential Schools in Canada and the authors of the article are David B. MacDonald and Graham Hudson. The main point of this article is to question whether residential schools were a form of genocide towards Indigenous peoples of Canada. The United Nations Genocide Committee’s is used to interpret claims of genocide. This article looks at the different interpretations of the term genocide. The article then takes those different interpretations, and applies them to the residential school system.…
In this article, Lee Maracle discusses how Native people handle situations with enemies, paths to take in life, education and the laws of the land. Maracle begins with discussing her personal life, "I sought the teachings of my grandmother" (36) to enhance the reader's understanding of the complexity of Native people inheriting and learning everything from their elders. This information then gets expanded on when Maracle discusses the importance of decision making and how someone has to use "self-determination... when our own people are making decisions." (37) Maracle then furthers her discussion of life paths with the discussion of education systems and educating on traditions, laws, and values for young children. She discusses the difference…
They are not being given enough education regarding the overall history of how First Nations people came to be in this country. Cultural trauma fits the definition of Residential Schools because of the long term impact and marks that are left on children that attended the Residential school. Children who attended the Residential school experience different trauma in their lifetime. According to Chansonneuve (2005), Many survivors experience ongoing trauma from flashbacks. Although this is the body’s ways of signaling that healing is needed, too many survivors resort to substance abuse to numb these feelings instead of using…
In The Darkest Path, The author uses conflict to teach that family is all that matters in life. For an example, When Cal thought to himself “Just do what they tell you, Do what they tell you and everything will b alright.” This shows that even if others have to die he’s willing to sacrifice them in order to keep his brother alive. When his brother needed expensive medicine they told Cal he would have to do what they asked in order to get his brother’s medicine. Rather then let him die he would go and do missions for the Path helping them gain more territory into Fed land, and lead Feds into traps and ambushes.…
Residential schools had “harmed the subsequent ability of the students to be caring parents.” (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 138) Consequently from this, steps were not taken to preserve the culture and identity of many Indigenous groups; and another act of cultural assimilation and cultural genocide had…
Due to the violent ways taught in residential school, these ideas reveal themselves in Indigenous communities as violence against…
A rough childhood would be an understatement when talking about a minority child’s. Sherman Alexie’s “Indian Education” illustrates the life of a young Native American boy from early 1st grade, to the final moments he walked down to get his diploma. Along the way we are confronted by challenging suspects who test his patience and character. Being bullied in first grade, Victor tries to gain respect by having a physical confrontation with his teasers. Little does this do, because for the next two years, it continues.…
In chapter eight of Lisa Monchalin’s The Colonial Problem: An Indigenous Perspective on Crime and Injustice in Canada, she discusses the crime that is affecting Indigenous persons. She explains that there are many factors leading to the victimization and over-representation of Indigenous persons, all of which are a result of colonialism and colonialist ideologies. In discussing this issue, Monchalin mentions that students living both on and off of reserve, face a struggle in their education and academic attainment. The students who are off reserve, were stated to have faced this struggle due to the fact that many school systems had the high “prevalence of institutional forms of racism as well as evident, direct racist actions and attitudes…
When critically analyzing this short story, we strongly felt that it was connected to overcoming personal biases. As this was written from a stereotypical Indigenous perspective, it could be…
This was just the beginning of the intolerable discrimination that continues to plague Aboriginal people today. Residential schools are one of the worst things to ever happen to a culture in Canadian history. They were created to assimilate the Native children, as the federal government believed it was best that Native cultures become extinct (Renneboog 1). Some may believe that these schools are a thing or the past, but the effects that the residential schools had on Aboriginal communities still resonates in the First Nations population today. The children who were taken from their families at a young age were raised not by their parents, but by the churches that ran the residential schools.…