Why We Need to Amplify Indigenous Voices

[Music]

when i was 16 years old

i took what was essentially my first

trip to indian country

i rode the train north across the

province of ontario and onto winnipeg in

manitoba

crowds shuffled in and out at stops in

small towns along the way

with each stop more and more blue and

green-eyed passengers departed

until almost all eyes remaining were

dark brown

skin became darker too i looked around

at the other native passengers for signs

of recognition

i remember thinking that they saw in my

eyes what few people ever did

that i was one of them that day on the

train

my parents sisters and i were heading

west on our way to a sinclair family

reunion

my paternal grandpa elmer and five of

his brothers and sisters were gathering

on the grassy banks of manitoba’s red

river for a party

the day of the reunion was clear and

sunny

and on a quiet walk with my grandpa we

visited the graves of his parents

and ancestors ending at the monumental

grave of chief peguis

we had begun that trip in toronto where

i grew up the eldest of three girls

my father douglas is cree ojibwe pegus

nation

my mother joni immigrated to canada with

her family from the uk

at the age of five when i was seven

years old

my mom’s mom bubby to us moved into our

home

bubby was a german jewish refugee whose

incredible imagination was our constant

companion

she spoke often about the importance of

a happy childhood

she told us how memories of her early

years had helped her to survive later

darker ones

during nazi germany and the subsequent

ravages of world war ii

our home was filled with her watercolor

paintings

that evoke the german fairy tales of her

young life

her inner world was a part of our

environment there for us to engage with

whenever we wanted to

in contrast my dad’s parents granny

phyllis

and grandpa elmer visited every year

from winnipeg

i sometimes wondered how our lives might

be different if we had grown up closer

to their stories too

bubby was open about the therapy she had

undergone to recover

from the traumas of the war it was clear

that through this process she had

recovered her ability to share her

earlier memories with my mom

and with us but my dad left home when he

was a teenager

and somehow the strains in his family

hadn’t healed in the same way

along with a hundred and fifty thousand

first nation

metis and inuit children in canada

my grandfather had survived an indian

residential school

or indian boarding school as they were

called in the u.s

from age 7 to 10 he lived at the

catholic

fort alexander reserve school fort

alexander was one of close to 130

schools in canada

and one of 357 in the united states

in the simplest terms the schools

existed

to sever children’s ties to their

families

their ties to culture and their ties to

land

to make room for the expanding settler

colonial economy

indigenous language and cultural

practice was forbidden

and children often suffered emotional

physical and sexual abuse

at the hands of the authority figures

tasked with managing their education

my grandpa didn’t talk to me about his

experience directly

but i always knew about it and i now

know that he was recorded saying

the three years in that school were the

saddest days of my life

the nuns and the priests were about the

most cruel people god

ever created i could never imagine

how people who confess or said they were

servants of god

could be so cruel to children i have

never forgotten that

one consequence of his years spent at

the school was shame

my grandfather became a decorated

soldier in the canadian army

his courage was celebrated many times

over but he did not tell his own seven

sons that they were native

when he learned this at age eight my

father remembers feeling surprised

and then his own shame because in

childhood games of cowboys and indians

he had always played the cowboy the good

guy

not the indian who was always the bad

one

growing up i thought a lot about how

bubby seemed to heal through telling her

story and that so many stories

untold by indian residential school

survivors

meant so much history unhealed and

unknown

i grew interested in connecting the past

to the present

and in the intergenerational impact of

the policies

that reduced indigenous land holdings to

two percent of american soil

six percent of canada and cost millions

of native people their lives

i wanted to amplify the stories like my

grandfather’s

because when traumatic events occur in

cultures and are left

undiscussed it’s not just the stories

about the traumas that don’t get passed

down

the transfer of other cultural knowledge

is disrupted too

my grandfather for decades didn’t share

stories about his own family

or his young life because of the shame

he felt

at being an indian ultimately

my own family background and my

interests in recording these less told

histories

led me to pursue an oral history project

with a non-profit voice of witness

which works to advance human rights by

amplifying the voices of people impacted

by

and fighting against injustice

my book project how we go home voices

from indigenous north america

contains 12 first-person narratives

what i observed during the many

conversations throughout this project

in cities reserves and reservations

across the continent

is that the stories we tell about the

past also

shape our future struggles over memory

are also struggles for liberation

sharing stories helps counteract the

erasure of indigenous life

and history i heard this truth

in every conversation i had with houico

homes narrators

who are each carrying memories forward

as a way to reverse a form of injustice

that has directly impacted them althea

guibouche

once homeless with her young children

founded an organization that provides

food

for winnipeg’s most vulnerable

populations

gladys raddick a survivor of sexual

violence whose niece went missing

along canada’s highway of tears became a

family advocate for the national inquiry

into missing and murdered indigenous

women and girls

marion naranjo herself the subject of a

radiation test while in high school

went on to lead santa clara pueblo to

compile an environmental impact

statement

on the consequences of living near los

alamos national laboratory

indigenous people are doing so much work

to restore health to our communities

to recover from the past to fight

against ongoing injustices

by now you may be wondering what can

non-indigenous

settlers do we live in a time

in which people are increasingly

interested in how to make

reparations and reconciliations with the

past

how might the us make reparations to

african americans for the history of

slavery in this country

how might the united states and canada

reconcile relations with indigenous

peoples

one outcome of this contemporary mindset

is the ever-growing practice of land

acknowledgments

a land acknowledgement is a statement

made to recognize

indigenous peoples as stewards of the

land

and to acknowledge the ongoing

relationship that exists between

indigenous peoples

and their traditional territories you

may hear one

at the beginning of a performing arts or

academic event

or see one monumentalized in writing

at the entrance to a museum or national

park

the problem is that in their hurry to

incorporate them

many organizations land acknowledgments

are reduced to performative gestures

they aren’t fleshed out enough to be

doing any good work

or even worse they are reduced to their

least

helpful abbreviated forms leaving only

the part

that speaks of the past but research

from the non-profit

illuminative gives us some guidance

about the work a land acknowledgement

should do their research reveals

that 87 percent of state-level history

standards

fail to cover native people in a post

1900 context

and that 78 of americans want to learn

more

about native people cultures and

contemporary stories

so if a land acknowledgement simply

states that yes

this place that we are gathering is the

traditional territory

of the anishnabe the dna the choctaw or

the chickasaw

we aren’t doing anything to fill this

knowledge gap

we may even inadvertently contribute to

ongoing erasure

by evoking in our audience’s imagination

the trope of the vanished nameless

faceless prehistoric indian

the people who used to be here

but this ever growing practice of land

acknowledgement

can be a helpful first step towards

reversing the erasure of indigenous life

in north america

it is helpful to remember that we are

all occupying tribal land

because it offers a starting place for a

larger exploration

it requires that we ask what happened

to indigenous people here on this land

what is happening now and how can we

support the efforts of indigenous people

to realize whatever dreams they have for

how to live here now

and in the future so what if instead of

writing land acknowledgements as fixed

statements

institutions instead conceived them as

the beginning of

ongoing conversations if you use your

land acknowledgement as an

opportunity to consider how you

very specifically you your organization

your school your park your museum

might make restitutions for the past

then you will be propelled to learn much

more about local indigenous land and

life

land acknowledgments exist because

settlers moved to these places

signed and then dishonored treaties with

the first peoples here

and carried out genocide but relations

between settlers and indigenous people

are not history

there are ongoing battles over the land

and its resources

to acknowledge indigenous land then is

also an acknowledgement that indigenous

people

still have different ideas about how to

live here

to learn more about these ideas read the

work of indigenous writers

follow indigenous thinkers on twitter

and artists on instagram and then

pass that impetus along by advocating

for your local school board to do the

same

if you pursue this education for a

little while you will come to understand

that many indigenous people today

contend

that the truest justice occurs through

the land back movement

which aims to restore territory to

indigenous people and nations

if you are interested in repatriating

land you can pursue relationships with

local indigenous people and

organizations involved in land return if

direct repatriation isn’t possible for

you

you can donate to a land tax movement or

throw a fundraiser for one

organizations like oakland’s indigenous

women led

saguarote land trust are funded by local

residents and businesses who voluntarily

pay them

a land tax for living on ohlone land

the organization has reworked their

three plots

for and with the local indigenous

community to cultivate

traditional and medicinal plants to

practice urban farming

and to provide space for ceremony

one of the plots a quarter acre site was

gifted

by non-indigenous organization planting

justice

after they returned from standing rock

and asked how they could support

indigenous peoples in oakland you can

get similarly creative about sharing the

time and resources

you have can you advocate for your

workplace

or a community organization you are

involved with to hire more indigenous

people

or to include more indigenous

programming in your events

can you share your physical space with

indigenous organizations

who may not have their own place to hold

events

if you work at an organization with

significant land holdings

like a farm wildlife center or park

can you offer native people free access

to visit their ancestral territories

can you designate space for indigenous

people

to use the land hire an indigenous

consultant to help you explore the

possibilities

oral historians think about how sharing

stories

can act as a kind of testimony and for

testimony to exist

there must also be a witness to it

witnessing

is not the same thing as listening which

can be a passive act

when we witness a story that story and

that person

becomes a part of us and it changes us

i remember feeling this way returning to

brooklyn

after my interviewing trips this act of

witnessing

has connected me to howie go home’s

narrators in a way

that makes me feel accountable to them

even years later

ultimately these stories are now making

their way

into classrooms across the country

on good days i like to think that in a

small way

they might help a new generation of

north americans forge a more just future

so when you start thinking about how you

or your organization might engage with

the history of these lands and new ways

ask how you can be a witness to these

stories

and who you can make yourself

accountable to

thank you miguet

you