Push,shove and kicking my own ass
Contradictions in my life lead me to this each and every day. I have a plan; then, i don’t have a plan. That’s not flexibility, it’s inability to un-procrastinate a lifestyle very much based in ritual, discipline, and daily practice of chores, and raising family.
I am a rebel. Then, i am conformed to society. I am Indigenous and recognize the strength of my identity today. I walk in conformity deformity every day, not alone, but with other Indigenous brothers and sisters. I learned about my “Indianness” attending public school in a small town on Vancouver Island. Saanichton Elementary. I had no idea there was a difference between me and any other human being. Attending this school I met my first antagonizer, someone set upon challenging my existence. As my classmate from Grade 1 to Grade 7; his mistreatment started with me and my hair around grade three. My worst time was when he dropped 5 encyclopedia’s on my head. I’ll never forget it, I was going to beat him up. It hurt so bad, and he laughed. That time inititated an anger in me that I believe began there and stayed within me for the rest of my life.
had referred to me and my cousins as; ‘you indians’ and explained us as ‘dirty’ and ‘worked for his father’, suggesting we were like slaves in how much his family gave to our family. Not recognizing or respecting the work of my family and other indigenous families on other farms as well.
That indifference is what surrounded this whole southern end of Vancouver Island in the 1950's early 60’s. The time where our people began to integrate more fully with the ‘settlers’ and ‘colonizers’ who came to live among us. I will not ever say that all of these people, (in our language referred to as, “HWINITEM”, meaning those who came later) were disrespectful of our people but i proclaim they had no problem insinuating their lifestyle upon us, and occupying the lands government had ‘set aside’ for imperial occupation.
My heritage included grandparents, aunts, and uncles, as well, my father for a time all attended residential schools. My mother’s parents both went to residential school and she had a persistence about her not wishing for us to be exposed to the evils of racist education systems, yet, not knowing it was heavy in the public school system. She attended public school in Duncan and a good friend of hers was a Chinese immigrant. She was very proud and a beautiful Cowichan womyn. She learned the knitting skills very well as a way to make income when she began raising all of us 15 survivors out of 18 pregnancies.
My intention is to write and re-write history if needed, in order to help others to understand and possibly find empathy for our nations who struggle to maintain as rightful heirs of ‘turtle island’ for today and the future generations. We should not be viewed as second-class citizens nor as a minority; that terminology does not belong attached to the ‘original people’ of this land and in all the relations they have engaged upon this land and sea since time immemorial. WE SHALL NOT FORGET!
