Time Immemorial to Time Immortal: Relationships with Professionals as Extended Family

Michele A SamKtunaxa Nation

Human Early Learning Partnership-Senior Aboriginal Researcher

Ideological and Spatial Diaspora

• Cree Scholar Neal McLeod describes the processes of exile as not only land based, but also how over generations our limited relationship to our lands perpetuates our limited relationship to our ways of knowing, doing and being.

• He also suggests that “coming home” is possible by re-energizing indigenous values.

• Is “Education is our new Buffalo” ?

Dysconsciousness• involves a subjective identification with an ideological viewpoint that admits no fundamentally alternative vision of society (in King, J.E., 1991 pg 135).

Seven processes of Colonization

• Geographical incursion of colonizing group• Socio-cultural destruction• External Political Control• Economic dependence/economic development• Provision of low quality social services• Racism• Colour Line

Four basic principles underlie Federal Indian Policy implemented in British Columbia. They are:

-Indians are Inferior.-There are inherent

land use, land misuse and land abuse issues by Indian people.

-Indian ways of living are detrimental to

ourselves.-Indian extinction is

inevitable.

Dysconscious Racism

a form of racism that tacitly accepts dominant White norms and privileges. It is not the absences of consciousness (that is, not unconsciousness) but an impaired consciousness or distorted way of thinking about race (King, J.E., 1991).

If you wanted a recipe for the destruction of personality, one such would be this: • destroy the material basis of a

culture; • force the people into an environment which provides little means for economic activity; • foster the culture of poverty and dependency by means of minimal handouts; • make ignorant and racist attacks on the structure and superstructure of what remains of the culture; • as the adults disintegrate from these shocks, experiment blindly with their children.

Reviving Our Ancestors Dreams: Becoming Conscious for Our Descendents

Human Early Learning Partnership

In order to meet our children’s needs,We must neglect our children’s needs.

I am the first generation, with legal uncontested custody of my children, in over 4 generations

Reviving my ancestors: Becoming Conscious for my Descendents

• 1830’s Sophie was born (my great great great great grandmother). She was raised in social relations of family, community and cultural continuity.

• 1834 British Poor Laws are passed. These are foundational to today’s social policy in Canada (Social Work, Education, and Health).

• 1850’s Maris Bridget was born (My great great great grandmother). She had two children. She was raised in social relations of family, community and cultural continuity.

• 1870 Martha Isadore is born (my great great grandmother). She had 8 children. She is of the first generation whose life completely falls under Canadian social policy. Social relationships begin to be impacted. Relationship to the land is becoming challenging with the influx of settlement and settler entitlement mentality, right to property.

• 1871 British Columbia is formed.

• 1887 The Ktunaxa Nation is reorganized into 5 reserve communities to allow for settlement. This does not go over well with the Ktunaxa peoples. Land disputes arise which bring in the royal North West Mounted Police to deal with the “threatening uprising”.

• 1891 Adele Luke was born (my great grandmother). She had four children. She is the first generation to be born with the reserve system and attend residential school by law. Social relationships are assaulted. In community, alcohol and grief go hand in hand. Diet is becoming industrialized and the system of food security entrenched due to restrictions of movement.

1920 Federal legislation now makes it law for every Indian child toattend residential school and parental consent is not required or sought.

1921 Gertrude Gonzaga was born (my grandmother). She had seven children. She is second generation to attend residential school, and 2nd generation to be born with the reserve system.

1933 Residential school principals are made the legal guardians of students.

• 1949 Patricia Sam was born (my mother). She had 8 children. She is third generation to attend residential school and live within the reserve system. She is first generation to experience the child welfare system.

• The industrial age in Indian communities begins. Urbanization of Indians is encouraged and in some cases forced through the withholding of rations, housing, etc. Most work available is labour intensive and farm work, which is available in the months children are released from residential school. Parents are forced to participate in the economic system in order to continue to receive rations in winter months, thus creating a system of ‘neglect’ towards their children.

• As a result of the condition of Indian communities (not of their own doing but a cumulative trauma of generations outwardly expressed), what is known as the 60’s scoop begins. Thousands of children are removed from their communities and placed into foster care and put up for adoption. The church is active in the relocation of children into ‘good homes’.

• 1968 Michele A Sam is born in Toronto. I have two children. I am second generation to be in the child welfare system, first generation to be forcibly exiled from my nation, community and family. My mother’s consent was not required for me to be adopted into a family as youngest of their 7 children.

• 1982 Constitution Act is passed with Sec 35 “aboriginal rights” that reflects the 1763 Royal Proclamation that nations of Indigenous peoples exist.

• 1986 Bill C 31

• 1990 Meech Lake Accord

• 1992 Charlottetown Accord

• 1993 The Ktunaxa Kinbasket Tribal Council filed a Statement of Intent to negotiate a treaty with the government of Canada and British Columbia.

• 1994 My daughter is born.

• 1998 The Ktunaxa Kinbasket Child and Family Services Society is established and begins process of delegation of authority

• Colonial Response Trauma is what some aboriginal people are realizing: the situation has not changed and our children are inharms’ way.

• 2003 My son is born.

Creating a new memory in the minds of our children…