The irony of residential schools [column]

The Urbane Indian

There are four things in this country that all Native people will be asked or told at some point in their Aboriginal existence:  Do you have a spirit name? I love Tom King/Joseph Boyden/Sherman Alexie/A Tribe Called Red/Robbie Robertson. What the hell do you people want?  And finally, did you or someone in your family go to residential school?

All important, vital issues in the First Nations community for sure but it’s the last one that is most pertinent.  At this point in the arc of life that is Aboriginal existence, this issue seems to be the focus of much of our psychological, legal and creative exploration.  Sad, considering it used to be moose hunting, canoeing, and negotiating treaties.

In recent years there has been a plethora of artistic endeavours that have provided their own interpretations of this topic.  Books such as Robert Alexie’s “Porcupines And China Dolls”, James Bartleman’s “As Long As The River’s Flow”,  and Kevin Loring’s Governor General’s award winning play “Where The Blood Mixes” take a kick at that can.

Just a few weeks ago my play about residential schools, “God And The Indian”, was published and in the next month or so, “Up Ghost River” by Ed Metatewabin will be released. This is all just the tip of the tipi.

For a decade now I have been on the jury for the Historica Canada’s yearly writing contest for young and eager Native writers called the Aboriginal Art and Stories.  Every year several dozen stories pour in from across the country detailing what’s on the mind of Canada’s Indigenous youth.  Surprisingly, a sizable percentage deals with the residential school years.

Interestingly, most of these kids were born long after this last bastion for this forced Canadinization had closed.  This is important to note because not every Native person went to one of these institutions, but we were all hit with collateral damage in one form or another.

Not every Jew was in a concentration camp but the topic still resonates deeply in most facets of their culture.

In the States, I once heard a representative from an organization set up to help foster and develop film scripts for North American Native people comment “Why is it every script we get from Canada deals with residential schools? Don’t they have anything else to write about?”

For better or worse, we have residential schools on the brain. With the Truth and Reconciliation Commission travelling the country doing its thing, it seems now most of Canada also has residential schools on the brain.

As a result, more frequently than I am comfortable with, I personally hear or read comments from main stream Canadians telling Native people to ‘get over it’.  ‘Move on’. ‘Quit living in the past.’ They don’t seem to understand that these arty discussions are part of moving on, or dealing with it.

Still, you can’t help wondering what would happen if these same people went to Ground Zero in New York and yelled out to the passing public “Geez, can’t you just move on instead of spending all this money to memorialize it? It’s not going to change anything.” Or going to any Jewish holocaust museum and saying to anybody handy “you guys still whining about this?”  Same could we be said about asking any man of African heritage “For Christ’s sake. That was so 19th century.  When are you going to just let it go?”

For us, the topic is still a little fresh and it’s not quite in the past yet.

I remember reading one letter from a man who seemed genuinely puzzled that in all our bitching, we were overlooking all the obvious educational benefits we received from our time in those schools, between the beatings, sexual assaults and trying to survive in such harsh conditions.  We called it the Gulag Canadiana.  The man commented that we did learn to read and study history.

This may actually be true for I cannot tell you how invaluable it was on the powwow trail knowing the Battle of Hastings was fought in 1066. Spoiler alert: William the Conqueror won, thus his name. And then there was the math… A x B = C

In many aboriginal languages, this algebraic equation translates as:
A stands in for Residential Schools.
B stands in for Survivors.
Therefore, C must stand for lawyers.

On a certain level, I think this man was correct in some ways, but not in the way he had anticipated.  They did teach Native people to write.  To understand the concept of putting thoughts and memories down on paper, to express themselves. Thus the onslaught of literature about the very topic that made them write.  Kind of ironic.  It’s our belief that God does love irony.

Further, it reminded me of the story of Spartacus. He was a slave his owners trained as a gladiator who subsequently led a bloody revolt against Rome.  Think about it… If you teach a marginalized and oppressed culture how to use swords effectively, chances are that decision is going to come back and bite you in the ass. And it did. And it made a pretty good movie too.

Same with writing. Despite the murky education available in those places, the stories are being written, and published.  As the old saying goes, the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. Spartacus might disagree.

Back to the irony of this situation.  For an institution that was set up to kill the Indian to save the child, the culture and the fight to save that culture has evolved into a strong and vibrant literary movement.   Like a scar is stronger than the tissue around it, these stories are stronger than those residential schools.
The students outlived the schools.