An estimated 8 million children are reported missing each year world- wide according to the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children’s website. These children are taken and are rarely returned to their homes. The majority of the time, parents and authorities have no idea where they went or who was responsible. I can’t imagine what these families and these children go through or how their lives are changed forever. In Canada more than 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their homes, ripped away from their loving family and placed in residential schools in the 19th and 20th centuries. And even though we know who was responsible, (British Crown, Canadian Government and the Catholic Church), only recently has the awareness become global enough to force the Government to start providing support to eradicate the damage that has and is being suffered by the surviving children and their families. An estimated 6000 children died during this attempt to forcibly assimilate them into society. I don’t think until recently, did I view the emotional similarities from having a child go missing with the context of having a child or multiple children removed from their loving families who were caring for them better than anyone could and being placed in a residential school. The emotional breakdown of an entire culture can never fully be put into words but maybe by sharing some aspects through personal stories, we can spread awareness, educate and understand why there is so much hurt and how we can become compassionate and strengthen relationships. My daughter Amanda is Métis and has experienced how residential schools affected her grandparents, father, aunts, uncles and cousins through the abuse of drug and alcohol stemming from this trauma. I have a dear friend Andrea, also Métis who has been instrumental over the years in helping Amanda and I understand her heritage and the history as to how we got here. I’ve asked Andrea the very difficult and emotional task of writing a small piece of her family’s story to allow us a glimpse into how they were impacted. The courage it took to write this story is very much appreciated Andrea…
Why I Wear an Orange Shirt (Article by Andrea Louise-Martyn)
My grandma was taken at the age of four along with her 3 siblings after my great-grandfather was killed in WWI. It didn’t matter that their father was a war hero and that their mother had successfully run the farm while he was away fighting for our country. What mattered was that her mother had brown skin, a squaw (a term that makes me cringe). She was actually Métis, but it didn’t matter the government had an agenda and to them they were one in the same – savages. From their home in northern Alberta the girls were sent to a convent in Edmonton and the boys to a different residential school. In fact, in the 1921 census my grandma, along with the other children were listed as inmates. She was an eight-year-old inmate. She spent 12 years in “care” and was turned out on the streets to figure it out and survive.
I wanted to know my family history and why my mom behaved the way she did, I needed to know what made her tick and why she made the bad decisions she did. Which in turn begged the question why did I make bad choices and why do I have a tendency to think and feel the way I do? Why do I feel inadequate, unworthy and deal with so much shame? Why does my brain work the way it does, why do I fight the committee of assholes in my head that tell me I’m just not good enough – where did that come from? I’ve learned about inter-generational trauma and I can tell you it’s real.
Never really knowing how to parent and how to deal with trauma, my grandma drank and did bad things. My mom struck out on her own at 14 years old to go work for the railway. She left a crazy dysfunctional home, living amongst Edmonton’s seedy underworld. There were nightly house parties filled with booze, boyfriends (johns), that usually ended with scrapping and fights. My mom remembers being placed in foster care when my grandma was sent to jail for “performing an illegal operation”, grandma provided abortions as a side hustle. It was a skill she picked up while in the school system and it’s reasonable to assume it was for the girls that were impregnated by the priests. My mom was looking to escape the abuse, (sexual, emotional and mental) she had endured. As a child she was never hugged, didn’t feel loved and never experienced the feeling of being safe….ever.
It makes sense to me now, knowing what my grandma and my mom went through. I understand all the bad relationships, bad decisions and insecurities. I see the brokenness and I know that they never intended to pass on the trauma and shame that they experienced and yet it was beyond their control….it became embedded in their DNA. It saddens me to reflect on how they misdirected their anger and contempt at the colour of their skin. They were made to believe that to be Indian/Métis – to be anything other than white, was to be less than….and that hurts my heart.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t share what happened to my great-grandmother. After losing her loving husband (I have the letters he wrote to her in 1917) and her kids for all those years, her eldest daughter died of appendicitis. She later married an abusive man and had five more kids. Sadly, three of those children died, two in a house fire and the other of unknown causes as a toddler. To call her life tragic is an understatement. She too succumbed to the numbness that alcohol gives and never overcame the unbearable grief. She drank herself to death.
But alas there is hope and there is healing. People now know what happened within the residential school system (including convents, missions and day schools) and there is support. There is renewed pride in my culture and heritage and the possibility of prosperity for all my relations. My family story is not unique, there are hundreds of the same and some far worse. My cousin is a survivor of three residential schools. But people are listening now, listening with their hearts and it matters. Every child matters.
September 30th is Orange Shirt Day, I encourage everyone to educate themselves and learn what it’s about. Canada now recognizes it as a Federal holiday: the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.