Week 5: Indirect Dispossession: Cultural Identity and Residential schools

What is cultural identity?

Refers to the identity of a person, group or culture

• Place, gender, race, ethnicity, history, nationality, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, institutional

• It can be contextual and/ or relational (e.g., I am a Torontonian, or I am a Mother, or I am a…..

cultural identity is shaped by:

• Shaped by common ideals and social norms

• These are the rules, behaviours and expectations for living – and belonging - with others

How is cultural identity maintained

• Embeddedness within a particular context

• Everyday life activities and practice

  • Food, work, music, clothing, etc,

  • Culture is ‘practiced’ day to day

• Social integration is key

Development of norms

• Social norms refer to expected behaviours of a social group

• They are practiced through behaviours, practices and are culturally, socially accepted

  • creates belonging

  • expectations of how to treat others

  • establishes responsibility

  • safety

Cultural change

• Effects of sustained contact with an external society of different cultural norms and practices

  • Can be passive or forced

• The impact of passive cultural change can occur in any society

  • On a global scale, for example, by international commerce, mass media, immigration, how else?

Residential schools - history

• In 1883, Sir John A. Macdonald authorized the creation of residential schools

• The last residential school closed in 1996

• Mandated and regulated by the federal government

• 139 schools were operated by Protestant, Catholic, Presbyterian and Anglican missionaries

Indigenous populations that attended residential schools

• 150,000 First Nation, Inuit, Métis students (approx. 30%)

• Approximately 80,000 survivors today

• 6000 children died in Residential schools (numbers incomplete)

"In order to educate the children properly ___________________. Some people may say this is hard, but if we want to civilize them we must do that."

we must separate them from their families

Assumption

• Aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal

• Colonization was providing civilization to savage people who could never civilize themselves

• The civilization mission rested on a belief of racial and cultural superiority

Primary Objectives

• To remove and isolate Aboriginal children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures

• To assimilate them into the dominant culture

Residential school rules

• Compulsory attendance (until 1948) for children aged 7 – 15

• 10 months/ year

• Children forcibly taken

• Assigned ID numbers, hair cut, ‘disinfected,’ forbidden language, male/female siblings separated

Day schools and Industrial schools

• Industrial schools meant to create “work force”

  • Children worked gruelling hours doing industrial or farm work

• 700 Day Schools operated in community but with the same ideals and focus of the Indian Residential schools

• Similar abuses and stories of negligence

Age 7

The Indian Act authorized removal of children from their family at age 7

The lost generation

• Limited affection or parental love: a “lost generation”

• Ways of learning diametrically opposed to life at home

• Living conditions subordinate

  • Insufficient foods, shelter

• Many children experienced industrialization

  • Child labourers

The legacy of residential schools

• Many students experienced various forms of sexual, physical and mental abuses

• Post-traumatic stress disorder / ‘Residential school syndrome’

  • Upon leaving school, many teens/adults did not fit into the cultures they left as children

  • Led many survivors to a life of alcoholism, addiction and abuse to cope with their experiences

  • Intergenerational trauma is a way to explain how these traumas are shared across generations (the normalization of behaviours used in response to trauma)

1986-2022: Apologies from the Church

• The United Church, the Catholic Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the Anglican Church, and the Presbyterian Church all issue formal apologies for their participation in the residential school system

  • they were very reluctant to apologize

• The Catholic church, who ran 60% of schools, offered an apology from Pope Francis in 2022.

Canada’s Apology:

June 12, 2008

Apologies in other nations

• Australia, February 2008

• Canada, June 2008

• United States, December 2009

Moving Forward from Indian Residential Schools in Canada

1. Residential School Settlement Agreement and coinciding Day School Settlements

• $1.8 billion for settlement packages

2. Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)

• To examine government policy

• To take testimony from survivors and employees

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC)

• From 2009 - 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada listened to Survivors, communities and others affected by the Residential School system

• One Chair, two commissioners appointed

The Goal of the TRC

Over its five-year mandate, the Commission aimed:

• To create an accurate and public historical record regarding the policies and operations of the former IRS;

• To find out what happened to the children who attended them, and;

• To learn what former employees recall from their experiences.

The findings of the TRC: Need for Reconciliation

The wounds inflicted from the IRS run long and deep in affected communities – but also across all of Canada

• The TRC identifies a prolific break-down of relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples

• Persistence of racism, discrimination and a general lack of education or awareness about Canadian Aboriginal issues

• Process of reconciliation fundamental for forging a new, healthy relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians

What is reconciliation?

• Mutual/ shared understanding of a problem/ argument

• Admission of wrong-doing

• Bringing people together to repair collective wounds

• Commitment addressing the outcomes of this fractured relationship

• What does this look like in the Canadian context of Indian Residential schools.

Summary

Cultural identity refers to the identity of a group or culture

• Maintained through practice and social integration

• Threatened by sustained contact with an external society

Indian Residential School Legacy a shameful part of Canadian history

• Forced cultural change: an indirect form of E.D.

• Assimilate young Aboriginal people to ‘Canadian’ values and religious, policy failed miserably, legacy of abuse affects current population of Aboriginal people

• Lasting effects: intergenerational, ongoing trauma

• We all have all been affected and we all have a role to play in supporting healing