AMERICAN INDIAN ADOPTEES: They Called Me Number One

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Support Info: If you are a Survivor and need emotional support, a national crisis line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week: Residential School Survivor Support Line: 1-866-925-4419. Additional Health Support Information: Emotional, cultural, and professional support services are also available to Survivors and their families through the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program. Services can be accessed on an individual, family, or group basis.” These & regional support phone numbers are found at https://nctr.ca/contact/survivors/ .

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

They Called Me Number One

Like thousands of Aboriginal children in the United States, Canada, 
and elsewhere in the colonized world, Xatsu'll chief Bev Sellars spent 
part of her childhood as a student in a church-run residential school.

These
 institutions endeavored to "civilize" Native children through Christian
 teachings; forced separation from family, language, and culture; and 
strict discipline. Perhaps the most symbolically potent strategy used to
 alienate residential school children was addressing them by assigned 
numbers only—not by the names with which they knew and understood 
themselves.

In this frank and poignant memoir of her years at St. 
Joseph's Mission, Sellars breaks her silence about the residential 
school's lasting effects on her and her family—from substance abuse to 
suicide attempts—and eloquently articulates her own path to healing. Number One
 comes at a time of recognition—by governments and society at large—that
 only through knowing the truth about these past injustices can we begin
 to redress them.

Reviews

"Deeply personal, sorrowful and ultimately triumphal, They Called Me Number One is an important addition to the literature on residential schools, and Canada's reckoning with its colonial past."
- Winnipeg Free Press

"Her memoir provides invaluable insight into the enduring effects of a tragic and shameful part of our collective past, and also helps to begin the process of healing."
- Danna Hansen, Quill & Quire

"Much of what has been written about the residential schools system, however, is so densely academic or historical that many readers simply tune it out. But Bev Sellars' memoir, They Called Me Number One, is neither, which is what makes it so accessible."

- Tyrone Burke, Canadian Geographic

About the Author

Bev Sellars: Bev Sellars is Chief of the the Xat'sull (Soda Creek) First Nation in Williams Lake, British Columbia. She holds a degree in history from the University of Victoria and a law degree from the University of British Columbia. She has served as an advisor to the BC Treaty Commission.

No comments:

Crime Scene

The Justice Department is protecting the names of many perpetrators of abuse of Indigenous children.
We need a special independent prosecutor who can force the government and church to turn over the documents.
There can be no reconciliation without justice.@MumilaaqQaqqaq pic.twitter.com/5TL6OxKM5O
— Charlie Angus NDP (@CharlieAngusNDP) July 8, 2021

This is a map of every residential "school" site in Canada.

Every dot is a crime scene.

Only a few have been investigated so far.

Canada, do not get used to these numbers.

Do not let them become statistics.

Put yourselves in the shoes of these children in the ground. pic.twitter.com/5XJS1w1ka2
— Mumilaaq Qaqqaq (@MumilaaqQaqqaq) June 24, 2021

ADOPTION TRUTH

As the single largest unregulated industry in the United States, adoption is viewed as a benevolent action that results in the formation of “forever families.”
The truth is that it is a very lucrative business with a known sales pitch. With profits last estimated at over $1.44 billion dollars a year, mothers who consider adoption for their babies need to be very aware that all of this promotion clouds the facts and only though independent research can they get an accurate account of what life might be like for both them and their child after signing the adoption paperwork.

Why tribes do not recommend the DNA swab

Rebecca Tallbear entitled: “DNA, Blood, and Racializing the Tribe”, bearing out what I only inferred:

Detailed discussion of the Bering Strait theory and other scientific theories about the population of the modern-day Americas is beyond the scope of this essay. However, it should be noted that Indian people have expressed suspicion that DNA analysis is a tool that scientists will use to support theories about the origins of tribal people that contradict tribal oral histories and origin stories. Perhaps more important,the alternative origin stories of scientists are seen as intending to weaken tribal land and other legal claims (and even diminish a history of colonialism?) that are supported in U.S. federal and tribal law. As genetic evidence has already been used to resolve land conflicts in Asian and Eastern European countries, this is not an unfounded fear.