Death at Residential Schools

[Music] in the name of the father Our Lady of Good studies pray for us Our Lady of Good studies pray for us Our Lady of Good studies pray for us in the name of the [Music] father not sure we'll ever get a final answer but I'm absolutely convinced the number is much higher perhaps as much as 5 to 10 times as high as that it's because the records are so [Music] poor they just didn't bother keeping track of children who died I think that's unacceptable in my family we lost two of my great uncles and they died at residential school back in the 1910s one of them didn't come home and the other one did come home he was very ill with tuberculosis and he died very shortly after he came home the two deaths had a great impact on my family in fact really changed changed everything my great-grandparents decided at that point that uh they did not and were not willing to lose any more children and so they ended up really running away as the family story goes in the middle of the night running to Regina at that point there was a pass system and you had to permission from the Indian agent uh to to leave your community and anybody had the right to ask to see your pass if you were off Reserve so they really when they when they fled to Regina they really had to lie low like they were illegal immigrants in their own country I mean my great-grandparents spoke their language perfectly beautifully um spoke cre and um and they were very deliberate in not passing that down to um to their children and in not passing that down to to their grandchildren they didn't want us to know the language uh because they were so afraid our family went back to Brandon residential school to um to just walk through it and to be there to try and do something small to honor honor them to honor their loss um just to walk where they had walked to be where they had last had last been [Music] in the 1970s uh we understand that a group of girl gods were planting trees and ended up discovering uh what was a grave uh a grave site uh a cemetery of sorts but it was not marked part of the Indians problem is in assimilating with the rest of the nation so much horror and Terror went on when I think about the propaganda um it just uh it's it's really really painful when you know what actually occurred and when you know the impact in your family of what actually occurred and what you've lost because of it news magazine salutes education week with films of an Indian residential school they learn not only games and tradition but the Mastery of Words which will open to them a lot of that uh public perception is [ __ ] oh pardon my language but I have a very strong feeling about the way we were portrayed they don't they don't they didn't portray us as you know hungry uh conniving cold I entered in 1948 and all through the 50s and part of I left in early part of 60 my mom was and my dad D and my grandparents were really very spiritual they believed in the cre Creator to a fault and the fact that we lived in a in a in at a time where we didn't have any the amenities that we had running water electric lights heat electric heat so my mom always thought in her head my boy my boy you're going to have all these amenities you're going to have a good life so when the clergies came in of course that was the attitude of our parents in in spite of all what what was her reasoning we didn't know the all we knew was that we were incarcerated and that first year we didn't like our parents we didn't like our grandparents we didn't like our extended families because of what had been pounded into our heads that Indians were no good seees and we had no culture we couldn't talk of sensible language so that was the start of my indoctrination where they say kill the Indian in a child that's exactly what they were doing killing when you left the residential school it was very very isolated incidents where people would go back and live on reserve we were gone I didn't return for years and years I was on the move so because of that shame and that you know the reluctance to be able to relate relate to a family I started realizing why why my mom my mom allowed me to go into residentials I gradu I graduated at 32 from civil engineering and as I was I was coming down by the receiving my my my award was my mom against the wall right I'm sorry I I I've I've tell I've told this story before but I think that's the most significant that's the hardest thing to be able to realize that my mom all almost a th000 miles away I was graduated I graduated in Alberta and my mom was living in Fort Alexander just north of winipeg here who should be sitting against the wall on on that day was my mom her goal of having me graduate what she didn't even understand in the early years as to graduate she was sitting right there on my day of graduation all the abuses I've suffered everything that's happened through my life do not compare to what I experienced that day I shouldn't react the way I do with this with this idea but uh I think my whole life the whole purpose of why I got incarcerated the whole reasoning sits on that scene

Channel: CBC News: The National

Views: 261,289

Keywords: CBC, the, national, The National, CBC Television, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Id: 9FydzIzkndA

Length: 8min 10sec (490 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 21 2015