Identity & post-secondary: a First Nations experience | Amy Smoke | TEDxKitchenerED

[Music] [Applause] say go so go go I need tons e hello everybody ladies Craig said my name is Amy spoke Mohawk nation turtle clan and I'm from the Six Nations of the Grand River but I grew up right here in Kitchener I was born and raised right here in Kitchener so I never lived on my reserve my grandfather was Hyuga and he attended the Mohawk Institute residential school and my grandmother was mohawk and her family lived in Hamilton and they had a job and they went to church so it was probably thought at the time that they were already assimilated into mainstream society so she and her siblings weren't taking a residential school but both my grandparents never really spoke the language and didn't teach my mom and her siblings my grandparents traveled back and forth between six nations in the United States because they were following the work my grandfather was an iron worker and they avoided those big luxury cars pulling into the neighborhoods for fear it was the social service workers coming to take the children away to residential school so my mom was actually born in Detroit but grew up here in six nations and she met my father who's non-indigenous in Brantford where he was born and they moved to Kitchener Waterloo and where I and my younger brother were born so I've never actually lived in six nations but when I was growing up I you know mostly around non-indigenous classmates and neighbors I was very aware of how different I look you know I have darker skin different eyes and cheekbones and as a result I was bullied quite a bit when I was younger people would always tell me to go back to where I came from and I thought I was really weird because I'm from here and even my dad like my dad would make comments about my mom and ask kids about being Indians that we were Indians and I was about five when I asked him then what he was and he told me he was a cowboy and I believed him I actually told people that that's what my dad was he was a cowboy so not being around like any ceremonies or traditions also not going to church or being involved in any organized religion I never had a chance to to learn any of this you know my grandparents didn't teach my mom and she never taught me so I struggled I never really felt like I fit in and by the time I was 11 I was having suicidal thoughts by the time I was 12 I was running away from home on a regular basis it always seemed better to me to live with someone else's family than my own but my family made a nice living in the computer industry we had a big home and cars and summer vacations so I wanted for nothing really materially again I just I didn't feel like I fit in so I started to use drugs and I partied my way through high school and eventually dropped out but I applied to college as a mature student because like that's what you do after high school right you go to college but the soft drugs turned to harsher ones and two days after my 22nd birthday I found myself at a healing lodge in Toronto and it was for indigenous people only and it was a four-month live in treatment and I remember walking through those doors and I I smelled that sage the smudge and I heard the drums and I started listening to the teachings and I thought wow like how did I not know any of this before why weren't people talking about this cuz like it was so logical for me like it was just you know made sense so I knew that this was the spirituality the identity that I had been searching for I knew that I had come home but I was kind of young and kind of silly and I broke the biggest rule in treatment never get involved with somebody while you're working on yourself especially somebody in the same treatment program and once we graduated I moved out with this beautiful young Cree man and we attempted to live a sober life in Toronto but we struggled and it all came to a head one night drugs and alcohol ended in this big bloody mess and I moved back home to Kitchener unfortunately I didn't seek out any indigenous organizations in my area you know like I thought what I learned in the lodge was I'm hoping enough and I rekindled an old high-school romance and I got pregnant with my first daughter and I for nearly five years was Super Mom right I read every parenting book and magazine that there was because I was determined to do this one thing right but again I started to slip I was struggling and I started sending my daughter to my parents house for overnights visits and and weekend visits and one day she just didn't come home I was also working at the stag shop at the time so it was a very adult life which came with very adult drugs without my daughter like to be responsible for and get up in the morning for and take care of I lost it I completely set out slid out of control within three months I had found another unhealthy partner lost my daughter lost my job lost my apartment and this started the next five years of how I entered the world of IV drugs opiates and heroin My partner and I would steal from stores all day long and then we would sell it and buy drugs get a hotel room party all night never saving anything for the morning right when we would be like in severe withdrawal I found myself getting in trouble with the law and every few months I was in and out of jail we couch surfed I slept in crack houses we broke into cars to sleep I spent a summer in a tent at Bingaman Park and again I did things I never thought I would do I exploited myself and other women this was not anything I had ever grown up around nothing I imagined possible well eventually applied for social assistance and one of the requirements to stay eligible for the benefits is you have to take these courses one of them was called focus for change and I knew like two three weeks into the program why it was named so because I was tired I was tired of running and going to jail and sticking needles in myself I was tired of the abusive relationships so I called a woman shelter and I made the plan to flee and I checked into a methadone clinic I applied for a subsidized housing I got my apartment and the fog started to lift and I was able to get up every morning and not need the drugs and I knew I was gonna need some more education because not only did I finish that program but I then I read I did my GED as well but I knew I was gonna need more I reapplied to that program I had started like 15 years prior and I got to the campus and I walked into the aboriginal services office which was new at the time and I met the most wonderful man wonderful teacher I'd ever known and I explained I'd missed some deadlines for funding and he said he just stood up and he walked me down to the OSAP office and he said let's just get you here now and we'll worry about paying it back later and like the fact that he used the term we and like complete unconditional acceptance from this total stranger reminded me of that that healing Lodge and the people that I had been around so I knew that I had once again found my home so I jumped in to college I started talking in classes about like smudging and what it was like to be a First Nation student and a mature student and the coordinator of my program suggested that I go out for a photo shoot for the marketing campaign you know what you do here counts out there I found myself on one of those like life-size banners I was in like a website and on a commercial and proShares and like the drug addict in me like didn't think that that was even remotely possible so I began to feel really comfortable and accepted but I knew I was gonna need more education right I wanted more education so I applied to university and I got to campus and I thought where all the indigenous students like it just come from a college where we had ceremonies and powers and traditional teachings sweat lodges and I was really disappointed to find out that there were like five First Nations in 18 Inuit students that used their aboriginal services I thought what am I going to do here so they took another deep breath and I jumped right in again i reactivated the indigenous Student Association and I applied for funds for some marketing materials started making our presence known on campus today our Center sees like two dozen regularily indigenous students using the services we feed like over a hundred of the campus community during our weekly Supan frybread lunches and when I finished my first degree actually I was given the president of the term award so I finished it I just actually finished my second degree in June my convocation is actually next month so why did I share all that with you like I spent more than half my time with you just introducing myself um not only as a mohawk person I am a talker I'm a storyteller but as an indigenous person this is a huge cultural value for us we explain who we are where we come from in our social location and our history that's important to us and I need people to know when I walk through those doors especially a classroom that I come with that history the beauty the pain the intergenerational trauma and healing I come with all of it the collective history and blood memory of the indigenous people of Turtle Island and as a stronger and healthier First Nations person it's my job now to help you find their culture and and know their history and understand their identity you know cuz I walked into those spaces of healing and learning I was home and I felt such balance and belonging and it's like such an honor to be able to help others find that same pride and acceptance within themselves like there's just no greater job so how do we indigenized academic spaces or better yet to colonize them I found as a student you know I'm an indigenous person we like circles we do everything in circles we like to face each other on an even level we're all teachers and learners but I find it really troubling that nobody wanted to move the desks and rows into into a circle and I found this really unsettling and I start to question what I was learning like as to its cultural relevance how does this work for indigenous people how can I use this with indigenous people and I was met with rolling eyes and size of like what see me gonna say now I think we always can talk about being Native Amy needs to calm down a little bit and in a school of social work in particular subjects like anti-oppressive theory and in did knowledge queer and feminist theory were like the last subjects to be taught I really thought that was weird like who did we think that we would be out there in the world with once we had our little degrees in our hands and a teacher once asked me to share my story so she asked me to share a little bit of my story a First Nations perspective a little bit of the history and colonization but while I was a student in the class and the systemic racism and discrimination felt by First Nations may teen Inuit students is current it's not historical this is like our everyday lived reality so having me explain colonization while I currently experience it was not really an okay place for me to be I know it wasn't intended to harm me I'm a talker but I realize now that that's not a safe space so how do we make safer spaces it's like for indigenous students too I mean it's already impossible to fully prepare an indigenous student for university considering the inequities of funding for on-reserve schools versus provincial schools but we also need to prepare the universities for for indigenous students we need to look at other ways of learning and teaching and knowing and being in the world because we are the fastest growing population in Canada right forty-seven percent of us are under the age of 25 you're gonna see us you're gonna work with us you're gonna educate us so I think we need to create some space for the not only the knowledge that they can bring to the classroom but maybe not that they won't bring to the classroom invite indigenous elders and knowledge keepers into your spaces academics professionals doctors lawyers scientists we have them all and I really think it's time we started speaking for ourselves right nothing about us without us one of my favorite phrases so again these are big scary words right decolonization and in digitization and reconciliation my advice is as an indigenous person I'm tired you know I'm tired I'm healing myself and my family and communities and our nation's but we're also expected to educate everybody about us at the same time so we need you to to like meet us halfway do the research help educate yourself but come to our spaces come share our spaces with us and invite us into yours we are all about interconnectedness right so make some meaningful connections engage with us I care I'm gonna tell you you won't regret it we're awesome people we're hilarious we're funny people were generous we're giving and you just will not regret it but again make those meaningful connections we're all about the interconnectedness we're all about the relationships we're all about story time so thank you share your stories with us like I've shared mine here with you guys all tonight thank you so much yeah I'll go ten minutes go with it now

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 10,521

Rating: 4.8963733 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Education, Education reform, Personal education, Personal growth, Schools, Social Change

Id: eWg9wudIzDk

Length: 14min 13sec (853 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 27 2017