Finding a place to re-grow

Wabeseemoong youth, Kirk Cameron is employed in the finance department of Grand Council Treaty #3.
At this particular time, he had been asked by the organization to represent the youth at a residential school gathering in Redgut First Nation in June.
There had been six schools in the Treaty # 3 area alone, the most in any Treaty area.
Cameron began his address by welcoming the drum and scared items present. He then went to on to welcome the people and gave his reason for being present.
Within his speech he spoke of being a by-product of someone who had attended a residential school. Cameron said, “My father did not know what to do with me sometimes when I acted out. He did not know how to discipline me or show affection towards me.”
“Those are the long term residual affects of the residential school. Yes, it the affects still exist amongst the young people. I am a living proof of it.”
Cameron’s speech brought many issues to light. His speech is as follows:
By Kirk Cameron
I have spoke with a number of youth about residential schools and today I am going to share with you the information I have gathered.
I’d like to apologize to those who may take some information offensively but I assure you this is not the intent of why I’m here today.
I’m here to tell you about our concerns, viewpoints, and fears today about what residential schools have done to Native people within Canada.
When youth were asked “What are residential schools?” they all replied a dwelling of assimilation. There are only a few natives out there today who are uneducated and uninformed about residential schools, after all, how can you forget a major movement such as that.
We, the youth, would like to share what we have to say and I’d greatly appreciate it if you take into consideration what I am about to present to you today.
As a youth living with a parent who has attended residential schools, I have seen many differences between those who haven’t and those who have.
Both my parents are native, and only one has attended residential school.
My father that attended residential school, Cecilia Jeffrey, had a hard time raising me as a child. He seemed to not know what to do with me when I was young, he didn’t know how to raise me, he had a hard time teaching me lessons for reasons I am not too sure of, but I assume that has something to do with not having his own parents help him grow, and teach him the differences between right and wrong.
Many other youth that have had a parent or both parents attend residential school say the same thing, the stories and experiences may be different but the outcome is very similar.
The youth suffer from the impacts of residential schools even now in the present day.
There are youth out there who don’t speak our language because English is becoming more and more prominent within our First Nation communities.
This is one of our fears, we fear that in time we will lose our language, with the teachers and Elders leaving us, who will teach us the language after them?
The Elders are also so busy fighting for our rights and for the culture that sometimes it is hard to ask for guidance and structure.
I know I’m scared that 50 years from now when I’m an elder, the title of being “native” is only defined by the color of my skin. That’s the biggest fear amongst the native youth that I have spoken with.
We fear that the purpose of residential schools in the near future will soon become fulfilled even though there are no running schools. I don’t want my language to disappear. I want to
learn it the best that I can, we all do.
But it is hard nowadays to find those who will take time to teach it to us and there are those who have a hard time teaching.
We’re at a stump in the road and need help to move forward. Not only is language one of the main fears for the youth, but the very meaning of our existence as native people.
We are considered the people of the earth, but how is this when the majority of present communities are filled with endless supply of garbage sometimes running from one end of the community to the other.
I’m not putting down communities, I’m only trying to show you what we see as a concern. We rarely have the opportunity to learn about the past, to learn about ceremonies, to learn what it is to be native.
We want to get in touch with our ancestors; we want to be able to carry on the sweat lodge, shaking tent, midewin, and every ceremony there is out there.
I want to share with you a story from my post secondary journey. I traveled to London, Ontario to obtain my accounting diploma and I’ve met many different races living within that city. African, Spanish, Latin, Mexican, almost every kind of race, when I spoke with those students from other countries they either knew nothing or very little of what a native or Aboriginal person is.
The only way I can let them know what my people are was by saying Pocahontas. Being only 17 and having to compare myself to a fictional character in order to describe what the original inhabitants of Canada are…is a big slap in the face.
I have also had the opportunity to travel to other countries and on my adventures, same thing, people in other foreign countries do not know what an Aboriginal/native person is in Canada and in the future who is to say that we won’t be a figment of the past?
I would like to share with you one more story and that’ll be it. While attending school in London I have become friends with people who had different race backgrounds. And when discussing what native people are and what we do, they asked me…. “Is there any place you can re-grow?” At first I didn’t understand the question.
I replied “sure, my home reserve” not the answer they were looking for, then they asked again….. “Where is your home land to re-grow?”
Once again I answered “my reserve.” And once again not the answer they were looking for. This individual then turned and looked at me and told me, that if he ever wanted to get in touch with his roots, and his culture and language…he could simply go back to Africa to learn everything. The country is rich and full with their religion and culture.
Chinese can return to China to regain their language and way of living. Spanish people can go back home wherever home may be, Mexico/Spain/etc. But what about natives?
Where are we to go when we lose our language? Where are we to turn to when we’ve lost the meaning behind a sweat lodge, the meaning behind our ceremonies?
Nowhere. Our homeland is Canada. And Canada is supposed to be a country of freedom and rights. What’s right about having the first initial inhabitants of this country left with nowhere to turn for re-growth?
Growing up we were taught when we did something wrong to apologize and do our best to make the situation right and move forward together and try to patch the mistakes we made.
We do not see this with the apology Canada has made for their mistake. We do not see growth, we do not see any compassion, and we do not see anything being done to fix what has happened to our Elders, parents, and family members.
Money is not a solution, to the youth that I’ve talked to; it’s only a façade put on to make us happy.
We the youth want to re-grow, we want to regain our culture and our language with or without the Canadian government, we want to take the initiative and make our people strong and free just like before.
We don’t want to dwindle away to nothing but a section in the history book.