Just How Segregated Are We?

This past week I spoke at the Kingston Writer’s Festival here in Kingston, Ontario with authors Alma Fullerton, Shyam Selvadurai and Tim Wynne-Jones. I also attended various events, including interviews and reading with some of my favourite authors such as Ania Szado and Joseph Boyden. My favourite event was an interview with Thomas King and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson on Native storytelling. I chose this event because I love Thomas King’s stories and I’ve never heard him read, although I did meet him briefly in Eden Mills a few years ago. As an added bonus, Simpson and King were interviewed by Sheila Rogers of The Next Chapter.

 

As King and Simpson were talking about Native stories, I remembered a collection of Native books that came across my desk at the end of last term from my school board. The books were all about Native culture. They came with a teaching guide suggesting Native culture be introduced across the curriculum, including in the Core French program that I teach. Well, I took the books home and read them to my son who is seven. We talked about our own Jewish culture with its special holidays, foods and language and then we compared it to Native culture’s traditions. I explained to my son that Native people had been in Canada longer than any other Canadians. 

Since school began this September I haven’t looked at those books yet. As the talk went on, I wondered why I hadn’t read them to my students. One answer would be that I’m pretty snowed at work and September has been a whirlwind, but the real answer is that I’m intimidated to teach about Native culture. This is different than teaching Native history. I don’t have any Native friends and I can’t think of anyone I know who is Native. Sure I’ve read Thomas King, Joseph Boyden and Eden Robinson, but this isn’t the same as knowing anyone. It didn’t help that the books were all in French, my students’ second language.

When the question period began, I stood up and asked how I should proceed. “How would you like non-Native people to teach about your culture in our schools?” I asked. I explained that I didn’t know any Native people and while I liked the ideaof reading about Native culture in theory, in reality I was unsure. Leanne Simpson suggested I should reach out, that I could probably find Native people to come and talk to my students. If there were Native people in Kingston why I hadn’t met them, I wondered? Why hadn’t I met them in any city I’ve lived in? As if reading my mind, Sheila Rogers talked about the incredible segregation between Native and non-Native Canadians. 

 

Meeting Aboriginal people in Kingston, as Simpson suggested, turned out to be incredibly easy. I didn’t even have to leave the interview ballroom. When the session ended no less than seven people came up to meet me. Some were native people who came by to introduce themselves. One was the aboriginal educator at Queen’s University. Another offered to introduce me to the Aboriginal curriculum coordinator at my school board. Even two days later, a man sat next to me at a poetry session and wrote me a note thanking me for my question. (He also told me that he thought it was a shame Harlequin didn’t think organic farmers were sexy – see my former blog post if you’re curious about this one!) Lastly, I met Rick Revelle, an Algonquin. Rick’s first novel, I Am Algonquin, is being published by Dundurn this fall. I’m going to his launch November 30^th at my favourite book store here in Kingston, Novel Idea.

Sometimes I think I ask too many questions. Sometimes I wonder why I want to get at that microphone, why I always have something to say. Sometimes I wish I could listen more. And sometimes, I think, if you ask the right questions, you’ll get good answers.

Thanks to all the Native and non-Native people for their advice, friendliness and resources. I’m looking forward to reading some books about aboriginal culture to my students.