Happy International Women's Day & Why I'm Supporting Devery Jacobs's Kickstarter

I used to work for a First Nation organization. This organization was a coordinating and advocacy body for the 133 First Nation communities in Ontario. There were many parts of this job that were awesome—I got to travel to other First Nations, hear the experiences of Indigenous Peoples across Turtle Island and see the passion they have for their communities. But there were some parts of the job that were less awesome—this usually had to do with one of two things: the wretched relationship between First Nations and external governments, and the general lack of awareness that Ontarians and Canadians have about who First Nations are and what our relationship is supposed to be like.

A quick and overly simplistic answer to this question is that First Nations are the Original Peoples of Turtle Island and that the relationship my people have with non-indigenous peoples is supposed to be based on mutual respect, friendship and peace and confirmed through the Two Row Wampum Treaty. Obviously there is way more to it and maybe one day, I will try to explain some of the things I’ve learned (and am still learning) about Treaties and the treaty relationship but for now I’m just going to focus on one issue I care about and am trying to learn more about: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

I’ve been worried about this issue for a while but even more so since I had my daughter. Right now, there is a call for an inquiry into the high instances of violence and murder of Indigenous women. “Indigenous woman and girls in the Canadian state have been murdered or gone missing at a rate of four times higher that the representation of Indigenous women in the Canadian population which is 4.3%”.  (Inter American Commission on Human Rights Missing and Murdered Women in British Columbia, Canada: 2015). The Sisters in Spirit initiative explains that while there are 582 known cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women, the number is much higher—recent estimates suggest that nearly 1200 Indigenous women and girls have been murdered or gone missing in the last three decades. These are devastating statistics and they can’t continue.

I definitely support the call for an inquiry. I think an inquiry could be a very valuable process of healing and a path towards justice. I also realize it is highly unlikely that it will happen or that once it has happened—sufficient action will be taken on the resulting recommendations. This sounds super jaded, but in my experience working for the First Nation organization I mentioned earlier, this is what I usually saw happen:

• First Nations work very hard for something to become a priority (for example: education or MMIWG)
• The government unilaterally creates a process by which they will engage (for example: The Panel on First Nations Education or the recent MMIWG roundtable)
• First Nations realize that the government’s intentions to investigate are not sincere or that they have predetermined the outcome they are willing to support—if any (for example: asking for feedback on a specific legislative or policy option regardless of what comes out of the discussion)
• The government will write a final report with recommendations favouring the predetermined outcome (First Nations who did participate will have been deemed to have been consulted)
• Those recommendations will become either a piece of legislation, or a new/updated policy or program
• The prescribed recommendations will be applied to all First Nation communities whether they consented or not, and without consideration to their respective Treaty rights (and right to Free, Prior & Informed Consent)
• Resources will continue to be inadequate to implement the recommendations
• This is typically when First Nations write press releases or letters to the government explaining how and why the process was flawed to begin with
•  I’ve never worked for government, so I cannot say if they love this or not, but it seems like it makes them very happy to be able to say it wasn’t their fault that no one liked the actions they took and it was simply further proof that First Nations can’t get along  

First Nation leadership have a lot of support (and critics too). Some of those supports (and critics) come in the form of Indigenous lawyers or policy analysts who remind the leadership that the government does not have the authority to create policy/legislation over Indigenous Peoples. Often, leadership will push for a meeting on more equal terms (nation-to-nation) that will implement the treaties and resource protection and sharing discussions that many believe (myself included) will help to bring balance and peace back into a relationship fraught with mistrust, abuse, theft and shaming.

The government does not want to do this because it means that they would have to acknowledge they’ve been in violation of Treaties for hundreds of years. But by not acknowledging the treaty relationship, the settler state allows colonialism to continue to set the tone of the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and non-indigenous people. And this is disastrous because colonialism, by its very nature, perpetuates the mistreatment of Indigenous women and girls.

I don’t believe, and I think that the Prime Minister has made this very clear—that the government intends to do anything about this issue any time soon, beyond the roundtable—(which sounded like it didn’t go very well at all). But that doesn’t mean I don’t think that something should be done. I worry all the time that my daughter will grow up and that people will treat her badly because the system allows it. I want to do something about. So what can I do?

I feel very lucky because I think I can do many things:

• I can support efforts in my family and community to reaffirm women’s roles as leaders, teachers, givers of life, keepers of knowledge, stories and traditions and others I have not listed here
• I can support the women in my life who are mothers, aunties, sisters, cousins, grandmothers, leaders, and who care for children and families
•  I can make sure my daughter knows her clan, her nation, her creation stories, and her languages. These are her inherent rights 
• I can learn songs and sing them with her  
• I can help my daughter understand why we care so much about water and land and teach her how we show our appreciation and gratitude through offerings and ceremony
•  I can teach her about our existing roles and support her in realizing the new roles that women may take on in the future, as our experience here on Turtle Island changes and evolves
•  I can support our community agencies that are underfunded but provide safety and shelter for women and families
•  I can write blogs and stories
•  I can share things I’ve read about colonialism and be open to respectful, caring dialogue with others who want to learn
•  I can create writing and art for education and public awareness purposes
•  I can support others who are using their skills and abilities to raise awareness about these issues and their many layers through books, art and film

There are a lot of things I probably didn’t list here—I’m still learning too, really.  But they are things I know can make a difference and they are the type of recommendations that I always see come up at the conclusion of other studies, including inquires like Ipperwash and commissions like RCAP. Why not just start them now?

There is a lot of media competing for our time and attention, and not everyone has the time to read (and of course—not everyone likes to read). But there is no doubt in my mind that awareness, compassionate discussion and action is needed to help us bring an end to this violence. And that leads me to this very cool Kickstarter that Devery Jacobs has launched to tell the story “Stolen”, which will take a look into, “a typical Native girl’s life before becoming one of the 1200+ Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Canada”.

MMIWG is such an enormous issue. No one will be able to crack it alone. And it’s hard to know where to get involved in any issue—at least it is for me. Gaining more awareness is what has always helped me figure out how and where I can be apart of the change. Because I’m a writer—most of my efforts go into writing stories and books and blogs (I touch on this issue in my short story collection). But movies are awesome too, and that is why I’m happy to support this Kickstarter. Hopefully, I will be able to show it in one of my future Indigenous Studies classes.

For those of you who are interested, here is a small sample of the things I’ve watched or have read that helped me to understand this issue. There are so many more resources, so many more people working on this issue that I wish I could list them all. Maybe I will try in the future. Until then, here you go:

Sisters in Spirit website: http://www.nwac.ca/sisters-spirit

Andrea Smith and American Indian Genocide (video of a lecture): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Neg-Rlbi764

Article by Pam Palmater: http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/international-women-s-day-indigenous-women-still-not-equal-in-canada-1.2985100

Inter American Commission on Human Rights - Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Canada: http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/reports/pdfs/Indigenous-Women-BC-Canada-en.pdf

The video of Andrea Smith is informative. I saw it a few years ago. It really gets to the linkages between colonialism and violence against Indigenous women. That being said, there are other important issues around Andrea's work concerning voice and appropriation that I would feel remiss if I did not mention.  This article by Pam Palmater is just a really great read that came out today. I read the Sisters in Spirit report two years ago when I was working on my short story collection. This was a research initiative by the Native Women’s Association of Canada. There are a lot more resources on their website though. This last study was fairly recent, it focuses mainly on British Columbia but there are implications for the rest of Turtle Island, I think.

If there are other things you think I should read, please feel free to let me know. Anyways, happy international women's day to all the women in my life, indigenous and non-indigenous, in my community and around the world for being you and doing what you do! I hope this year is amazing for you and I wish you and your loved ones health, happiness and safety. 

Nya:weh!

S. 

At Last, the Publishing Company Dream Comes True

At the start of 2014, I made a list of all the things that I wanted to write this year. I never thought that I would come close to achieving them, but here I sit on December 7 with over 175,000 words of unedited text next to me in the form of novels, novellas, short stories and draft blogs. Projects that will be transformed next year into living breathing stories with everything in mostly the right places and ready to be shared with the wonderful readers they are fortunate enough to find their way to.  

The whole thing is making me feel very lucky and happy and in love with writing.

Despite the clear and obvious need for me to do some serious editing to make this happen, I have spent the last week working on a different project. This project has been a dream of mine for many, many years. And like most dreams, even though I’ve had it, I haven’t always known exactly what it was going to look like.

In 2015 I will be launching a small (pint size really) publishing, production company. My goal with this company is fairly simple: to write or create stories with wonderful illustrations and artwork that are written in one or more of the Haudenosaunee languages and that celebrate Ogwehoweh language, culture and identity.  

It’s not my dream to make millions of dollars (although if I ever did the first thing I would do is fund adult language immersions programs and help all my family and friends get off the grid and drastically lower their carbon footprint through solar and wind technologies). Like most writers I know, I have been following the evolution of the publishing industry and trying to make sense of all the changes that its going through so that I can find my place in it. I’m grateful for how people have shared their stories and experiences from the traditional or self-published paths. It doesn’t seem like there’s a right way or a wrong way – there’s just the way that’s going to work for you and your art. This idea and all of the reading that I’ve done has helped me to understand more about this thing I want to do. Now, I’m certainly no expert when it comes to publishing books. I’m definitely a beginner, but I’m hugely passionate about languages, stories and my people and the opportunity has finally come where I’m able to make this happen. It feels sort of crazy, because it’s been my dream for over a decade to make stories that are nicely illustrated (or filmed) that will help reinforce people’s efforts to read, speak and otherwise learn about our languages and our culture. Along the way, I’ve been inspired by how other people do this and mostly, how they do it in a creative way that encourages others to find their own voice and make their own art. That part is key, I think. It’s part of the spirit of art to create something, to have that something reach as many people as it can or the people that it’s meant to, to inspire some, perhaps even offend a few others. But mostly - to share and then be shared some more. I don’t know. All I know is that I am so ready and very excited to work on this project.

And all of this crazy, creative energy aside, it also takes a lot of work and preparation. At times it’s felt as if I was going around in circles but even though it felt that way, I think I was always moving forward, always moving ahead. This week I’ve been working very hard on so many things: production schedules, brainstorming, pricing, ordering blocks of ISBNs, logos, website, budgets, financial software and just figuring out how I can DO THIS and stop talking about doing it. There have been a lot of great and helpful resources along the way – too many to list or count but here are a few:

The Business Rusch: These articles are incredible. Helpful. Detailed. Interesting. http://kriswrites.com/business-rusch-publishing-articles/#sthash.KyId1W4G.dpbs

Hugh Howey’s website is very encouraging and inspiring to authors. On the left hand side of his website, there is a tab called Favourite Posts for Writers. Here’s a link to one of them: http://www.hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/

If you are looking for information on the business-y side of writing you might want to check those out. Or if you have any others that are good that have helped you make a decision about your publishing path, please feel free to share in the comments! I love reading about this industry.

Finally, nya:węh universe! Please send more of this happy, creative, and possibility-laden energy my way. I’m going to need it. Probably – we all are J. Happy writing & editing!

S.

Tales from Turtle Island

In the very first blog post I ever wrote, I talked about how I live on Turtle Island (what others refer to as North America, the United States or Canada). I didn’t always think that way. My education was very colonized. I grew up learning history that more or less precluded my own people and I looked at things very differently as a result. It wasn’t until I went to university and took Indigenous Studies classes that I learned more about the true history of the Haudenosaunee and other Indigenous Peoples. It was many more years until I learned that my ancestors had a different name for this land, a name that also represented how we viewed ourselves in relation to the universe around us: through a series of interconnected and interdependent relationships.

This process of learning and unlearning has been my own personal journey of decolonization. At times, I’ve had to use language I’m not fond of to foster understanding with others. And while I think creating understanding is very important, I also realize that words are equally important – they are one of the vehicles that carry truth from one generation to the next. And the truth, my truth and the truth of my people, matters very much. My journey to decolonize and learn the truth has had a few bumps here and there, but on a whole, it has been the most transformative and happy experience I’ve ever had. I have learned songs and stories. I have started to learn my language. I have read books and developed theories. I have interacted with hundreds of wonderful people who are working in their communities in the area of education, art, and the environment. I have been inspired to create and encourage others to do the same. I have found my purpose.

Writing and telling stories, is a huge part of that purpose but it’s taken me a long time to have the courage to write, to apply myself to doing so in a serious manner and to then share what I’ve written. I didn’t know what kind of stories I wanted to tell when I first began writing and most of what I wrote - I tossed away. Even so, I never lost the desire to create. There are not many survivors of this period of writing save for a couple that I’m going to attach to this post (and probably separately under my writing tab).

The following two stories were written for a contest called Our Story: Aboriginal Writing Challenge. (Aboriginal being a perfect example of one of the words that I don’t like!) I wrote both of them in my mid-twenties. My writing style has changed a great deal since and though they certainly aren’t masterpieces, these early stories were a lot of fun. Some stories you plot, some just fly out of your imagination and onto the page. These stories were written relatively fast because back then I had a habit of writing things on the same day as they were due; I have since developed a healthy respect for making enough time in the drafting cycle for editing but believe me, it is still hard to do-I can be terribly impatient about wanting something to be finished when it could really use another round.

Each of them is about a different event that happened in my people’s history but since they were written nearly 8 years ago, they don’t have the benefit of some of the decolonizing work I’ve done since then. Still, I think they have some of my spirit in there, helping them along. The challenge is open to writers of First Nation, Métis or Inuit ancestry between the ages of 14-30. There is also a new category this year for artists age 11-13. Submissions are asked to be about a moment or theme in Indigenous history. And as fate would have it, this is probably the best description of the kind of work I love to do. It certainly describes everything I’ve worked on since then.

http://www.our-story.ca/winners/writing/310:going-the-distance

http://www.our-story.ca/winners/writing/259:recovering-ground

Without further ado, here are my submissions! I hope you find something to enjoy or learn in them - even if it's what not to do! Happy writing!

S.