[Wamvan] DTES POW "In Our Own Voices": Residential Schools and My Journey to the DTES by Stella August

Wed Jun 8 16:41:35 PDT 2011

[ This story is part of the Downtown Eastside Power of Women “In Our Own
Voices” writing project. For more information and to read more stories,
please visit http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group ]

Residential Schools and My Journey to the Downtown Eastside
“In Our Own Voices,” Week I
By Stella August, DTES Power of Women Group

http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/story/residential-schools-and-my-journey-downtown-eastside/7441

I was 6 years old when I was taken away from my parents and grandparents
in Ahousat BC and forced into a residential school. The Department of
Indian Affairs came to our reserve every year in the 1950’s, taking Native
children away and placing them in residential schools to learn the White
way of life.

In residential schools, under the federal policy of “aggressive
assimilation”, we were stripped of our language, our culture, and our
customs. We had to scrub ourselves clean until we were White.  It is
estimated that approximately 150,000 Native children were removed from our
communities and forced to attend residential schools, with the last school
closing only as recently as 1996.

I was forced to attend the Christie Indian Residential School and then the
Mission City St. Mary’s Residential School. I felt like I was in a
concentration camp. In these schools, we were punished for speaking our
language. Our punishment was being kept in isolation in a dark room for
the whole day. Often we would be fed food from the garbage and be forced
to drink raw cow milk. We were strapped and beaten until we were too sore
to stand.

If we did not get up on time in the mornings, the nuns would drag us
across the floor, beat us, and make us go without breakfast. I remember
every morning they would wake us up by saying: “You are not on the
reserve; you are in White Man’s land. Indians are liars, filthy and good
for nothing. You don’t want to live like an Indian.”

When we were silent, they made us talk. But when we talked, they did not
like what we had to say and persistently hit us while repeating: “God
doesn’t like you talking like that.” We were too scared to do anything. We
would often go without food and there would be no activities. At nighttime
we would often see the children taken out of their dorm rooms and they
would come back crying and bleeding.

I was incredibly lonely in the residential schools. The priests and nuns
did not like us making friends with each other. Even brothers and sisters
were kept apart and forced to act like strangers with one another. From
the time I was placed in residential schools, I did not have a single kind
word said to me. No one appreciated me for the individual I was, or the
culture I came from. All I remember is being punished for anything and
everything. I still have horrible flashbacks. I grew up with a tremendous
amount of shame and loss of dignity. I believe that residential schools
were prisons for young children.

I managed to get out of residential school earlier than the other children
because one day my brother managed to sneak a phone call to my
grandparents and told them to come get me. The nuns had beaten me so badly
across my head with a stick and a ruler that my ears would not stop
bleeding. My grandparents got me out of the school for a special doctor’s
visit. The doctor determined that I had permanently lost my hearing in
both ears. My grandparents were furious and kept me at home, refusing to
send me back to the residential school. When the school called the Indian
band office looking for me, my grandparents told the school and the Indian
agents that the nuns had given me a severely damaged ear. The officials
hung up the phone and did not try forcing me back.

When I was older, I moved to the Downtown Eastside. Almost 60% of Native
people and 72% of Native women now live in urban settings with the erosion
of the land base of our communities and Indian Act regulations limiting
women’s access to housing on the reserves. I, too, drifted here from the
Island and found work at a fish plant. Since then, this neighbourhood has
become my permanent home.

Like me, most people here carry deep scars. It is hard to describe all the
different experiences that women have, for example the history of abuse
that has brought many of us here to the DTES, the brutality of child
apprehensions that many of us have borne as a direct result of poverty,
the fact that many of us do not know our parents because of the legacy of
residential schools and colonization has destroyed our families, the
chronic and often fatal illnesses such as AIDS and Hepatitis C that break
our bodies, the grief of living through the deaths of our missing and
murdered sisters, and much more. People who drive by us every day to work
have no idea what nightmares we live with. My heart wants to shatter when
I hear some of the stories about why people have turned to drugs and
alcohol.

The Downtown Eastside is the poorest part of town. Low-income housing in
the DTES is of such sub-standard quality that many prefer to sleep on the
streets. Problems in the single-room occupancies include: absence of heat,
toilets, and running water; presence of mold, bedbug infestations and
rats; and illegal practices by landlords including refusal to return
damage deposits, entering rooms without permission, and arbitrary
evictions.

In the DTES Power of Women Group, we support our people to get proper
homes. The government should provide a living wage and a decent home for
all people so that we have somewhere to stay and so that no one has to
work the street. A lot of our young people are working for drug dealers.
Women who owe drug debts have much harm come to them, sometimes even
death, like the murder of 22-year old Ashley Machisknic last year. A lot
of girls who have to work in the sex-trade are further abused by their
clients and their pimps and often don’t get paid.

And then there is the constant harassment on the street by police
officers. I have seen officers walk by and kick people while they are
passed out or sleeping on the street. Our people are not able to defend
themselves against guns and tasers. It hurts me to see people slammed to
the pavement by police officers just because they are poor and nobody
cares what happens to poor people.

But the hidden truth of the Downtown Eastside is that despite the poverty,
criminalization, and trauma, we all care for each other and socialize with
one another. Especially in the DTES Power of Women Group, where we are
like one family and support the community on issues such as police
brutality, child apprehensions, violence against women, and housing.
Whether people are sober or high on drugs, we listen to each other’s
dreams and desires to make this neighbourhood a better place for
ourselves.

Stella August, from the Nuu-chah-nulth Nation, was born in 1945 in
Ahousat, BC. She is a long-time resident of the Downtown Eastside. When
she joined the DTES Power of Women Group she learnt that as a woman in
this neighbourhood, she has a voice and a collective group through which
to support her people. She is also a member of the Feb 14th Womens’
memorial march Committee.

This story is part of the Downtown Eastside Power of Women “In Our Own
Voices” writing project. For more information and to read more stories,
please visit http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

-- 
Harsha Walia

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/nooneisillegal
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

-- 
Harsha Walia

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/nooneisillegal
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

-- 
Harsha Walia

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/nooneisillegal
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

-- 
Harsha Walia

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/nooneisillegal
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

-- 
Harsha Walia

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/nooneisillegal
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

-- 
Harsha Walia

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/nooneisillegal
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

-- 
Harsha Walia

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/nooneisillegal
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

-- 
Harsha Walia

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/nooneisillegal
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

-- 
Harsha Walia

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/nooneisillegal
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group