Samantha Saksagiak
Indigenous people have always been in Canada, we have been here for thousands of years, long before the British and Europeans. Global Affairs Canada (GAC), along with the Atlantic Council for International Cooperation (ACIC) partnered together to offer international internships to indigenous youth in Canada. 50 years ago, this program would have never even been even thought of, because indigenous people in Canada were, and still are being discriminated against, colonized and unjustly treated, simply for the fact that to the whites, we are indigenous.
Samantha presenting at the 2022 ACIC Symposium
The Canadian Government, along with the Catholic church worked together, invested copious amounts of money to build schools specifically for us indigenous people. This team was, and I can argue that they still are, so determined and eager to homogenize us, to remove our cultural identity.
Police went to the indigenous communities, door to door, forcibly removing children from their homeland, from their families and culture, and placed these innocent children into residential schools. For many parents, that would unknowingly be the last time that they would ever see their children again.
Now, imagine, it is a beautiful summer day, you are home with your children, going about your normal business, and the authorities come to your door, take your children away from you, not knowing where they are going, not knowing how long they will be gone, and then never seeing them again. You could not resist the authorities, because if they didn’t care about these innocent children, they sure as hell didn’t care about you either.
Now remember, the main goal of these schools was to “remove the Indian from the child”. Once there, the girls' beautiful braids were cut, our handmade clothes that were made with traditional materials and knowledge were forcibly taken off, torn, and dumped, leaving these children naked, vulnerable and terrified. That was just the first step. The next step was to internally remove the indian from the child. Little boys and girls were forced to learn and speak the english language, being beaten or given a punishment such as rape if they disobeyed the rules. Children were starved, bruised, beaten, and killed. That was the goal, wasn’t it?
Fast forward to now (2023), over 10,000 unmarked graves have been identified of children who died as a result of the Canadian Government and Catholic church. When these children died, they collected the bodies, dug one big hole, placed the children there, buried them and carried on with their mission. Children at these schools weren’t called by their traditional names and some were given numbers. No headstones were left, so a lot of these children cannot be identified.
These schools ran from the 1800’s and the last school closed in 1997. Just 26 years ago. Many died directly in the schools, many died trying to escape, many died on the journey home after escaping and those who did survive were left with the trauma and burden of their horrific childhood experience.
As a result of this cultural genocide, we have been left with issues of alcoholism, drug abuse and addiction, high crime rates, a high number of suicides, poor parenting skills, depression, intergenerational trauma, the list can go on, but I’m sure I’ve made my point very clear.
For years and years, indigenous people have been trying to regain our strength, to reclaim our language back, to regain the rights to our stolen land, we fought the whites in court to be able to vote again, to protect our children from this monstrosity. The government is still actively against indigenous people, by neglecting indigenous communities of access to clean drinking water, neglecting our education, deciding who or who isn’t indigenous, and still having final say in major decisions that are being made in indigenous communities.
So now, the question is, “what does it mean to be indigenous?’’
Being inuk means that my people have suffered and are still suffering as a result of the Canadian Government. Being indigenous means that I am far more likely to go missing or to be murdered than a white person. Being indigenous means I am fighting racism within the education system, within the healthcare system and everywhere I go. Being indigenous is not easy. Being indigenous is hard. It makes me angry that we are still being unjustly treated, for we are all human, are we not?
At the same time, I am so, so very proud to say the words “I am inuk, and I am still alive, we are still here”. I proudly and shamelessly wear my traditional clothes, I proudly reclaim and speak my inuktitut language, I proudly beat my Kilautik (Inuit drum), and I stand strongly, for no matter how hard the government tried to beat my culture out of me, one thing they can never take away is the pride I have for being inuk. I have used and will continue to use my heart and my voice to fight for my people, and I will not keep fighting until the day that I die.