Unapologetically Indigenous

Hi, this is Steve Patterson, host of the debaters, the show where Canada's best comedians take on the world's, well, silliest topics. Like should everyone take up pottery? We're going to know fired up about it, and this week's episodes will listen wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. So we've cooked for you. We made, uh, there's a choice of stool or macaroni soup. And we have Bannock. Here at the University of Manitoba's McGeezy Agamick or Bald Eagle Lodge, students get a warm welcome. Don't be shy, line up and come and eat. Cookem Karen is serving up Bannock, stew, and soup, a kickoff to the first Indigenous spirit week on campus. Smells delicious, Cookem. Food is Cookem Karen's love language. She considers these students her grandchildren. And Cookem Karen wants to fill them up and encourage them to be unapologetically Indigenous. Today is Malkison and Mucklick Monday. Megan Young is one of the faculty who showed up dressed for the occasion. So my family gifted these to me when I graduated a couple years ago. They wanted to mark like this new chapter that I was beginning of finishing my undergrad and moving into like working and now I'm a master's student. So it was a super, super special gift for my family, my grandparents, my sibling, and my parents all kind of went in together because they are not cheap, but they really wanted to mark this like achievement with this really special gift. While it's a good excuse to rock your mocks, Cookem Karen says it's more than just fancy footwear. It's about recognizing your journey. It's symbolic of walking in two worlds. And that's a theme of the week walking in two worlds. We want to stay connected in our communities, but we are navigating the system. We are navigating this place. We are navigating new places. So we truly walk in two worlds and so the Malkisons and the Mucklicks are just symbolic of that. A way to start the week off. Don't say "anine, boojoo, hello, and welcome." This is Unreserved. I'm Rosanna Deerchild. After 30 years as a school teacher, Karen Crochet wants to bring a different kind of teaching to the University of Manitoba. I want to build pride, I want these students to feel proud of who they are. So look, look at me. Here I am. And in Digiqueer Poet, Jay Simpson lays her rage bear in a body more tolerable. Rage is an emotion and a feeling that demands to be felt. It is what you do with it. That's important. Plus, a sneak peek at an upcoming feature interview. Singer songwriter CB is embracing their gender identity through their new name. I know that me being myself and living as myself and asking people to respect that means a lot to other people because there are people in my communities who can't do that. Today, indigenous people who walk their talk and make space for pride, poetry, and song. The trans woman named Knife. That's one of the many names Jay Simpson gives herself in a new poetry collection. And like a knife, her collection, a body more tolerable, cuts deep. Jay is an OG Kree Soto in Digiqueer from the Sapatoya Cree Nation. In a body more tolerable, she journeys through grief and loneliness, wanting and being wanted. From being a queer kid growing up in foster care, to being the woman they are today, all with a healthy dose of female trans and indigenous rage. Jay, welcome to Unreserved. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful to be here. Why do you describe yourself as a knife? I felt very weaponized as a child by my foster parents, and that the things that I had gone through and went through, the things that I had to do in order to survive were always judged so intensely and no one was looking at the conditions that forged that situation. No one was looking at what caused the reaction. They were always looking at the reaction as like kind of a negative miracle. Like it came out of nowhere. It sprung out of no situation and that it was unprovoked and unwarranted. And so as a metaphor, I was like knives are tempered. They are pulled from the earth. They are mined. They are turned into ore. They're then like melted and tempered and forged. And there's all this pressure and all this weight to design this tool. And knives are tools. And that's their purpose and their function. What happens with the tool when the wielder perverts its initial use should not be blamed on the knife. It should be blamed on the user. And so this poem is about how my experiences and everything that's led up to me has been this purposeful decision and everything I do comes from this background. And so a blade is a blade until it's not. And so a girl is a girl until she's not. And so it's my way of saying that I know I can be sharp and I know I can be cutting but it's by design and it's not by a consensual design. And now I have this as a self-defense mechanism. But as me and you both know indigenous women hardly ever get to use the term self-defense. Would you mind sharing some of those experiences with us, you know, growing up in foster care? How did you come to be in foster care? I've talked about it a bit and I'm only going to go into a little bit because it is quite the experience. But I was apprehended by the Ministry of Child and Family Development in British Columbia when I was three years old in Vancouver. I actually I'm pretty sure it was an East Vancouver where I live now. So it's a very full circle for me to come back here. But I spent 16 years in the foster care system as continuing custody order. So I was 100% in care and I was in several foster homes and I went to several schools but I think what could have happened most of the time did happen. And there were times where I wasn't fed, there were times where I was forced to go into programs I didn't want and it was an experience that I think when I have more capacity I'll get more, I'll tell that story eventually and I think that story is coming soon. But it is something that is in all of my work because it's who I am. And even though I've aged out over 10 years ago, I think it's been now 12 years. It is something that I can't not talk about because there's still so many you think care, especially as indigenous people. We're grossly misrepresented in the foster care system and a couple of years ago I said that we are currently right now and what I was calling the millennial scoop. We're seeing way more you think care who are indigenous now more than ever and there's more youth in care than there has been in history. And it's important because the same things are still going on and it's been a lot of my work outside of my literary work to bring awareness to that and a part of that is telling my story in parts and so there's a lot of poems in my first collection and my second collection that talk about specific experiences that I think it is my voice and it's more capable but lately I've been finding talking about some of the experiences of it too hard as of late. Yeah well thank you for sharing what you can. I certainly appreciate that. This one thinks I'm a slaughterhouse after X-rays romance. No one blames the hungry palms for the tearing of flesh rather than knife forget the hand clenching hilt a grim conductor keeping tempo to crueller composition a defining crescendo child turned blade the first time I sliced the woman yielding struck down indiscriminately tossed me aside after and screamed in terror at the carnage chastised the child named knife no one acknowledges the clenched knuckles driving forward tempered sharp and now I'm worn this child like wonder the first time I yielded blade slicing through watermelon rind after learning of my favorite grandma's passing a blade is always a blade and this design in my bones begs to be repeated painted silver and crimson my pouty lips a doubt and no matter the case someone somewhere has heard the stories about the girl named knife in the quiet of many years a warm body in bed beside me sees me here I hurt between my thighs a halting and creaking concession of my own rejected humanity and an undeness about it all amongst the sclerious tongues between spiteful casted looks some lingering curiosities proved stronger willed and after they swallow sword they call me butcher hacking of young flesh a selfish craft in the quiet of many years whispers have forgotten my name opted to ignore the many hands who forged the transwending's knife that is this one thinks I'm a slaughterhouse from a body more tolerable by Jay Simpson this book of poetry explores indigenous grief trans identity and frustrated desires in your poem and weren't they children you talk about rage and how it seems to define you know who we are as indigenous people all rooted in this experience of colonization where does your rage come from oh my gosh my rage comes from I would have to say an amalgamation of things it comes for my time as like an indigenous youth and care and everything that I heard growing up and from what social workers and foster parents were telling me my own classmates my own neighbors my rage comes from my experiences in care as well where it wasn't just what I was told it was what I was going through as well there was there was so much that was happening and I remember being such an angry child but never knowing what to do with it and as I was growing up and as I left foster care and as I aged out and was out in the open I then came out as well and I remember being like a repressed queer child and I remember communicating that I was queer and some awful things were done in response to that but when I found my independence and forced into this quite isolating experience of being alone with very little resources it became a well of motivation where I could have just sat down and took it and become bitter and let that pressure cook me alive but it is a well that I call upon when I want to get things done when I want to finish a project when I want to keep on going because I was like the best thing I could do the best revenge I could ever have is being successful being happy being loved and loving and so rage is an emotion and a feeling that demands to be felt it is what you do with it that's important and I am attuned with my gift to transfigure rage into what it has to be for me and I have experienced a lot of things that would make a lot of people very angry and recently I was just visiting my last foster dad who I consider my father and I love him very much and we were filming an interview and he was like I don't think I would have survived what he went through and then my response to that was there's a lot of people who have and there's a lot of people who will and as you may know I love to elevate and celebrate the matriarchy on this show and you of course write about some of those loving figures in your life tell me about Florence yeah Florence is and this is so funny Florence was not my biological grandmother she was my half sisters grandmother but she went to court for visitation rights for all of us because her son was my chosen father and so he had said that I was his and that was out it was treated and I was raised by him while he was still alive but she and her wife went to court for visitation rights and one and so I was raised for a period of time before she passed away in her glow of this queer woman in the late 90s early 2000s and I think I just remember being so in love with her and every time I saw her she was the sun in my sky and she just loved us and she gave us everything she could and that was her love and her attention and for me a part of my creation story is this trauma but also a part of this creation story are these pockets of love that as I go through this work of archiving my history it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge these these oasis of women who have done so much caretaking even from the spirit realm and I love her a lot can you please read us her poem and I have loved her and I have loved her after Florence the machines June and for Florence Greenwood and I have loved her since the first memories could form in my holy brain her papery hands and incredibly softness the glittery manicure on my wispy child hair my own chubby fingers curious about her snow white hair a gorgeous coiffed performance her face my world the topography of wantedness of permanence in the audience of the holiday concert she grins gold jewelry adorns hands that hold me tight or refusal to let go of love her son had for me we both knew his laughter together both adored him and we both mourned him she took to the west in her end swirly in the tides of ocean a different kind of return in this sorrowed leaving I cried and cried and cried and cried while Cynthia said she wasn't even your real grandmother all this grief of a 14-year-old who buries kin as frequently as one buys a growing child new shoes I was hers and she was nine and that's all that my sorrow ever asked me to address who is to say a child can't mourn the moon in their sky who hung low and to bright an illumination of what love can do when given the opportunity my grandmother's necklace rips my hair out and I'm unsure of the poem that holds but still I recall her before me calling me queer legacy and I am stolen from a dozen years holidays with held and it didn't matter that I wanted them in the end I can only ever say that I tried I refused to be the foster kid knocking at the doors of the lives of those who once said they cared rather they can hear of the song they were written out of and be kept from the table I said the feast I've prepared for those who said I was enough for them said I am worthy of love of protecting of witnessing be it her earrings or her necklace or her silk scarf I am adorned in the ways in which she loved me her love and active defiance marrying the woman she loved in 2004 loving this querying child all the while held me in her arms on her favorite chair and I loved her before I could form words rather just the baby baffle in her living room and I cried for this last family and how if I were to ever have a daughter from my own grievance I would call her Florence I love that thank you how do you know celebrating these pockets of love as you say help you know shape and define you particularly this around this idea where Florence calls you queer legacy to me that kind of that line came from a dream I had where she visited me and she said that and whenever I have dreams of people who've passed I take it for what it is and it's it's a little visit from the spirit world and I relish in those but I don't seek them out too often because they're they're doing their work and they're resting and they should rest but for me it was just interesting knowing that that is a part of my history and that's a part of who I came from was in a way these two lesbians during a time of history where it wasn't accepted or or desired or cherished or celebrated the way it should have been and to know that they fought for a child who wasn't theirs so they could love that child because their son loved that child and I think that just speaks to the kind of generational queerness that like I think I'm really proud to have in my history and there's something about being loved by someone who had to fight to love that makes loving now delicious and when you come from that direct lineage of like that I think it changes the perspective entirely where I want to make them proud and I know I am but also when it comes time for a fight I know I can do it because they did it and so the legacy of it is like when you come from something of legacy it means you have to fight to defend it and that this kind of legacy isn't about wealth in a way it's about security of self and for other people because to be queer and indigenousist is to have neighbors and kin and village make love delicious that should be put on a pair underwear a clean a clean pair of gins can you read for us a bodyless tolerance yes okay a bodyless tolerance are we just the consequences of mispronounced love I mean am I a body or am I a human lost in an ocean of hungry grey squares stark raven mad to carve my flesh from my bone who is to say anything here we are taught to move on and out you'll find something somewhere else away from these oh so small encounters far from the boy who told you to meet him in the park and never showed up there are no movies with girls like me who get asked out by boys like him as of yet although warm is our body in many cars on side roads in church parking lots my body pressed against locked door knees muddy it carelessly there are no lingering gazes in high school hallways no fingers lingering nor legs pressed against each other maybe and only maybe when I knew the equation or the metaphor of Queen Titania now wasn't I a fool to think me Cersei and every time the boy a donkey a bore a beast a transfigured and failed manifestation him the main character the cinematic heartthrob the school play lead the star soccer player me a body less tolerable bound by grain eyes and unforgivable skin not yet girl never boy he has more shapeshifter than I ever could be now the same spirit of mediocre wantedness permeates everywhere some multiversal sameness he invites me to band practice to the movies on the weekend to the fall fair I find myself standing alone in the bathroom at the synoplex classes theater at the fairgrounds a lifetime ago when I was not yet all he could master in his polarity was a curious game of how far he could take this and I never knew well enough for love bombing the queer foster kid was low-hanging fruit to get power drunk off of attention I gave so freely I have known where I fail in the battle ground of desirability from the beginning I was never guaranteed that young fumbling wanted interspersed with stolen and knowing glances there was no misplaced knowing in different hallways rather the overbearing glare of how many knew and decided that was more than enough how cool that in many ways I am now her the main character the girl next door the extraordinary one and how many words belonging to no one called me beautiful in hopes that's enough for me to bend before them man knows enough to break this resolve of flesh and I am peddiness unbound a curl lip a flash of canine I learned to bite down and hard after all that still my eyes meet no one's gaze my fingers graze only my own shoulders I can't steal time and hopes of healing that queerer child anyways aren't those coming of age stories just that fiction hmm a very powerful piece um how did those early experiences inform you know the strong trans woman that uh you became yeah that poem is about coming of age stories and how I never really saw for like accurate representation for my experience and in high school and during my formative years I was very unsexual I was just this amorphous being trying to survive every day and survive my foster home and bullies and all this abuse and as I was reflecting much later as a trans woman I was like I had no formative experiences I never really dated I never even explored that because I was too focused on survival and then as I was transitioning and becoming who I was meant to be I was then experiencing all of these like cis men wanting me in a really jarring way and I began to reflect on like they've what's changed and what has changed is the fact that I'm one of their favorite porn categories and that kind of did my head in because I was like where's the softness because now I'm this person that I figured out who I am I figured out what I want to be I figured out what I look like and now people are hungry for it but they're hungry for it in a way that they want to eat and use and that is not something that I'm particularly interested in and so that poem was about my experiences of feeling like consumed in that way and I'm very grateful to be in very numerous happy relationships with several partners that feel very healthy and safe for me it's called t for t transfer trans and so I'm in these healthy relationships with other trans people because we understand that fundamental experience but I think it did shape me as a transfer now because I move knowing that I have always been a product to be consumed I've always been a part of these industries you know the foster care system is an industry there's money in it there's money in wanting to come trans women and I'm a very well aware that I'm a product to these people who want to consume me but I don't consent to that anymore um finally Jay how do you carry you know your rage today while also still making space for for the clear joy that you you live in now I go to therapy every two weeks I go to therapy every two weeks I um part of my rage that I carry is is the insistence that I live the insistence that I make it and the insistence that I succeed because in my collection there are Indian children to feed there are so many tables to be built and so many tables to set and so many people to feed and that's not only just a metaphor that's an actuality and so my rage is demanding that my people not only just live but thrive especially coming from the downtown east side that's where my mom spent the last couple years of her life before she passed away and and a part of my rage is fighting city council in Vancouver because of the over-policing and the disgusting budget increases some of my rage is fighting for immigration rights because I am a free woman and we believe in accepting people and joining us and becoming our neighbors and living living amongst us queer and trans rights every trans child is a blessing and there's just so much to fight for because there's so much to live for and I refuse to show my belly and I refuse to show my throat when it comes to making sure that we all get a tomorrow that is kinder thank you so much Jay for your time today and your beautiful book of poetry thank you so much Jay Simpson is an old decree soto-indictive queer writer from the sapotea crene nation this recent collection of poetry is called a body more tolerable okay so there are millions of podcasts and maybe you're cool to stick with the ones you already know you like but if you're just a little paranoid about missing out on the best new stuff we can help every other Thursday the sounds good newsletter will bring you one must hear show from cbc podcasts and because we're true audio nerds we'll also tell you about shows that we love that we didn't make go to cbc.ca/soundsgood to subscribe this is unreserved on cbc radio one serious xm us public radio and native voice one i'm Rosanna dear child today walking in two worlds with pride poetry and song still ahead it's moccasin and muclec monday at the University of Manitoba's first indigenous spirit week hi my name is Karla Lohan i'm the director of the indigenous student center tell me and describe first of all the epic rubber moccasin combo that you are wearing so we had a student who worked here as part of the work study program and she was known for her artwork and staff and i think i'd seen her do a pair like this so i asked her i'm like how do i get myself a pair of painted rubber boots so she said go to walmart which is what i did got my own pair of rubber boots and then i gave these to her for about a month and then she hand painted it and so they're colorful flowers that almost look like beads with a leather trim and i love them white pretel did you want to have rubber boots covered in because why not because i just seemed like a good idea at the time and um yeah i love pulling them out for special events well they're beautiful thank you for wearing those today and making my day better and i shout out to Tina McKay for the outmay thing boots you're listening to unreserved on cbc radio one serious xm us public radio and native voice one i'm rosanna dear child today indigenous artists and educators who make space for others to be yourself and love yourself rising pop star cb is making space for other indigenous young people to stand in their truths cb is an enu non-binary artist from mysticini they just released their new self-titled ep well it's not their first musical project it's their first under the name cb changing their name is helping them express who they are as an indigenous trans person you'll hear more from cb in an upcoming episode but for now here's the story of how cb claim their name my dad named me angel and my mom named me Helen and i got my dad's last name um and for a really long time i didn't like my name um i didn't feel that it aligned with who i was and also somebody who um doesn't really vibe with religion i didn't like that my name was a reflective of something biblical so one day as i was working in winnipeg actually i was doing a youth conference and we were being loaded up into the cattle man you know when we just pack everybody up and they need to move bodies so i was in the back of a van with another two-spirit trans non-binary person they asked me if you had a different name like what would it be so i thought about it for a little while and i thought about this boy and in high school from my community and his name was river and i was like i really like that name but i'd want it to be in in inuyumon i'd want it to be in my language so i told them i was like if i was going to pick a name that i would ask people to call me by i would pick the name cb because that's what that's what it means in in cream river so they were like oh you should you should just ask people to call you that like if you want to live in a world where people call you cb that can be this world and i i eventually kind of had more negative connotations with my name through my family and so as time went on i realized that i really wasn't happy as angel and i wasn't happy living as angel and especially as i was discovering more about my gender identity and being two-spirit being trans non-binary i just realized that i had outgrown that name and because of some of the negative connotations of it i also i presented it so um it started really small actually i started asking like the people in my office at the time to start calling me cb and it was a very um safe queer friendly space but actually i think it started with my pronouns being they them and then eventually my name and then i started getting a little more confidence in asking friends to start calling me cb as well and then eventually my family i think my family was like the last because i know how uh stubborn and hard edit they are yeah it now it's been a few years that i've been living as cb and i no longer use angel again i refer to it as my dead name because it's not a name that i'll ever use again but yeah it was it was really important for me to step into that name and to release this project now like because i had released my first dp as angel marbo now having it as cb is very lovely because now my entire community sees me in public and sees me you know doing cool stuff and they see me as cb amazing um which is so lovely yeah and how has that name helped you come into your non-binary identity i'd say like when i was a preteen kind of understanding a little bit that i felt a bit genderqueer i didn't know like the proper terms of it i just knew that i didn't feel like the gender that i was born or i didn't feel solely like the gender that i was born i didn't grow up with like the queer friendly language or the woke this i guess and so to have those conversations and to have people around me that affirmed that i could be who i wanted and live as who i wanted and that that was okay yeah that really affirmed my gender stuff because i was around two spirit folks who were living proudly as who they were and i wanted to be able to do the same thing for my youth in my communities you know because unfortunately there's a lot of closed-offness when it comes to queerness when it comes to gender stuff and as somebody who has worked with youth and will probably continue working with youth in the future i know that me being myself and living as myself and asking people to respect that means a lot to other people because there are people in my communities who can't do that and so seeing me come out and living as who i am i know that impacts folks because i've had i've had you youth reach out and tell me that it has um so that yeah that's really a life affirming to be honest that is cv an enue non-binary artist from this disney we'll share their full interview on next week's show you're listening to unreserved on cvc radio one serious xm us public radio and native voice one i'm rosanna dear child it's indigenous spirit week at the University of Manitoba where students and faculty are showing off their favorite footwear for moccasin and muclec monday Shirley de la morassel is a proud mate to your jibwe woman who made her mox herself okay so i made these moccasins when i worked at real house national historic site so i used to be the manager there on behalf of louis real institute on behalf of the manitoba mat federation and whenever we hired students they had to learn how to do beadwork and they learned that by making their own moccasin vamps and then they had to learn how to make moccasins because that was a part of their uniform so they had to know how to make their own we also taught them they had to know how to jig they had to know how to play the spoons and they had to know how to finger weave i have failed already so the year i made these this was Carol for shet and she taught us all to make these that her mother agnus had taught her to make tell me how difficult it was to to make these make these babies these were actually for me relatively easy because i know how did you beadwork but i'd never made this style before this style has like sheepskin on the inside with rabbit fur around the the ankles so it's very cozy and i was super proud to learn how to make this style christmas is coming okay so it takes me about seven to eight years to do half of one thing i only do them well when they're on deadline i'm just saying dear child's feet are cold cold over here yeah these these are my moccasins why do you think it's important to learn these kinds of you know skills so i'm may tea my mom's may tea my dad's nishinabe my mom didn't know how to teach me this stuff because her mom specifically didn't teach her this stuff if we lose it it's it's gone right i don't know how to sew very well so i don't know how to make my own clothes and that's lost but i do know how to do beadwork and i do know how to make moccasins so and i know how to finger weave and play the spoons and jig at least i know those basics and i can teach those basics and i can teach my kids who then teach their friends and on and on and on okay surely one last thing we're going to do a jig red river jig ready yeah here we go that's early dorm Russell an indigenous librarian intern at the U of M libraries and a jigger the woman behind this week's festivities is kukum karen korschein she's the University of Manitoba's grandmother in residence the overall theme of the week walking in two worlds she wants students to be loud and proud about their indigeneity this is what i want students to know i want them to know their stories because when you know your story then you won't buy into caranadas narrative canadas narratives is often not a positive narrative around first nation meeting you with people so i'm i'm always trying to connect them to their story so then when somebody tells you out there this is who you are you can say no this is who i am because i know i know my story i know where i come from i know what i'm doing and i can walk in the world but i can be rooted in who i am and what i am and my way of being is just as valid as any other way of being in this institution i've had to define my purpose here as the grandmother in residence and that's kind of my main purpose if i can connect them to knowing their story so that when they go into the faculties they don't have to buy into a narrative that's not ours now where did the idea for indigenous spirit we come from well first and foremost i want to build pride i want these students to feel proud of who they are and often in these spaces we're not seen we're not listened to and it's just a way for us to say look at me here i am you know and i'm going to be unapologetically indigenous and i'm going to wear my magazines i'm going to wear my ribbon skirts i'm going to wear my hair i'm going to be who i am and that's what i want these students to feel like that like walk into your class with your ribbon skirt you know take up that space because this is your space and the more we claim it the more it'll be easier for others who are following behind us behind them right so that's why i want to do this and i don't know how much uptake we're gonna have but do you know what we'll start small and we'll build yeah all great things that have to be built with time right right right can you tell me a little bit more about what a grandmother in residence does you know i've been here for one year so in the first year i'm just i was just navigating what does a grandmother in residence do if i cook today we have a cooking day i'm cooking i smell it i'm cooking for students you know like it gives them just a little connection to home so that's once a month i will cook for the students because i like to cook it's if you ever talk about a lot of language well my love language is cooking right and these are like my grandkids i get the cook for my grandkids i'm this place from Pegas and i don't with the flood three years ago i'm displaced from Pegas and so i'm not near my grandkids so these have become my grandkids and i couldn't cook for them the way i used to cook for my grandkids when i was home in Pegas so that's the first thing but more than that this is my own little definition i want to give them a soft spot so when they have challenges in their faculties in their classes they can come here and have a soft spot fill themselves up with love and nurturing and a cheerleader i'm a cheerleader i'll cheer them on you know like yeah you can do this you know and then they can go back into the faculty and then keep coming back here so i think my sense of a grandmother in residence is to give them that soft spot so that they can go in and navigate the system and be successful long ago i was a student here at one point too so like and i had one person who gave me that soft spot so now like it can do a little bit of something for them to rate because i know one person can make a difference in this place what kinds of things or you know conversations our students having with you are they missing home are they talking about their schoolwork or what kinds of interactions do you have some talk about being displaced from like not being able to go to the bush and do land and do work on the land or do something for their grandmother like it's really hard sometimes for them to say well i don't even know what to do on the weekend usually i'm in the bush hauling wood for my grandma so i have those kind of stories also we have stories like uh i'm having really hard hard time in this particular class with this particular person you know and so i'm just kind of helping them process that and oh and some of them are not coming you know like they're seeking spiritual knowledge you know i am a Nishinaabe woman i'm rooted in my traditional teachings and i'm always up front with them yeah i can help you i can and if you need free teachings if you need the code of teachings i can help you find the place to go and do that yeah that's wonderful um how where did your your love for you know academia come from you you went to university you became a teacher and now you're back in the university setting in a different role as grandmother and residence where did your love for this world come from i had uh parents who valued education and my home is sagging first nation that's where i grew up we were deeply affected by the residential school but through that through all of that my parents always always valued education you know my parents were always at parent day you know i wish my mom wouldn't come to parent day but she'd always come to parent day you know and they really nurtured the value of education like if we're going to make it out of poverty it was through education and they they put that in our head and i even remember like i remember this as a little five-year-old girl my aunts and uncles and and they saw something in me like i was smart and already they had put in my head oh she's going to get a master's you know like like they so they were nurturing that in me my my my the adults around me even though they didn't have those opportunities they saw the possibility of that opportunity for me for my siblings and for my cousins you know in the big extended family right yeah that's unusual because usually um if your if a parent has gone to residential school they're not very supportive of the education system particular because it was so harmful to them why did you think it was so different for you it was harmful to them but they also saw it as a way to uh build a better life they saw it as a way to build a better life and so they really nurtured that in us and i think Marie Sinclair said education got us into this yeah and education will get us out so my parents had that idea yeah what do you say to students you know if they feel like they're having the struggling struggling to you know maintain their culture and and walk in two worlds as you say if they're feeling like they're faltering see it's not my job to try to convince them to be rooted in their traditional teachings i'm only here to support them if you choose to live a mainstream life i'm happy for you and i'm proud of you and that's really good you know and if you can make a successful life that way that's really good for me i needed to root myself in my traditional teachings because society was telling me who i was and i had to find who i was so i want them to find that too but i'm not going to do what the colonizers did to us so i'll support you whatever way you want to walk i'll just be here for you that's great another issue that we're finding you know in universities and colleges across turtle island there's a backlash against you know the promotes or teaches values around diversity and is that something that you have faced in in your time you know what i'm an educator you know there's always been a push in the old days we would say aboriginal education and now we say indigenous education indigenous perspective there's always a pushback in the education system you always have people are saying why are we doing this why why why you have a pushback on reconciliation you know and i have a theory i think that that's Canada's default setting and until we unlearn that we're always going to have people pushing back so so yeah it's it's it's always a challenge and the only way to deal with it is just to be rooted in your identity what do you got planned for the rest of the week tomorrow is ribbons skirts ribbons shirts and sashes and like why not you know like if i'm going to go into board meeting why not where my ribbons skirt be indigenously visible you know so that's tomorrow Wednesday's heritage h-a-i-r a tit's heritage where you're here in whatever way you want to wear your hair like i'm gonna wear my braids maybe i'll put on some otterskins maybe i'll wear my beret i have a beret our granny's just to wear berets you know so i have i have a beret that i really like and it connects me to my grandmother or wear a beret in your hair or a beaded baseball cap you know something just just in your hair because it reminds us that when our parents went to the residential school they got their hair cut now we can do what we want with our hair you know i was one of the first ones who didn't have to go into the residential school i was a day scholar my mom took really good care of my hair because her four older daughters she had no control over their hair so my mom braided my hair every day you know she brushed my hair every day if i got knits and i did get knits she pulled them out so i wouldn't she didn't cut you know it was a long and tortuous process yeah but she wasn't gonna cut my hair because they did that to her they did that to her older daughters so i'm so grateful to my mom you know that was her act of resistance and i recognize it now i didn't recognize it when i was young but i recognize it now so that's um Wednesday Thursday we're gonna wear beaded bling we're inviting people wear all your jewelry or or turquoise or silver or whatever kind of jewelry you have come up blinged out and then Fridays just we call it fancy friday just wear your best clothes and just be beautiful and brown and you know an indigenous and celebrate who you are yeah well that's beautiful i love it thank you so much for your time today kukum karen thank you so much yeah thank you for coming kukum karen kershane is the grandmother in residence at the University of Manitoba that's all our time on radio indigenous this episode was produced by kin casher rianne johnson elena hudgenslyle and amanda gear you can now listen to a streaming live on the cdc news app just go to the local tab and press play you can also find and follow us wherever you get your podcasts i'm your favorite cousin there's an idea child come and ask you from winnipeg in treaty one territory get a nest with now i'll i guess so. for more cbc podcasts go to cbc.ca/podcasts