Story at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/08/02/pol-first-nations-kids.html
As a survivor of the 60s Scoop, and a Métis aboriginal, I am still stereotyped as an NDN due to the historical conditions that form the structure and mindset of dominant society. As an indigenous performer who toured aboriginal communities in BC as a modern dancer and actor with different companies, I have seen the problems of some of these communities and talked to the inhabitants there. All around good people, with strengths and failures like the rest of us, we are no different from the urban people living in and around the cities in this country. Family is important to us. We are breaking the cycle of dysfunctionalism that took over our communities, when the European Settlers came to live on this land and push the original inhabitants further and further away from mainstream society. After all this was a couple hundred years since Squanto and Pocahontas were commercialized, and after paintings of some of the original inhabitants drinking rum off the ground, the image of who we were stuck in the minds of the high and low brow new immigrants who arrived off rat infested ships reading dime novels and Ferdinand Cooper Novels about "wild savages" running off with the white man's daughter. So it carries on in history as you people came coming over here in droves and droves of opportunists looking for your pot of gold in the new world. You guys killed most of the buffalo, what else can you destroy? hum? That's a good idea, kill the Indian in the child, and the Indian problem will be resolved! As long as the historical conditions continue to signify the Indians as worthless and unworthy of being, we will still have individuals within families struggling with their self-esteem, raising children. We need healing programs and support programs, not welfare police. Hy hy
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