4 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2023
    1. So after, seventy years later, I remember that was my number. So therefore you were called by that number. They didn’t use your name: “Eighteen, come here! Eighteen, go do this! Eighteen, it’s your turn to go do this.” So I wasn’t a person anymore, I was a number. I was like a prisoner. All of us were like prisoners with numbers.

      Another method used by those in control to remove a child's identity and furthermore, a first step in preparing the child for reshaping their values, beliefs and behaviour.

    1. I never had a friend, a non-Native friend. I couldn’t invite anyone to come to our home, because we were just a totally different world.

      At 9 years old, in 1954, I and my mother immigrated from Germany and settled in Regina . My first friend, who I met in public school and spent time in his home with his family, was an indigenous boy. Perhaps, my experience is not typical.

    1. What shame has been put upon our people has been our culture stolen from us. The language stolen from us.

      So very true. Language and culture are correlated. You control/restrict/eliminate language in a society and you change the culture in that society. A practice that even today is not uncommon.

    1. ’Cause it was total control of the government and the resources they put in place to help the government to change our lifestyle and where we live.

      Yes, collecting demographic information on individuals and groups of individuals is a form of governmental control. However, it also allows governments to plan, organize new initiatives (programs and infrastructure needs) and set budgetary policy. The Census conducted by the Canadian government is intrusive but also necessary.