Reflection #3: I Lost my Talk

This is a poem written by Rita Joe of the Mi'kmaq nation explaining her feelings on having her language and culture taken away from her.
 
"I lost my talk
The talk you took away.
When I was a little girl
At Shubenacadie school.
You snatched it away:
I speak like you
I think like you
I create like you
The scrambled ballad, about my world.
Two ways I talk
Both ways I say,
Your way is more powerful.
So gently I offer my hand and ask,
Let me find my talk
So I can teach you about me."

This poem shows the injustice that Native Americans faced as they were forced to conform to Canadian norms. Native American history was repressed in the school system. In school, Native Americans were only taught Canadian history and reprimanded if they spoke their own language. Aboriginals were forced to lose their identity and adopt an entirely new culture. As we discussed in class, many students knew almost nothing about Native American History, myself included. This is due to the lack of recognition and the inequality Aboriginal culture has faced. We discussed that it is the responsibility of teachers to call out discriminatory comments in the classroom and include Aboriginal history in their teachings. Click here for a website created for teachers to guide them in accurately teaching Native American culture. In a society that claims to be multicultural, there needs to be more focus in the school system about Native American culture and history.

Rita Joe spent her adult life advocating on behalf of Aboriginal culture and fighting native stereotypes. Click here for a radio clip of Rita Joe reading her story “The Little People” during the ‘Our Native Land’ Special on CBC radio in 1981.

Emma Liz