@@t_man7259 you shouldn't be ashamed of whom you are. We can learn from this the lesson of respecting people because of being people. No matter their ethnics or their races. Give yourself dignity, and procure dignity for every life.
My town of Port Alberni had a similar 3 story residential school building located along the Somass river. As a kid growing up in the 70's It looked large, gaudy and out of place compared to its surroundings. it was closed in 1973, demolished in the 1980's. I remember the creepy, word of mouth rumors and stories about the place for years. all of which would later turn out to be true. Absolutely sickening beyond belief..
In 1972 when I was in 3rd grade. I had an opportunity to go on a field trip tour at our local (still active) Port Alberni residential school located on the Somass river, I could see this building every day commuting to and from Sproat Lake, looked similar to the Alert Bay school .At age 9, I had no idea what a residential school actually was. I never went there, choosing instead to tour the local Pulp and Paper Mill. Months later the school closed in 1973, it was demolished in the 1980's. Since then, it has come to be one of the most infamous of Canadian residential schools. It was a very hated place.
The last one was shut down in 1996, just 22 years ago. Imagine 22 years ago this kind of horrible thing actually exist in one of the most richest country in the world.
I'm a French-Canadian who studied at a minority French-language school in Ontario and then British Columbia. I still remember learning about official bilingualism and the separate school system in the promotion of 'two founding races.' I still remember my high school teacher praising the Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, and feeling confused about the lack of non-English and non-French representation in our constitution. After high school, I actually read the Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Book I, and was shocked at its explicitly discriminatory content. It didn't just forget the indigenous peoples but instead devoted a few paragraphs to explicitly exclude them. The same book devoted another chapter to explicitly exclude African and Asian cultures from the 'two founding races' too. Not having the opportunity to learn an indigenous language at the time, I set out to learn Esperanto as my small small contribution to promote more justice and brotherhood between English and French Canadians and other Canadians. It's a small contribution, but it's something. I hope those who can learn the local indigenous language do so and that those who can't learn at least an international auxiliary language as a small step towards bypassing the notion of 'two founding races' in which we'd been indoctrinated in our English and French schools. I'm happy that the Indian residential school system has been dismantled, but I think we now need to revise our school curricula to reflect the new time in which we live.
How did they continue existing for so long?? Everytime i thought about Canada in the past JFL came up to my mind, not anymore. This is almost unbelievable.
Share this all over the world. My older brother and sister attended the Edmonton residential school, as did many of our Gitxsan Nation people some are still alive today...
I am so sorry your family had to go through that awfull system. I cannot begin to try and comprehend how painfull that must have been... Love & Solidarity from Ireland, the Brittish once tried to beat our language and culture out of us aswell. 🇮🇪❤️🇨🇦
Thank you ! Amazing how the pain lives on thru generation s. We all have stories we should tell! There's an idea! I hope all realize the importance of learning our language, it is crucial to save our language! A great book my son purchased for me is "We were not the savages" I cried through the book at times could hardly see the pages! peace brother!
God had nothing to do with the Indian residential schools in Canadian history you know that picture of God knocking at a wooden door '? Waiting too be allowed in perfect example that the Nun's and priests left God at the door and never allowed him in.
So true! They did horrible things! They still do! I recently saw lost children of Ireland! Different in that they were not nativeAmerican s but orphans. The nuns buried hundreds of babies in unmarked mass graves! God has nothing to do with wicked greedy evil human s! I can't help but wonder, when one is at the end of life, they must be so fearful !
Joanna Q.mejia My late husband was raised in an Catholic orphanage in England. He took a basic simple faith in God and Jesus and let go of the less pleasant aspects of his stay there. From the orphanage, he, as well as many boys were inducted into the British Army, where they were well fed and trained to be soldiers. He had a talent for music and was sent to the world famous Royal Military School of Music of England. From there, he served overseas in Malaya for a few years. He had a couple of years to study conducting and perfect his major instrument. Then he transferred to the Royal Canadian Airforce where he was able to work part-time teaching music and studying at the Toronto University. It is biased and unfair to only paint a negative picture of the nuns are priests and the catholic church. He was not sexually abused. He taught music to hight school teachers in Canada and had a very good life, because he worked hard. Not all First Nations people resent the residential schools. Some were better off there because they came from homes with alcoholic parents on the reserves, but people refuse to mention this fact. (I lived in Sointula for 20 years so I know Alert Bay very well).
Often parents sent their children to residential schools. While by our standards these schools would not be acceptable, in their time they were considered progressive and some natives wanted their children to attend. Not all children ended up going to these schools, not early on at least. I can't think of anywhere in Canada where school wan't compulsory in recent decades. I certainly didn't have a choice, although I refused for awhile in grade 6, and my ancestry isn't English so I had to lose my traditional language and culture in order to be "educated". The current narrative is distorted for political purposes so that Canadians won't question why the government is blindly handing over money to compensate for alleged past wrongs that none of us are responsible for.
I had very good friends who had Indian heritage.They were such gentle,loving people! Sadly they are gone now...God took them home to live with him,they are safe and loved in the arms of Jesus.Sadly Religion follows man,Christians follow the steps of Jesus....in His words:"Love one another as I have loved you."The strong,gentle spirit of my friends is still with me.The horrors that these gentle people were forced to endure gives me nightmares! The people who did this will have to answer to God and they will be punished.
The reference to a particular time in history-roughly 1961 to the 1980s. During the 1980s the government changed child welfare laws so that bands could run their own social service, but problems similar to those seen during the persist today. Care to guess who the PM was for 15 of those years ???
Another thought I have is, that if children are sent to orphanages, it is not the fault of the people who run the orphanages. They are abandoned by their parents - both moms and dads. My late husband's father wanted his mom to abort him, but she chose to have him placed into an orphanage and he lived a full and rich life.
M Crosbie those precious children were not abandoned they were taken. These were not “orphanages” they were “schools”(Residential School). Also, most of if not all of those children were severely abused(mentally , physically , and sexually) by the people running the so-called schools. They were stripped of their culture and beaten(or even worse) if the spoke a word of their native language, or sung their cultural songs.
M Crosbie so ur saying they derserved it ? Obviously u know nothing about this. Ur perfect privileged . Again they where taken from their homes and sent to school to take the native out them ! What dont u understand?’
