Melissa..Blair

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Since I’m First Nations these books are FNs recs #booktok #bookworm #diversifyyourbookshelves #indigenousbooks #melissasbookshelf

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My Tata, Christopher, was abducted and forced to spend his childhood at Pelican Lake Residential School. After losing his brother during their first escape, he waited three years to finally make it back to his family and eventually had one of his own. He enfranchised himself (made himself “white” on paper by signing over his treaty rights) to ensure his children were never forced to go. And despite his lack of treaty status, he raised them speaking only Ojibwe, living off the land at Ogoki Lake and its watershed, and taught his forst born daughter, Josephine, everything he knew. And now my grandma, Jo, is passing everything down to me. This past has always been difficult for me to talk about, mostly because it feels wrong to lay claim to such a legacy of horrors when my life has been anything but. But I think that would make child Christopher and the kids he grew up beside happy to know. That Native kids can love with their families, can pray to the Creator or their choosing or none at all, and can even write books in the white mans tongue that white people might actually read (I hope). There are so much less descendants of survivors than their should be, because we lost so many at school and after. Which makes this story even more unique in its strangeness and something I’m even more proud to claim. Because even though the schools have closed, even though I spent every night of my childhood in my own bed, that pain still lingers, those ancestors are still an aching gap on our living memory, but I know they are very, very much part of the memory of ancestors waiting for us on the other side #books #native #residentialschools #tbr #whenevillingers

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My Tata, Christopher, was abducted and forced to spend his childhood at Pelican Lake Residential School. After losing his brother during their first escape, he waited three years to finally make it back to his family and eventually had one of his own. He enfranchised himself (made himself “white” on paper by signing over his treaty rights) to ensure his children were never forced to go. And despite his lack of treaty status, he raised them speaking only Ojibwe, living off the land at Ogoki Lake and its watershed, and taught his forst born daughter, Josephine, everything he knew. He didn’t live long enough to see his kids reclaim those rights. Or watch my grandma, Jo, pass all he taught her down to me. This past has always been difficult for me to talk about, mostly because it feels wrong to lay claim to such a horrific legacy when my life has been anything but. But I think that would make child Christopher and the kids he grew up beside happy to know. That Native kids can love their families and their culture openly, they can pray to the Creator of their choosing or none at all, and can even write books in the white mans tongue that white people might actually read (I hope). There are so much less descendants of survivors than there should be because we lost so many at school and after. Which makes this story even more unique in its strangeness and something I am proud to claim. Because even though the schools have closed, even though I spent every night of my childhood in my own bed, that pain still lingers, those ancestors are still an aching gap on our living memory, but I know they are very, very much part of the memory of ancestors waiting for us on the other side #books #native #residentialschools #tbr #whenevillingers