The dark side of residential school life has now come to light. Survivors endured various forms of physical and sexual abuse. Teachers undermined their self-confidence. They sought to turn students away from their own languages and cultural ancestry. Students also did not receive the same level of education as their non-Indigenous counterparts.
But despite these terrible conditions, students and survivors were not, and are not, helpless victims. They are creative individuals who resisted the impositions and abuses of the residential school system. Throughout those years, they persisted in practicing their own cultures and languages. Against great odds, their efforts reflect their resilience and resurgence.
Celia Haig-Brown’s book, Resistance and Renewal: Surviving the Indian Residential School tells some stories of these activities. In the forward to the book, Randy Fred from the New World Media Society writes about how his father attended the Alberni Indian Residential School for four years in the 1920s. When he spoke his language, Tsehaht, his teachers pushed sewing needles through his tongue.
Article: Biography of Celia Haig-Brown
Read more about the Kamloops Indian Residential School
Haig-Brown’s book is a study of former students of the Residential School in Kamloops, B.C. Based on interviews with 13 people, the book balances male and female perspectives, and positive and negative views of the schools. In her conclusion, Haig-Brown writes that:
“The most outstanding notion which emerges from these stories of Native people attending the Kamloops Indian Residential School is the extent and complexity of their resistance. The students in their wisdom recognized the injustice of the system which attempted to control them and to transform them. In innumerable ways, they fought for some control in an impersonalized system…This strength has led to today’s work in education by Native people throughout British Columbia” (Haig-Brown, p.126).
Watch a short video from APTN National News about new learning materials being developed in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut about residential schools.
Haig-Brown, C. (2006). Resistance and Renewal: Surviving the Indian Residential School, Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.