The blanket exercise with Dr. Sims opened my eye to what my ancestors and what my Great Grandmother went through. My family is part of the Squamish Nation in North Vancouver. I’m not connected to my culture because even my grandma never learned that much from my great grandma because she never talked about when she was forced off reserve when she married my Great Grandfather. Currently she is back on reserve and some of my family members have connected to our culture more. My cousin is even the Chief financial officer for the high rise going on our nations land. So there are some of us who’ve found our way closer of knowing but there is still a lot of us who don’t.
The exercise was a visual of all the statistics, the stories and papers I’ve read about history. Even though it was simple in lack of better terms it had a huge impact. Watching land get smaller and people leaving helped show what it felt like. When my teacher went around as the “European” taking people away I felt like don’t pick me don’t pick me. When she came up to me I felt like what is going to happen. It showed me how it would’ve felt for Indigenous Peoples then when someone who would’ve came up to them to do something. It obviously wasn’t the same and not actually how it would’ve felt in real life (I couldn’t imagine the feeling) but it did give me a small glimpse of what it felt.
(Photo Creds: UNBCED Instagram)
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