Gilbert Whiteduck
June 29, 2011
Kitigan Zibi

"Enough is enough!"

Gilbert Whiteduck, Anishinabe

In the 1970s, Gilbert Whiteduck tried to establish closer ties with the school board in his area, without success. He remembers a principal’s paternalistic words: "You little Indians always complain. Go build your school. You’ll come crawling back asking us to let you back in." That was it! With the help of his community, he founded a primary and secondary school in Kitigan-Zibi based on the Quebec curriculum, but enriched it with elements of the Anishinabe culture. It was a success. Proof that by standing up for what you believe in, you can choose your way and go much further.

Gilbert Whiteduck is sitting at a desk. On the desk in front of him is a computer screen, a keyboard, an envelope, and a printed document. He has glasses and is wearing a striped grey shirt.

Gilbert Whiteduck

Those residential schools people, as I understand when I listen to their stories, went through horrific, horrific things [that] happened to them: sexual violence, physical violence, mental violence, and what not? The children, the children from the community, and I was one of those, who was sent to the provincial school system, we, we went through a bold racism, and physical violence and mental violence. The only thing is that we were coming home every night and couldn’t talk about it, ‘cause if our parents tried to do anything about it, they’d be arrested by the police officers, who knew the school, the school board. So we experienced and saw severe violence occurring, and I have many examples that I saw. And these people grew up, became parents, then could not trust and did not want to trust any institution. So even when we built our schools, they said: you’re nothing more than an institution. They weren’t saying it in those words, but there were still a fear of the institution, because [of] what they have lived, lived through, the trauma that they have lived through, that no one seems to want to talk about. Everybody is saying well, that’s the way of in those days. No, it wasn’t. The only ones that were getting this kind of physical and mental abuses were children from the reserve, or very, very poor non-Native kids. The rest were treated like gold. But if you were from the reserve, well, too bad, too sad. You had the choice, then. You could either quit, which some did, many did. The dropout rate was atrocious, was atrocious. Or you, you act stubborn and you fight them, and you say, “You are not going to win”. And you are going to remain who you are. And that’s why all of this, along with Bill 101 in Quebec, when Bill 101 came in the 70’s, and they were going to involve certain things on us, a licence. And we have told the Quebec government, “Well if you think we’re gonna have to apply a licence in our own land, to decide if we’re gonna go to school in English or French, you have something else coming to you. We’re not. We’re not”. And so we fought, we demonstrated a little bit like Kahnawake, we, we rally people.

It was at that moment, it was a final moment in the community, when the community said, “Enough is enough”, we’ve tried to work with the schools in Maniwaki, they treat us very poorly. It’s time for us to build our own school. It’s time for us to gain control. Because our relationship with the school board in town, and I was involved in that, I always remember how the director general of the school board used to call us, “Vous, les petits Indiens, vous, les petits Indiens”. He always said that term to refer to us. He used to say, “Vous, les petits Indiens, vous vous plaignez toujours. Vous chialez toujours. Allez construire votre école pis vous allez voir, vous allez revenir à genoux devant nous pour, pour nous demander de réintégrer notre école.” And my answer at them, “Well, I don’t think so, and we can’t do worse than what you’ve done. ‘Cause we’re getting no graduates. So how can we do any worse? How could we?” And what is so ironical is we had worked so hard because we said we live together, we need to work together, and they refused, and we tried, and tried, and tried. “No”. They said, “If you don’t like it, go on to it and tough luck.” And even, we’ve continued over the years and there wasn’t that respect. There wasn’t that, uh…

So we have the economic development that is slowly emerging in our community. The education has emerged very well, we have a lot of graduates. We’ve had a number of people who have come back, who have taken on roles, like the director of education, a graduate of the school, and many others. We also have a lot of these young people working in the cities and elsewhere, who have taken all kinds of degrees and certificates, everything under the sun. So, kind of slowly, education became the base. And through the education, we introduced, of course, the Algonquin language into the school, built the immersion program and the core program, and some other cultural aspects, the integration of Elders.

We are, we are as this may have been mentioned to you, only one of two schools, in all of Quebec, in all of Canada, who issues our own high school living diploma. Our high school living diploma is not one of the Ministère de l’éducation. It’s our own, that I’ve got out in the early 80’s. I went out to CEGEP in Quebec, Anglophone, obviously, and to community colleges in Ontario, and I said, “Would you accept our diploma with these courses or not?” And I’ve got, “Yes, yes, yes” back. So since 1985, we’ve been graduating our students with our own diploma. We signed them off, and they are recognised being equal. Our students, our students who go on for second area, for as long as they put on the effort and work hard, they will do well, and do well. As a matter of fact, what’s even more interesting is that our students will finish le secondaire 5, which is grade 11, basically, and will decide to go to Ontario, to a community college in Ontario where it’s 12 years of schooling before you get in, do as well as students who have been 12 years of schooling. They will succeed equally. So we must be doing something right. Our teachers are doing something right.

Della Adams
October 20, 2011
Akwesasne

"They saw the need to develop a program to preserve knowledge and revive it."

Della Adams, Mohawk

Self-determination requires determination. It’s born from the search for an adequate solution to a problem and the will to implement it. When the Akwesasne Council asked members of its community to express their views on the health system they wanted, the vast majority—especially the elders—hoped for the return of traditional medicine. The Council heard them. It then developed a collective tool that combines ancestral knowledge and modern practices. The health centre has grown steadily since it opened in 1997. They’ve never had to advertise. The people who go to the centre are the best ambassadors!

Indoors. Medium shot. Della Adams is sitting in a black armchair. Behind her there is a counter with a telephone on it. A picture of a wolf hangs on the wall.

Della Adams

Back in ’93, somewhere in that time frame, is that they did a community health need assessment survey for the whole community. And in the survey, they asked what they would want for their health care system. And surprisingly, when they, when they reviewed the answers, a lot of the answers that came back, a good majority of it, was they wanted to go back to their own medicines. Because at that time in our history, what was happening in our community is that the elders, they were getting tired of taking all kinds of pills, and they really didn’t like that. And they’d seen the effect that it had, especially with the older people, it turned them into zombie-like.

Close-up of Della Adams

Interviewer

Ah yes?

Della Adams

Because they were just getting sedated. It wasn’t helping the problem, it was just numbing, numbing the feelings. And so the elders at that time were kind of getting really tired of the pills and all the prescriptions that were being written up for them. And so in the survey, they really expressed their desire to go back to our own medicines because they understand that we don’t have the side effects that, that, I call it Western, which who I refer to as a doctor’s medication and stuff.

Interviewer

Chemicals.

Della Adams

Yeah, the chemicals. So our medicines don’t have those side effects. And so when you come in for a problem, you’re gonna get a side effect from the medicine that we give you, then you’re prescribed another medicine, and another medicine, and on so. That’s how it was happening. And so at that time, they took the initiative, and at that time, the chief, grand chief at that time was really instrumental in securing funding because from that assessment they’ve seen the need in our community to develop a program here which would preserve that knowledge and which would continue to restore it, re-emerge. And so they worked on securing funding. And so that process was completed, and then the whole building here, Kanonhkwatsheriio, was based on that concept that traditional medicines would be part of the modern day health care system. And so they developed this program and put the program in, and so from there, this is where at that time there was only, it started out to be just one person running the program. Quickly found out the need and the demand from the community because they would just come right in, as soon as the doors opened, the community was here, wanting some medicines. So it quickly, in that first stages of our program, the first phase was to do education. We’re gonna educate the community. But there was no time for that because as soon as the doors opened, the community was ready, they wanted treatment. So it kind of quickly went, bypassed right through the education phase and went right into treatment. And when it went right into treatment, there was a need to really develop this program, staff this program, and that’s when I came into the program. And at that time we had a man, who’s still with us today, fortunately. His, uh, his, his name is Eddy Gray, and he’s our medicine person. He’s our medicine, what we would call, I guess what non-Natives will, the best way to describe would be a medicine man. And he’s been working with our program right from the start. And he’s been the one that’s been supplying the program with the medicines. He goes and picks it, he harvests it, he burns our tobacco for it, he does… He fills all the protocol necessary for the medicines.

And so from there then the program just grew and grew. And through word of mouth, and people, people getting well from coming here. And those are one of our best testimonials, is to actually see somebody. And you can physically see the appearance of how somebody when they’re starting to become healthier and so they became our walking billboards out in the community. And so when people would see them, they became curious, they want to know what did they do. We didn’t have to advertise, we didn’t have to say we were here, they just came, they knew we were here. And so from there, the program really grew. And so that’s been… It opened, the doors opened in May of 1997, and we’re still going strong today.