"My mother said that the nuns used to take the Indian kids to town to beg for money to support the mission school. They would point to the kids and say to passers-by, “Help these poor dirty Indians.” My mother and her brother Donald are shown here on the shores of Lake Superior during the 1980s. Thoughts of my mother are always bittersweet. In recent years, however, the bitterness has grown into hope. It’s not an easy hope, covered in thorns as it is, but hope nonetheless. In my younger days, I was derailed by a deep sense of personal injustice. She was not the loving mother I felt I deserved. She was often cold, harsh, self absorbed and quick-tempered; never like the doting mothers of my white classmates. For many years, I felt terribly deprived and justifiably resentful. In recent years, however, I’ve begun to realize that my fire of resentment scorched only my own heart, which I’ve let it burn down to a tolerable ember. I am beginning to see this tiny, irascible woman for who she truly is – a survivor. A woman whose dynamic force of will has stopped at nothing to hold onto life. We often joke that she will bury us all; she turned 83 this year. As I learn more about her personal history, I am humbled and grateful for her strength. In meeting the relentless daily demands of my own children, I now see that my mother gave me a great gift, a gift she never dared hope to receive as a child. She stayed. Like too many Indian people from her generation, she and her siblings were forcibly taken from their family by non-Indian reservation authorities. They were then turned over to the church and the Catholic nuns who ran a boarding schools that existed for the purpose of stripping away Indian culture and identity from Indian children. Now that her guard is down, robbed from her by growing dementia, the painful memories seem to rule her life. Each time we speak with her, she brings up the abuse she suffered at the sister school. She always begins her recollections in the same way, leaning in close, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but… .”" Get the Story:
Mary Annette Pember: Bitter Legacy of American Indian Boarding Schools (RiseUp 8/9) Related Stories:
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