Living Library: Aboriginal Stories
Redpath Museum
11:00am – 3:00pm
McGill's 2nd Annual Aboriginal Awareness Week is just around the corner and the First Peoples' House and Living Library are teaming up to organize an All-Aboriginal Living Library. The concept of a living library is the coming together of individuals from all walks of life in an open and safe environment. Volunteer 'Books' are real people who are able to communicate their personal reality (eg."60 Minutes with a Red Man" or "Walking two paths: An urban Native experience" or "Being Two-Spirited") and are available to meet with interested 'Reader(s)" for a 30-45 minute private encounter.
More information can be found on this website: www.mcgill.ca/livinglibrary
First held at a youth festival in Denmark in 2000, a living library event is intended to break down stereotypes and challenge attitudes about difference by fostering understanding among diverse members of a community. The Aboriginal population is one that is very diverse and this will be a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate the array of past and current realities Aboriginal people have.
You can register for the event here
Book descriptions
Lachaim! A chapter on celebrating one woman's Inuit Dene Jewish Filipino heritage
As an adoptee taken from her biological family and settled into a Jewish Canadian Filipino family, it was quite the journey to find herself and her identity. Hebrew and Tagalog lessons and finding her spiritual name has led her down a path to discover who she is with tenacity and driven passion. Today she is a mother of three and a front line worker at Chez Doris, a women`s day center. Come hear more of her story of how she came to rediscovering her spirit.
Jewish Indian, Oy vey!
This book is Cree from Lac la Ronge First Nation, Saskatchewan. She has 2 beautiful boys. She was adopted by a Jewish family in Montreal and draws on her adoptee experience for insight on her work advocating for the Aboriginal children in care. She is the co-president of the Montreal Urban Aboriginal Community Strategy Network and is dedicated to improving the lives of urban Aboriginal people in Montreal.
"Living and Learning: A Perspective on being Aboriginal in the academy" (1:30pm-3:00pm)
After spending more than two decades at various universities across Canada, both as a student and professor, this book will talk about what it has meant to be an Indian/First Nation/Aboriginal in Euro-Canadian institutions. It has been a bumpy couple of decades with many changes, challenges and successes. We've moved from simply attending post-secondary to seeking to Indigenize the academy. In many with this book will give listeners a deeply ironic and humourous look at how far Aboriginal people have come and how far we have to go in the academy.Beat of the drum (11am-1:30pm)
This book will discuss life on a First Nations reserve and how the Oka Crisis inspired him to become a drummer and drum maker. "I have had many magical experiences as a drum maker while living on my reserve in Northern Ontario as a young man". Drumming and singing has saved his life and he has witnessed the positive impact that drumming and singing has had on the lives of the people around him.
Half-Breed Daughter: Louis Riel's Legacy on the Prairies and in the Streets
How does a Métis student radical navigate the tensions inherent in a commitment to feminism and decolonization and participation in a mass student movement that is often racist and sexist; between engaging in campus politics and recognizing that the university often reaffirms and upholds the erasure of aboriginal people's history and contributes to assimilation; between building community in Montreal and having been denied a connection to her culture since before birth?
A granddaughter of Texas oil barons and Native insurgents, this book explores a prairie girl's attempts to reconcile the contradictions of a mixed race urban radical Indigenous feminist experience.
Mama may Have, Papa may have, but God bless the Child that's got his own…
Growing up with an alcoholic mother entrenched in the infamous community of the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, this daughter often felt like a motherless child. Relying on the love of her older sister, drug-addicted father and the financial support of his disability cheques, this little Indian girl had the odds stacked against her. Rolling with the punches was a way of life yet she stands before you today as an accomplished, educated, and resilient young woman with the drive to take on the world, but even more courageously – the readiness to break the generational disconnect and infiltrate her Indigenous roots.
The 6 Reincarnations of T: The Life (so far) Of Aboriginal Me!
"I am born in a dramatic fashion. Ambulance wailing, Mother shrieking, chaos and mess as I enter the world just as the ambulance pulls into the E.R bay. My tiny newborn self has no idea that this has set the tone for the rest of my life - and really, with an entry like that, how could it have been any other way?" A tale of one woman's journey to where she is today. A story about shifting identities, roles, experiences and how those shape one's life. Readers will be able to hear short, defining moments of the various "chapters" of this authors life: Babyhood, Childhood, Teenage Years, Young Adulthood, Motherhood and Student Life. While the author of this book, a 31 year old Cree/ Metis woman, has had some rough experiences, the overall theme is one of resilience, hope and those little life lessons that lurk around every corner.
Aloha from Hawaii! Wishing You WEREN'T Here.
The Hawaiian archipelago has long been a perfect paradise get-away. People from all over the world flock to the islands, attracted by images of grand hotels, sandy beaches and year-round sunshine. Yet, most of these visitors are unaware of the other Hawaii. The Hawaii that many local people live in. Our Hawaii.
This story takes you beyond the post cards to the public housing projects of West 'Oahu. It shows Hawaii through the eyes of Her native son. Violence. Drugs. Institutionalization. But the strength to overcome. Most importantly, this story offers testimony to the warrior culture of the Pacific. And, in true Hawaiian spirit, it ends with a makana—a gift, offered to the reader as a token of the book's aloha.
