Endayang

Change is in the air.

My tiny corner of the Internet (or locker, maybe?) has been quiet lately. Between my full-time university job, teaching a college course, and trying to maintain some semblance of a personal life, I haven't had time to think about much other than the immediate tasks at hand.

I think maybe this is the framework that has allowed this new idea to grow.

What's the idea? It's radical. Dare I say, crazy. Really, really... really out there.

I want to go home (ni-endayang).

There is sort of a perfect storm of events that have recently occurred that have made space in my mind and my life for this idea to form:

1. My Chief's Talk: A couple of weeks ago, my Chief, Gilbert Whiteduck, was speaking at a conference I was at. One of the things he talked about is how people have always told him throughout his career: "Baby steps. Stepping stones are important. We'll get there." While no one would deny that all of these small changes connect to one another to formulate something great, Gilbert says: "What we need now are leaps and bounds. Our people are in too dire of a state for baby steps." And I couldn't agree more. I love the work I do and I believe in it. But it's not a leap or a bound. On a more cerebral level (and I'm not sure how well this will translate to a blog), he described an experience returning our ancestors to the land and what it means to just be in the community; and, all throughout his talk, the words that kept running through my mind were: "I have to go home. I have to go home. I have to go home."
2. Red Man Laughing: I just finished listening to the Red Man Laughing podcast featured chat with Mskwaankwad Rice, who talks about his decision to leave behind his life in Ottawa and move back home to his community, sit with his grandmother, and learn his language. The simple facts of his story got me excited; if he could make this decision and move from Ottawa (the same city I'm in now!), maybe I could, too? Just maybe? They had a really thought-provoking discussion about our generation and how we're basically writing our own rules. We're in a unique position as Anishinabe youth/young people living in the world today and, in some sense, no one has written the guidebook on or beaten the path that determines how to live as Anishinabeg youth in the wake of the acts of genocide committed directly against our grandparents' generation and the impacts its had on our parents' generation.
3. My Career Path:  While I cannot overstate how much I care about the work I'm doing right now in the university, I know that this work is not my final stop on my career path. My career goal is to become a professor and contribute to the growth of the field of Indigenous Studies. But, over the past week something has become crystal clear to me: My education is imbalanced. I've learned a lot about the history of colonization in this country, critical perspectives of Canada, and the impacts its had on our people. That's important, but after teaching these perspectives to my college class this fall, I've realized that it's only one side of the story. What I'm missing in my "repertoire" (a career-focused way to say self-actualization) is the knowledge and education that exists only in my family, my community and amongst the Anishinabeg: our family stories, our language, our ceremonies, our community history, our ways of knowing the world. I can't be the kind of professor I want to be or make the changes I want to make without this education from my own family and people.

Something has happened within me and it's happened quickly. That's not to say I'm going to be quitting my job and making a Musky-esk change tomorrow. But I'm closer than ever to believing I could do it.

I've always had this goal to learn my language before I have children so I can pass it on. What have I been doing about it? Not much. I've been "talking the talk." I need to, in the words of Ryan McMahon, "walk the talk." I've always thought I wanted to give my future children the opportunity to grow up on a reserve because, although it comes with all of its complexities, it brings with it a love that no Anishinabe child should be denied of. No matter these goals, I was always immediately struck down with stress afterward, wondering, How? How do I make this happen? After having lived in the city for so long, gotten my degrees, secured a good job, and started a life with an amazing partner, the possibility of going home seemed to move further and further away until it was nearly insurmountable.

I can't explain the change in me, but on Saturday morning it was suddenly like all of these barriers had been lifted for a moment. And, luckily, I am still in that moment. So maybe it's not "a moment" after all? I suddenly realized (and this is a deliberate pun, since I'm watching the US presidential election as I type) that yes. I. can. I can leave my amazing job if I want to. I can give up my apartment if I want to. I can go home if I want to.

And guess what? I want to.

Take Me Home Tonight

I fly to Boston on Saturday morning to attend Graduate Horizons. Since it's a workshop that focuses on applying to graduate school, naturally it has me thinking about an eventual academic career.

I know I want to do a PhD someday and I would love to be a professor. As a huge nerd, reading and writing is my dream career. (Don't hate!) I haven't done teaching in the literal sense, but I do enjoy sharing the knowledge I have with others when they ask (and sometimes when they don't) and engaging in respectful debate.

(And, I choose to ignore anyone who tells me there are no jobs, I'll have no money and no life. Ha!)

But there are some questions that tug at me...

What will it be like to potentially be the only Anishinabekwe in my grad program?

Do my reasons for wanting to do a PhD differ from those of settlers?

How can I involve my family/community/nation in the application or research processes?

How might having a PhD affect how I am perceived within Indian Country?

To be honest, I sometimes feel very gloomy and Eeyore-esque about it all.

Already, I live and work away from my community and it can be hard to stay/feel truly connected when I'm not there in my day-to-day life. I worry that a feeling of disconnection might worsen if I move even further away to pursue another degree.

But, yesterday I started to read Indigenizing the Academy by Devon Abbott Mihesuah and Angela Cavender Wilson and it was like a lightbulb went off in my head.

What if doing a PhD can bring me closer to home--literally and figuratively?

Doing research for my MA *did* bring me home. How could I have forgotten? I remember driving to Kitigan Zibi on frigid, sunny winter days, my grandfather greeting me as he took his old Indian showshoes off his feet, and us sitting by the fire with tea, cookies, and stories. (There was a tape recorder involved--sorry if that spoils the image.)

My family has so many stories to tell. Stories that aren't written in history books, but told to grandchildren who are willing to listen. Stories begging to be memorized or recorded and told to future generations. PhD dissertations require original research topics, right? Well, it doesn't get realer than this.

Maybe grad school can take me home.

Two-Minute Book Review: Life Stages and Native Women

Life Stages and Native Women: Memory, Teachings, and Story Medicine (Kim Anderson)

So, you're supposed to read the entire book before you write a review, right? Well, I have a confession: I've only read the foreword and introduction.

In my defense, I'm a firm believer that the introduction is the most important part of the book. (Ask R.J.--I was aghast to learn that he skipped the introductions to his books and, needless to say, he doesn't do that anymore.) Why? The textbook answer is that "it sets the tone." As an aspiring writer and scholar, I am interested in the story of the person writing the book: why they chose this topic, what their processes were, how they feel now that they've finished it. The introduction is where you listen to that story.

I got my book in the mail the day after attending Kim Anderson's book launch here in Ottawa at the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health. A shame that I couldn't get her to sign it, but they say everything happens for a reason. I was half an hour late for the launch (working at a university in September, it's impossible to leave by 5) and Kim was well into her reading. The room reminded me of gatherings at the community hall back home. Hectic. A baby was crying, couches and chairs all spoken for, a girl lying on the ground in the fetal position. (Okay, maybe that last one didn't remind me of home.) But, Kim's voice rose above the bustle, as she spoke from the heart about the tradition of finding a tree at whose trunk to lay an infant's umbilical cord; the role of old ladies in cleaning/preparing dead bodies and feeling "death without loss" (thanks Kat); and her love for Maria Campbell.

Kim describes her intimate relationship with Maria Campbell. She talks about how, dejected and discouraged at not being able to get an interview for the book, Maria took her by the wrist and pronounced, "We'll do it together!" (I can picture Maria, now an elder, just as energetic as she was in the youth/adulthood she describes in Halfbreed, determined to get everything from her family's stories to political clout to an escape from the streets.)

In reading texts like these, I look for opportunities to identify a relationship with the seven sacred Grandmother/Grandfather teachings: wisdom, love, humility, courage, honesty, respect, truth. Writing with an honest voice, Kim's introduction is both courageous and humble. In the margins of my copy of the book I've scribbled "honest" as Kim references her anxieties in the introduction's opening paragraph, and "humble" next to where she writes:

I have not lived long enough nor have I done all of the work that is necessary to carry this knowledge.

Perhaps that's why I've found it easy to refer to her as "Kim" in this (slightly longer than) one-minute review rather than "Dr. Anderson" or, *shudder,* the detached "Anderson."

But, the most important pencil scribblings I've made in the margins are these: ask Nanny this question; Mal & R.J. to do this; where does Grandpa fit in these categories?

Kim's book, although adapted from her dissertation, is not an academic text. Sure, a student can reference it in their papers and no professors will think twice about it because she "is" a PhD. It caused me, as I'm sure it will others, to situate myself and my partner and my grandparents and my family in the text. It isn't written in some distant academic jargon; Kim promises teachings about pregnancy and vision quests and how to deal when you're "stuck" in one life stage. Her book will for me act as a "guide" (for lack of a better word) to understand myself and reconstruct my spirituality and relationships with those around me.

This book is so much more than just a book for us as Native women, families, communities, nations.

It is us.

What means "political"?

I can't tell you exactly when it started to piss me off.

I considered myself someone who was proud to be political. Many of our respected leaders in Native communities are political people, Chiefs, though they didn't necessarily always think of themselves that way - and maybe some still don't. But lately, I've been wondering: what exactly does it mean to "be political"? And why, more and more increasingly, am I becoming annoyed when people use that term in relation to Native-ness?

A well-respected Elder from my community, Grandfather William Commanda (as well as other Elders), has said: "All First Nations people are born into politics." And I understand what he means. Our history of colonization, being born as a status or non-status Indian, being born a land beneficiary or treaty signatory, etc. are all examples of how an Anishinabe baby "is political."

But lately, I find myself wanting to respond: "Take your 'political' and shove it!"(And, for anyone who knows me IRL, I really am not that vulgar!)

A few examples...

Number one. I am taking a fiction writing workshop this summer at the university where I studied and work. It's great, tonnes of fun. I cannot make this statement with full certainty, but based on voluntary self-identification, I seem to be the only non-white person in my class. A lot of my writing could be classified as "Native literature."

We all take turns bringing stories or chapters of novels in for the class to critique. The story I brought was about a brother and sister who move to the city from the rez, play bingo, and deal with issues like poverty, racism and homelessness.

"A lot of well-known Native writers, like Sherman Alexie and Tomson Highway, have political undertones in their work," begins the writing workshop instructor in his introduction to my piece. "Mallory, what is your story about?"

Politics, apparently. "Ummm... I guess it's about siblings... A brother and sister who want to make something of themselves, and move off the rez and encounter, uh, barriers." I totally stumble all over my words.

The message to the class: Indian stories are political.

Number two. I'm watching my boyfriend R.J.'s baseball game Monday night. There's a bigger fan section than on most evenings, and it includes a player's father. It's a nice night, we're both in a good mood, and we begin making chitchat.

"Where are you from?" I ask.

"Out east, Newfoundland," he responds. "This is my first time visiting my son in Ottawa."

"That must be nice," I say flatly, unsure of where to go from here.

"Are you from Ottawa? Where do you work?"

"I'm from the Ottawa area. I grew up about an hour and a half outside of the city. I work at the university."

"Oh." He sounds impressed. "And what do you do there?"

"I work in the Aboriginal Centre."

A freighter truck passes on the road next to the baseball diamond and muffles his words. But I hear most of them: "...most universities have that... political thing, I guess."

His understanding of essential programs and services for Native students: political.

I'm beginning to get the sense that being called "political" isn't such a great thing after all.

If "Native problems"--poverty, transitions, land claims, missing and murdered women, languages--are deemed political rather than, say, human rights issues, then your average Canadian doesn't need to worry, right? Not really, because it's a political issue to be dealt with by the politicians. It's not a human right that humans need to be concerned about and that should be immediately resolved.

I was at the Indigenous Feminisms Rock! talk show/concert a few weeks ago hosted by Jessica Yee and something she said really struck me: "I don't debate human rights, I just defend them." Isn't that what we should all be doing? As soon as an issue that relates to Indigenous peoples comes up, the "political" label is slapped onto it and it becomes a topic for debate. It's not a human rights issue, where there exists an absolute right or wrong, but a political issue where there is a lot of grey area.

Nowadays, whenever anyone says anything to me along the lines of "you are political," I cringe. Soon, after I work through this, I'll respond.

"Life lived like a story."

"Well, I've tried to live my life right, just like a story."

-Angela Sidney

I've always loved this quote. It is from one of the three Elders whose life stories are told in this book, through "author" Julie Cruikshank (my thoughts - although not necessarily fully formed - on non-Native people doing research "about" Native peoples is an entirely separate post, which I have no immediate plans to compose).



Angela Sidney's quote speaks to the power stories have for our people. Our stories and our storytellers are our greatest teachers in life; this is not something that is new to our people. (Yet, it seems that writing academically about our stories is a burgeoning field - how did that happen?)

I want to dedicate my life to stories. Listening to them, learning from them, picking them apart, putting them back together. And, maybe even someday, telling them to grandchildren of my own. My research for my master's was about stories. My essay looked at the theoretical/ethical/methodological considerations put forth by Native writers, and was punctuated by my grandfather's oral history and my self-reflexivity. Off the record, I called my essay "a story about stories."

It was well received by my readers. They called it "innovative" and "an excellent contribution." (All of these things, I am not going to lie, went straight to my head.) What's ironic about this is that my essay was the complete opposite of innovative; I was writing about some of our oldest traditions in their modern manifestations. We've always known that stories have power to decolonize, that stories and their tellers have responsibilities, that stories tell us where our home is, and allow our nations and cultures to survive. This is old news!

Now that I've graduated and am working at a job I love, I should feel fulfilled. But I feel like something is missing. It is no longer my main task, as it was when I was a student, to listen to my grandfather's story, to think about my own, and to read the stories, and stories about stories, that other Native writers tell. How can I get back to that place and still make a decent living for myself? One route surfaces as an option: PhD.

And, in strolls irony/trickster, once again, to laugh at me.

In the western world, the modern age, 2010 Canada, in order to "return" to a life lived like a story, I must complete what is commonly accepted as one of the most gruelling career paths out there (not to mention be a broke student for yet another five years of my life). To live and breathe stories, something that was embedded into community life in our "less colonized" days, and still pay my rent, I have to rise to the top of this academic game.

Oh irony/trickster, you've got me again!