Hi,
Can someone please edit my essay? It has to be 2000 words in length and use a min. of 2 scholarly sources. It is for an English, third year university class. The topic is: The institution of schooling is portrayed as a major impediment to acquiring a healthy self in In Search for April Raintree and Monkey Beach. Write on the destructive aspects of schooling on Aboriginal Canadians as portrayed in either of the novels. If there are numbers but no sources, it is because they are in footnotes. Thanks!
The very word 'Indigenous' means "produced, growing, living, or occurring naturally in a particular region or environment.1" Indigenous is a term used for the people who were here before the European settlers. They were found to be native to the land; living, growing and producing within Canada before the European settlers came. There are many words that have been created in the past for Indigenous people, some of these include Native, Indian, and Aboriginal people. Almost all of the words still stem from the same concept; Indigenous people being the first, original people of the land. Monkey Beach written by Eden Robinson is a haunting coming of age story that portrays the effects that Residential Schools has had on generations of Aboriginals within Canada. The effects were not only traumatizing on the people who attended the schools, but they were felt by the following generations as well. These schools were supposed to fix the "Indian problem" by assimilating children into white society. But the children at these schools were subjected to physical, sexual and emotional abuse, consequently resulting in a loss of childhood, and enduring an emotional trauma that would result to their identity as an Indigenous person being lost. Residential schooling set up Indigenous children for a future of suppression and disconnection from their own roots and culture; and this future came in the form of residential schooling. Monkey Beach portrays the story of an Aboriginal girl, Lisa, who is confused in her identity as an Indigenous person in Haisla culture. The story manages to intertwine her life with her Native roots, and shines the light on Residential schools briefly throughout the novel. Her identity is effected by the older generations in her family, the ones who were, and were not, affected by residential schools. The problem of the schools is one that plagues Canadian history, and "the experiences of residential school students were more negative than positive.2" The need for a healthy self is something that is outlined in the Canadian Charter on Rights and Freedoms when it states that, "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.3" The right to life, liberty and security of the person was something that was not followed through with the implementation of residential schools. These schools have contributed to the loss of culture that the Aboriginal people who attended them, as well as the following generations, have experienced. This will be proven through exploring the history of residential schools, the impact the schools had on Indigenous culture, and the impact these schools has on their health, focusing on the substance abuse that takes place with the victims as a means to a coping mechanism with the pain.
Aboriginal people and European settlers have been involved in treaty processes for a long time. Schooling provisions were made in treaties as well, agreed to by both the federal government and the Plains Nations, yet for different reasons. Aboriginal leaders has hoped that this schooling would enable their young to learn the skills of this new society, which would in turn help them to make a successful transition to a world dominated by this new, white society.With the implementation of the Indian Act in 1867, the government was required to provide Aboriginal people with an education and to integrate them into Canadian society. The government also collaborated with Christian Missionaries to encourage religious conversion through the Aboriginal educational policy which was developed after 1880. However, in 1884 the Indian Act was amended to include compulsory residential school attendance for status Indians under age 16.4 This is where everything changed and residential schools started to become the governments way of assimilating Aboriginals into white culture, which essentially ended up with victimizing Aboriginal children through the school system, which led to their culture being taken away, and them being stripped of their identity. Lisa's Uncle Mick experienced residential schools and now has a strong dislike against Christianity because of what he experienced in the schools. This is illustrated when Mick reacts furiously when Aunt Edith says grace before they are to eat a meal; he claims that Aunt Edith is "buying into a religion that thought the best way to make {Aboriginals} white was to fucking torture children.5" When examining the generations in Lisa's family in the novel Monkey Beach, you are able to see which relatives attended residential school, and glimpse at the effect this had on them. Lisa experiences a loss of culture because of her families experiences. Lisa's Aunt Trudy has her whole life effected by her experience's at residential schools; she turns to drinking and partying as a way to cope with the pain. When Trudy is at Mick's funeral, she gets frustrated and yells "'I have feelings! Unlike the rest of you bastards!6'" at her family. By examining the history of residential schools in Canada, you are able to start to connect how they have contributed to a loss of culture and identity for Aboriginal people.
Residential schools have played a tremendous role in the lives of many Aboriginal people in Canada. The loss of culture and identity suffered by many Aboriginals stems from the experiences in the residential schools. They tried to cut Indigenous children off from all they knew; to be precise, the "stated goal of this government program was to 'kill the Indian to save the man.7'" Indigenous people were forced to abandon their culture and their ways of life, what they had grown up with and what they knew. They were told these things were wrong and that they had to change their ways because the government wanted them to assimilate into white society. Imagine the damage Indigenous people endured- the "loss of life, denigration of culture, destruction of self-respect and self-esteem, rupture of families, impact of these traumas on succeeding generations, and the enormity of the cultural triumphalism that lay behind the enterprise.8" The schools suppressed language, traditions and religious practices, banning children from doing any of these, and changing their "Indian" names into white anglo-saxon ones. This can be seen in Monkey Beach when Lisa attends a ritual with her Ma Ma oo and when later asked by her mother what she did, she responds with "As I was getting ready for school that night, mom asked me what I did and I told her about everything except Ma Ma oo and the octopus beds. I was uncomfortable sharing it with her. It felt like it was something private.9" This quote portrays how Lisa is can't really share her Native culture with her parents, and that only her grandmother really tries to keep her in touch with it. The loss of culture and identity was very strong for some of the children that attended these schools. Lisa seems to go through the same thing when she chooses to leave home and becomes someone who parties and drinks consistently. There was a case of a girl named Shirley, who attended residential schools, who found great confusion of her identity. She found herself "trying to merge into mainstream society and cover her brown skin with make-up, of having no sense that she had a right to her own opinion, of being like a zombie following without question the directions that others gave her.10" Lisa is lost in her sense of identity and chooses to pursue this by branching out from all she knew and loved, by trying to find where she belonged and fit in because she did not feel like she was white, but did not feel like she was Aboriginal. When she is in Vancouver she experiences this loss of culture and identity while trying to find meaning; "For the first time in my life I felt like I was cool, if only because I bought the booze. What had started out as a way to escape, turned out to be a ticket to popularity. Temporary yes, but popularity nonetheless.11" This quote helps to portray the effect that residential schools has had on Lisa through generations; Lisa does not know who she is or where she belongs, so she tries to fit in a different culture from her own.
Residential schools play a significant role in the contribution of health issues found among Indigenous peoples. These health issues are not only physical, but emotional, spiritual, and mental.The cultural suppression of Aboriginal people has lead to a number of issues in their lives, with some of these being the resulting alcoholism, suicide, and the transmission of trauma to their own children.12 This has led to "a social disintegration with results that can only be described as genocidal.13" The effects are astronomical; many of the returned students spoke of wasting years and decades in "alcohol, drugs, and violence before they managed to put their lives back together, confront the pain that had been driving them to harm themselves, and get on with the business of living.14" The effect of residential schools on Indigenous people goes beyond the physical health effects that were experienced through beatings, lack of food and nutrition, poor sanitation and more that caused sickness, disease and suffering for the children. It extends to mental and emotional health, where the children did not know what to do after they had graduated from the residential schools and where most of them had suffered countless amounts of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. This extended to effect them throughout their lives; most victims of the residential schools suffered from substance abuse throughout their lives because of these devastating circumstances that they had to endure. The effects of alcoholism can be felt through Lisa's Uncle Mick and Aunt Trudy. They both suffer from alcohol abuse as a method of coping with the psychological, emotional and spiritual pain that they endured from the residential schools. Lisa's pain and confusion of her family's addictions are portrayed in the following quote: "'You think I'm a drunk,' Aunt Trudy said, 'I'm not half the drunk your precious uncle Mick was... 'How can you let her talk to you like that?' I said, still furious. 'She's just a drunk. She won't remember a thing tomorrow.15''" This quote helps to show how Lisa's family has been effected by the residential schools, and how it has gone on to further affect the following generations.
The novel Monkey Beach written by Eden Robinson is one about a story of a young girl named Lisa searching for her identity in the world of her traditional culture, and the culture that herself, and her parents, have been assimilated into. She is confused about if she is Aboriginal, or if she is white, and confused as to how she should live her life. The novel portrays the important effects that residential schools had on Lisa through her family. The schools contribute to the loss of culture and identity that Aboriginal people experience in the present day. This was proven through exploring the history of the residential schools, the impact that the schools had on Aboriginal culture, including the direct effect it had on Lisa, and the impact that the schools had on the health of the victims, focusing on the addictions that many of these victims used as a coping mechanism to deal with the pain. The residential schools were certainly destructive to almost all Aboriginal people who attended them, and the effects are consistently felt by the following generations. Because the schools had a focus on "taking the Indian out of the child." there was a loss of culture for the children attending the schools. Their language, traditions and beliefs were taken away and replaced with the beliefs of white men, and this created a boundary between generations. Residential school survivors learned to become ashamed of their culture and supressed using their language, which meant that their children did not learn to communicate in it, and could not communicate with their elders. Lisa's only connection to her culture is through her Ma Ma oo, and thankfully she can speak english. Lisa is grateful for her Ma Ma oo's help and guidance, as she gains little knowledge of her culture from her parents. Lisa learns throughout the novel that she must embrace her culture, and her gifts, and live a life on the path where her gifts lead her. By embracing her culture, Lisa learns about her history and learns about where she belongs.
