Gloria Steinem dedicated her life to activism in the movement to ensure equality becomes the norm rather than the exception. To think that before the 1970s, women could not apply for their own credit card in Canada. I admired her work and was saddened to hear of her passing before she could stand in witness to women experiencing equality in all walks of life.
She died feeling “hopeful,” she confirmed to Brad Falchuk in her Famous Last Words (Netflix): “I hope that I have, however accidentally, left behind some words or actions or stories or something that is useful to the people who are going to continue.”
She went on to say that “hope is a form of planning. If you don’t hope it, it is less likely to happen.” Her advice to those listening to the documentary was: “Please tell your own story. This is the most important thing we can do for each other, is to know each other through stories.”
Allow me to tell you about Apooyaki’ii, Dr. Tiffany Prete, whose story is an important one. Tiffany is an Indigenous scholar, an educator, and a Canada Research Chair. She experienced racism in school and learned early on that being quiet made her feel safe.
“Keep your head down. Do the work. Don’t complain,” was her mantra. To succeed as a student, she taught herself “how” to learn and then went on to earn a Bachelor of Education, a Master’s in Indigenous Education and a PhD in Indigenous Education from the University of Alberta.
That’s quite a resume. In graduate school, a professor asked for her perspective in class, and she was shocked that someone was interested. She had become used to feeling invisible. Then someone offered her a different way of thinking about speaking out; could it be an act of service?
She changed her perspective. If a subject is meaningful, is important, and matters, then we should be willing to speak up about it. She became a professor where she teaches, presents, and speaks publicly. Self-doubt is still ever-present, she confesses, but she doesn’t let it stop her.
Tiffany’s work focuses on Blackfoot history, on colonial education systems, on the impact of intergenerational trauma, and on Indigenous resilience. She is a Niitsitapi Scholar, someone securing knowledge through Blackfoot ways of knowing, combining academic research with cultural traditions, practices, language and land-based teachings while researching “with” the Niitsitapi people, not “on” them.
The relationship with the community guides ethics as to how knowledge is gathered, interpreted, and shared; a sharp contrast to the Western academic process. A Niitsitapi Scholar places story, kinship, ceremony, and lived experience as valid forms of evidence, grounding all discoveries in truth and, most importantly, how they are presented to the world.
Tiffany documented the Kainai Stolen Children Era, bringing to light how four colonial school models were used, not just residential schools, to assimilate Indigenous peoples and remove Blackfoot children from their family homes. This research is important to help fill the gaps left by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whose focus was on residential schools.
These other systems also caused profound harm. Day schools and boarding schools used the same means as residential schools but were run by different agencies. Indian Hospitals acted as sites of child removal, with children being hospitalized for long periods of time, often without permission from parents, and some children never returned home.
These four systems all worked together in assimilation. Children were moved between systems, which made tracking them impossible. As I read through Tiffany’s research, I felt my spine stiffen to think anyone could deny the effects of generational trauma.
Tiffany’s work is guided and driven by the communities she focuses on while relying on Blackfoot principles, her purpose to help restore balance and resilience within Indigenous communities and support community healing. Her work expands public awareness and understanding of the many effects of colonialism beyond residential schools.
This is not only an academic project; it is “a community act of reclamation.” “Walking the Path of My Ancestors” is a free download from the University of Alberta Library’s journal site: Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry (Vol. 10, No. 2, 2019).
Her goal is to ensure the historical record is complete and accurate, examining those institutions that were overlooked and recording the experiences of those who survived those systems. She provides a means for families with lost histories to reconnect. She honours the path of Indigenous peoples telling their own histories.
Reconciliation is a federal project but is also a community-centred process. This helps us realize that assimilation wasn’t one single act which we can describe in one sentence. Assimilation tore deep into Indigenous communities, to the very core and foundation of who they were. Each of us has a duty to recognize history’s truth and to play a role in spreading awareness and working toward change.
