oral histories

What part does ceremony play in your life?

Today, our larger society just does ceremony like certain times of the year, like birthdays or anniversaries, but ceremony actually guided every single step of every single day of our lives. As was taught to me is the ceremony of introduction — to say your name, your nation, your family, and if it isn’t your traditional territory, to ask permission to be on that territory.

What is your background?

My heritage is Coast Salish. I am Snuneymuxw on my dad’s side and that’s where I was born. When they came to our lands, they didn’t know our names, they didn’t know our language. So when they couldn’t say Snuneymuxw, they called it Nanaimo. I was born on the Number One Reserve right on the waterfront in Nanaimo. I am Cowichan on my mom’s side.

How was your early family life?

My mom went back to her grandma when I was two years old and my sister was four, and my other sister was just born. My grandmother on my dad’s side let my mom know that the children would be staying with my dad and with them. At two years old, I didn’t know the difference. In our house, we were well loved, well cared for, well nurtured, well fed, and we never actually knew the difference. To me, that was the happiest time in my life up until I was six years old.

What happened when you were six?

My sister and I were actually grabbed by two social workers on the way home from school one day, when I was six years old and my sister was eight. They had promised us that we would go home to our dad really soon. We actually never ever went home again.

We were forced into a Caucasian foster home, where we were tortured to have anything to do with our heritage and our culture and our language. When I would be whispering to my sister in our language, “I want my dad. I want to go home,” we would get pulled out of bed and beaten for that and beaten for anything to do with what seemed to be our Coast Salish heritage. Growing up being disconnected, being tortured, was a very, very difficult life.

How have you coped with your trauma?

I have spent well over forty years reclaiming my identity, searching for my family members and, especially, searching for my mother. Through that journey, due to those horrific experiences, I used contemporary Western methods of healing — counselling and psychiatry and psychology. The greatest part of my healing journey came when a boss of mine, who is First Nations, brought me to my Elders. Those Elders brought me under their wing. They taught me, they guided me, they prayed for me but most importantly of all they loved me, loved me unconditionally because when you are ripped away from your family whether you’re three, four, five, or six years old, what you’re missing in this world is unconditional love.

How did you feel about moving to Richmond?

When I moved to Richmond to join my sister, I was very, very surprised because I felt like I could go anywhere and people weren’t looking at me like I was strange. Richmond was very diverse in the population, and bigger compared than where I had come from; it just seemed so welcoming to me. I heaved a sigh of relief. It was a new start.

You found your mother again in 1994. What was her connection to Steveston?

To keep my mom out of Cooper Island residential school, my great auntie and uncle would come and work in the canneries in Steveston. From the time my mom was three years old until she was eleven, she came to Steveston with my great auntie and uncle and sit on the fish boat and knit, while they were in the cannery. If you don’t work fast enough you get fired. So my great auntie would race onto the fish boat, and tell my mom to push the cans ahead so that she could keep caught up so that she wouldn’t get fired. When she didn’t get fired, my great auntie and uncle would bring my mom up to the Japanese store in Steveston and buy her an ice cream cone.

What have you discovered about your connection to the land?

In my journey of finding out about my family, finding out about my history, I found out that our Cowichan ancestors, and Snuneymuxw, actually had our permanent summer fish camps right in Steveston, right at the airport where the planes land. And not just for a couple of hundred years, but for thousands of years, we had our permanent summer camps there. So when this First Nations leader says, “We are so connected to the land; it’s like the blood that runs through our veins,” it’s really true, because we felt that connection. It brings you around to centre you and your sense of identity.

You have volunteered in schools for many years. How have they responded to you sharing your traditions?

In the beginning, it really wasn’t a hundred percent welcoming to me. It was usually just one or two professionals welcoming me in, and so you don’t feel that full sense of welcome and you feel more like you’re an imposition. Today, I feel like it’s moved from that sense of being an imposition to being a treasure. I feel like when I come into a school, people are saying, “Oh, Roberta’s coming today!” or they come and greet me. Everyone is so excited and so warm and welcoming to me and I feel a great sense of healing from that.

Why do you think it is important to share your culture?

By sharing my own culture and opening it up for others to talk or ask questions in the circle is to really honour each and every one of them about what’s in their culture, what was taught to them in their culture, how to hold that dear to their heart in their journey, to teach their children when they grow up, and to honour the parents to keep their culture. Even though they’ve come to this country and they love being here, to keep all of the important parts of their culture, to keep it in their family.