Abstract
Canada’s Indian Act (1867), intent on annihilating the cultures, languages, and peoples of First Nations, is central to the reactions, stories, and analyses in this compilation. It took 150 years before more humanistic amendments were explored in 1951. In the 1970s, Sandra Lovelace—a Maliseet woman who married a non-First Nations man—challenged the act regarding gender discrimination when she and her children were no longer recognized by the state as First Nations people. Backed by international human rights interest, her protest finally resulted in Bill C-31 in 1985. These amendments essentially “removed” gender discrimination, restored status and membership for disenfranchised First Nations people, and influenced Indian band sovereignty, as Boyer reports in the chapter, “First Nations' Women’s Contributions to Culture and Community Through Canadian Law.”
Decades of damage cannot be erased, however, and the “restoration” is shaping. Historical trauma, results of missionization and colonization, and the transmission of these effects intersect with racist policies, but there is more. The collective accomplishments of the Aboriginal authors are impressive and broad. The examples are contemporary and include women’s contributions, realities, and examples from history, research, health, criminal justice, literature, and the arts. As a primer on First Nations women, this book is an important introduction. For the knowledgeable scholar, the book broadens familiar intersections in the histories, violence, and change for women of color worldwide at all levels of society.
For example, women of color and their children face multiple challenges to cultural identity through intermarriage. In the chapter, “Contributions that Count: First Nations Women and Demography,” Big Eagle and Guimond contend that 63% of children born to First Nations women are raised in First Nations traditional and cultural ways. This point is significant, since women are the first teachers and language diversity in a global village is eroded with each new generation. Those children who live outside the reserves, in single-parent homes, and linguistically mixed families are at risk of never having the language and, therefore, the culture and the aboriginal self. Norris reports, in the chapter “The Role of First Nations Women in Language Continuity and Transition,” that in 2001, of those who identified as Aboriginal in Canada, only 24% could participate in a conversation in their language.
The contributors acknowledge the male and female roles given by the Creator. The contemporary experience speaks to the courage of Aboriginal women and decades of work to right the wrongs in the Canadian justice system stemming from violence toward Aboriginal women, including unsolved murders and the sex trade. Under the auspices of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, Harper reports in her chapter, Sisters of Spirit, has documented life histories supported with funding from the Canadian government. This funding ended in 2010. And in the same year, Bill C-3: Gender Equity and the Indian Registration Act opened the door to reclaim 45,000 grandchildren of women who lost status under the act when they married non-Aboriginal men.