They Called Me Number One

Amazon.com Price: $9.99 (as of 06/05/2019 05:06 PST- Details)

Description

Like thousands of Aboriginal children in the USA, Canada, and in other places in the colonized world, Xatsu’ll chief Bev Sellars spent a part of her childhood as a student in a church-run residential school. These institutions endeavored to “civilize” Native children through Christian teachings; forced separation from circle of relatives, language, and culture; and strict discipline. Possibly essentially the most symbolically potent strategy used to alienate residential school children used to be addressing them by assigned numbers only – not by the names with which they knew and understood themselves.

In this frank and poignant memoir of her years at St. Joseph’s Mission, Sellars breaks her silence about the residential school’s lasting effects on her and her circle of relatives – from substance abuse to suicide attempts – and eloquently articulates her own path to healing. They Referred to as Me Number One comes at a time of recognition – by governments and society at large – that only through knowing the truth about these past injustices are we able to start to redress them.

Bev Sellars is chief of the Xatsu’ll (Soda Creek) First Nation in Williams Lake, British Columbia. She holds a degree in history from the University of Victoria and a law degree from the University of British Columbia. She has served as an advisor to the British Columbia Treaty Commission.

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