Activity: Mi'kmaq Teenagers Today and Cultural Identity

Mi’kmaq poet Rita Joe was born in Cape Breton, Canada, in 1932. Over the course of her life she wrote six poetry books in both English and the Mi’kmaq language. Rita Joe’s work deals with the painful history of residential schools or “boarding schools.” “Boarding schools” as they are called in America, were schools for Indigenous children that were created by the US government as tools of settler assimilation. They were often very far away from reservations [where many Indigenous people had been forcibly moved], and Indigenous children had to leave their families, their communities, and their culture behind. Many children were traumatized by physical punishment and violent experiences at boarding schools; many carried that pain with them into adulthood. Some children tried to run away; some continued to speak their languages and practice their ceremonies in secret as acts of resistance. 

Though she passed away in 2007, Rita’s work continues to inspire Mi’kmaq teenagers to engage with and celebrate their own cultural identities. Since 2012 Allison Bernard Memorial High School, a school located in the Eskasoni Mi’kmaq territory in Nova Scotia, Canada, has hosted the annual Rita Joe Memorial Literacy Day in her memory, encouraging students to create their own visual and written art to tell their own stories. 

1. Mi’kmaq cultural practices are alive and passed down through generations of family histories and stories, and also adapt over time. Watch the videos for these two songs written by Mi’kmaq students as part of the Rita Joe National Song Project. What examples of Indigenous identity and cultural practices can you find?
   • “Gentle Warrior” by Kalolin Johnson (based on “I Lost My Talk” by Rita Joe, about her experience of being forbidden to speak her native language while at boarding school)
   • “My Unama’ki (My Cape Breton)” by Emma Stevens
2. Read this quote from Rita Joe, which inspired the annual literacy day and discuss how students are living up to Rita Joe’s dream.

“My greatest wish is that there will be more writing from my people, and that our children will read it. I have said again and again that our history would be different if it had been expressed by us.”