Cassie's Narrative

Source  https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1329333584407/1329333802557#chp4

2. Cassie (from a Mi'kmaq community in Nova Scotia)

Hi, my name is Cassie and I live in a Mi'kmaq community in Nova Scotia⁴. I think I'm pretty normal, but then again I don't think non-Aboriginal people know a lot about us Mi'kmaq.

The reason I know this is because they treat us differently. Somehow, I think they feel we do things really differently for some odd reason. We're not part of popular culture, but they get a lot of ideas about us from the little we are in the news. Things like our treaties and our fishing rights have been on the news a lot. People have been upset about that, so I think they get their opinions only from a few sources. They don't know the whole truth. If a non-Aboriginal person does something bad, it's not on the front page of the news, but if someone from a different culture does it, like us, it's all over the news. They think we're all bad.

In the history books, you don't hear much about Mi'kmaq people. Even at my school, non-Aboriginal kids assume things about us out of their own ignorance. They think that we're rowdy and we're only out to make trouble or something. They get it from their parents, because there were a few bad apples that used to go to this school and they probably had experiences with them, and just built everything up on that. The people who do know us in school know that we're good people and that we share a lot of things. There should be more Mi'kmaq involvement in the schools, more teaching of the youth about the Mi'kmaq people in general, like teaching them what we do. We just need more good people to speak out, because I know a lot of ignorant ideas are going through people's heads. We need to take more action, to speak out more.

I was born in this community 16 and a half years ago. My mother and father moved back here right before I was born, because of my mom's job and also some money problems. We lived with Gram and Grandpa for the first few years. Now I live with my dad, my stepmother Marie, my sister Joanne and two of Marie's kids, Henry and Julie. Julie is 14 and both her and my sister, Joanne (she's 13), have attitude problems now. So there's a lot of arguments, because they're around the same age — and teenagers — so they like to argue. Henry is 15 and we get along OK. He's kind of a quiet kid.

My dad and Marie have been together for a long time, so Henry and Julie feel like my brother and sister to me. Marie also has two older kids who don't live with us anymore. One lives in Boston and the other one, Angie, lives on the reserve and has a family of her own. As a family, we all get together on Sunday and have a feast. We talk about our week and what's going on in our lives. We also talk a lot when we all get home from school and work. My dad and stepmom ask us how our days were, and if it went well or not. That's something we do every night.

I go to the local high school in town. I try to wake up around 6:00 or 6:30, but I don't really hear my alarm clock until 6:45! I get up, get ready and my bus comes at 7:25. My school is only about 15 minutes from the community. Right now, I stay after school for driver's education classes and when hockey starts up I'll be spending even more time here. Last year I was tutoring after school; it was kind of like my job. I usually try to do my homework first after I get home from school, because I usually have everything that I learned at school still in my brain. After supper, I call my friends or jump on the Internet sometimes. I usually go to bed at 11:30 on school nights but, if I could, I'd go to bed earlier. I barely have any extra time to go out during the week and, if I do, it's already around 10:00. On the weekends it's different. I rent movies or have friends over to watch TV or go for a walk in the neighbourhood. I usually go to bed around 1:30 or 2:00 and get up around noon. Usually during a Saturday, I'll work on my projects if I have any, finish my homework and stuff like that, chill out, watch TV. At night, I'll often baby-sit, because my godmother works all night and so I baby-sit for her.

Sometimes, I baby-sit for people who want to go out drinking. I also go to my stepsister, Angie's house sometimes — she's cool — or just hang out at my house. (I mean, why leave your house when you have everything in it?) I also like to walk in the woods, because it's quiet and you can get away from the world. My brothers and sisters and I used to play baseball a lot on the weekends, but not anymore.

I think the most important place in the community for me is our church, because I'm a Catholic and whenever I see a symbol of the cross it makes me feel safe. There's not too many places to go around here. There's the community centre, but that's not much. We don't have a youth centre or anything like that, just the gym. The gym is not very interesting though; I just sit around and watch people play. Some of the kids here break the windows or do break-ins, and it makes me mad that they're destroying things that everybody uses. We also go to some of the other Mi'kmaq communities close by a lot. Some of my relatives also live up there. If we get out of town, we usually go to other reserves or we go to play bingo!

My father is the most important person in my life. He guides me. If I didn't have him, I don't think I'd be here right now, like in school and on track and doing things I do now. He gives me a lot of support. I also look up to my stepsister, Angie. She's a good person and a role model for me. She doesn't do any drugs and has got a good head on her shoulders. Angie and I sit around and talk sometimes about when we were younger and laugh about it, like when the family would take trips to Prince Edward Island. My godmother is definitely important to me. Things that I can't talk about with my stepmother, I can talk to her about, because my stepmother and I aren't really that close at all. It's hard talking to her. Do you know what I mean? My godmother, though, is really patient; she'll put up with me! My aunt (my mother's sister) is like a second mother to me and treats me like her daughter. Another special person for me is a girl I baby-sit. She's five, and I've known her for her whole life. She used to call me mommy. She kind of keeps me grounded. Like, if I have an urge to do something not good, I only have to remember that she's around and I want to be a good role model for her.

Maybe the reason why I have so many people actively involved in my life has something to do with our culture. We see community sort of as a family; it's not really one person raising a child — it's everybody, the whole community. Everyone tells you what to do and what not to do at an early age. My stepmother says that everybody knows everybody, so everyone is keeping an eye on each other's children. It's true that I do feel safe in my community, because I know everybody. You feel connected. Most of the adults get along, and you know they're there for you. So, we're close-knit. It's not just a place where people live, but a place where people help each other out and do their best for one another.

Being supportive and generous is a big part of what makes a good person in our community. Like if someone needed something, a good person would give it to them. Also, a good person would have respect for everyone, especially the Elders, and listen to what they have to say. They would do their best to give back to the community. In non-Aboriginal communities, I don't think everyone associates with everybody. It seems like people keep to themselves a lot. I think we're closer as a community than non-Aboriginal people would be. It means a lot to me, because it's where I grew up. It's where some of the best things in my life have happened. All of the memories I have are from my home community.

Some of my strongest memories are the funerals. I don't always know the person who died, but I'll remember the people crying. A funeral is different here compared to other communities I think. There's a lot more understanding about death and familiarity with it. Even little kids know what's going on; know at a funeral that someone has died. When there is a death, there would be a wake and then people would come and give food to the family, clean the house for the family or even give money to you if you needed it. A wake is when someone comes home for the last time (the body) and the body would be prayed over and the family would be there to say their last good-byes and see the person for the last time. We would stay for three days at the most during a funeral. I'm more comfortable at a wake in the community than I am at a funeral home; it makes you feel more comfortable. The community is really close in a spiritual way. If something happens in the community, it's like a domino effect that everyone feels. I was a friend with someone and he died. We went to his funeral and I remember standing at the casket. Another time that I remember was my mother's funeral. My mother died when I was six.

Another memorable event I remember was the Labour Day weekend baseball tournament. All of my family would be there. My whole family played baseball when I was growing up. It's like I was born on a ball field or something. My grandfather was alive then and he would take care of the ball field. Other teams from other Mi'kmaq communities would come. I remember how the ball field was packed with cars and there was no room to walk, no where to sit. People would sit on their blankets on the lawn. As I got older, year after year it kept getting smaller and smaller. Now they don't even have tournaments anymore. It's the same thing with the powwows⁵. I remember my first powwow when I was seven. I was dancing. We don't have powwows here now though. I don't know why. People stopped coming down. They were fun, because we used to go to them all through the summer. We still go to powwows in other communities. Sometimes, I take part in the activities, but other times I like to sit back and watch all the dancers, drummers and kids playing around, catch people smiling and just take it all in. In the summer, we head down to Maine during the blueberry harvest. We meet new people from other reserves and get to learn more about them and where they live. There's other reserves down there that hold powwows so you get to see how things are done in Canada and the United States.

I also go to a lot of workshops about our culture. I went to one last summer that was a week long. They taught us about the medicine circle⁶ and herbal medicines⁷, and we built sweat lodges⁸ and stuff like that. My godfather is a very spiritual man — a medicine man. I learn all about the other spiritual realm from him, because he's really into his medicines. If I'm sick, like if I have a sore leg, he'll give me something for it like herbs. I think powwows and "sweats" are an important part of our culture. I'm learning more as I keep going to them.

I don't speak the Mi'kmaq language now, but I'm trying to learn that too. It's like we're Aboriginal, but we Mi'kmaq don't really know our language. It's important to know, because it's our language. When we go out into the rest of the world where there's not a lot of Aboriginal people, it's not going to be any help to us, but I'd still like to do it. It'd be more helpful to learn French as a second language (even though I don't know French either)! I take a Mi'kmaq language course in school and, sometimes, I try to pick up the language from Gram, but she speaks too fast! I do my best to answer her back. I feel kind of awkward around the Elders, because they try to speak Mi'kmaq to me when we go to Maine and I feel bad, because I don't speak Mi'kmaq, so they have to speak English to me. I don't feel like it's right. I should know how to speak it. The language is important, because Mi'kmaq people are important people — we're good people — and the language is an important part of our history. We're still Mi'kmaq without our language, but it's like a big piece isn't there, a link to our culture.

Another part of our culture is the land. The land gives us somewhere to live and it's just a big part of us. To be honest, I would say it's not something I think about every day, but it's important to our culture. The Elders especially feel a strong connection to the land. The animals give us food, and plants can sometimes give us medicine. Being Mi'kmaq also means we get certain rights to hunt and fish⁹, because of the treaties we've signed. It makes me feel good that we have those rights. We have to make good decisions about the land and the environment. Basically, the decisions we make now are going to affect the younger generations. I think about the kids that we're going to have and our grandchildren, and wonder what kind of place they will grow up to live in and whether or not it will be safe. I don't want them having to grow up worrying about boiling water before they can drink it.

I think that if people don't start speaking up and changing bad things, things are probably going to get worse. If we don't start making things better, there'll be more alcoholics, more drugs, more debt for sure. If I could, I'd take all the drugs and alcohol away. The older people use that stuff and the younger ones see them doing it, so they think it's OK. Drugs lead to things like neglect and abuse. Also there's too much violence. It's destructive and there are people who are hurting all the time. There should also be more guidance and activities for youth, but there never seems to be enough money to go around. We need more houses, a better school and things just need to be fixed.

The leaders don't seem to do anything about it. If the leaders were doing their job, they would know how to communicate with a lot of people, especially the Elders. They would know what happened in the past and could listen to the youth, because we represent the future. They would be responsible, kind, have good schooling and know how to deal with politics. I think what's most important though is to be passionate about helping people and really care about the welfare of people.

I think things would be better if we were self-governing, because then the money would be shared among the families who really need it. To me, self-government means the power is in your community. That would be better, because I think the government doesn't really know about what we need. (I'm starting to feel a little bit like I'm in social studies class!) I know what the government did in the past; they said where we had to live. I know that we're not treated equally now, because I can feel it. We're all Canadians and we should all be treated equally. Like if you walk into a place and you're the only non-white person, you can just feel the tension. Non-Aboriginal people need to be exposed to who we are and what our culture is. They don't really know us, as people, as a culture, as a nation. They're a little confused. So hey! Get to know us!

I see myself going to college and working. Getting an education is important so you can get ahead in life. I want a good job. Maybe I'll be a politician so I can change what people think. If you want to be anything and not live off of social assistance, you're going to need an education. Nowadays, you need to finish Grade 12 just to pick up garbage. I can see some of my friends going to college, but others, I don't mean to judge them, but you can tell by how their family treats them, that the road they're heading on is not a good one. Those ones are a little mixed up right now, and some don't go to school and don't seem to want to do anything.

After I finish university or college, I will return here, because my family's going to be here, but not to live — at least at first. I feel like some of the people who are here aren't getting anywhere. I want to explore the world, see what's out there. It just seems like we're excluded, put away in the corner. Everyone knows we're there but no one comes to see. They're scared to come to our reserve, and I want to see how it is to be like everybody else for awhile. I might return someday so I can help the community.

I really want to be a counsellor, not a band office councillor, but a counsellor who people can talk to, especially kids. I want kids to be able to come and talk to me for help and support. I think some kids witness too much; they're exposed to too much as children, and they kind of lose their innocence too young and it's hard for them to talk to their families about it. I want them to be able to come to me. My message to them would be to stay strong. They're going to have to deal with the choices they make now for the rest of their lives. So, they should start to really think about what they're doing. Even if they don't think there's a way out of their problems, they've got to know they have the power to change things. They don't have to sit back and let it happen. Stand straight, stand tall.