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N EVVSLETTER
carnnews@vcn.bc.ca
401 Main Street Vancouver Canada V6A 2T7
(604) 665-2289
A huge Heartfelt THANK YOU to Everyone! th
From the 19 Annual DTES Heart of the City Festival!
This year's Heart ofthe City Festival was amazing! With the theme Community Is Our Mentor,
the Festival featured over 200 residents and artists from tne Downtown Eastside and across Canada at over 140 events and activities. We heard stories of wisdom and creativity; of diverse and rich traditions; of hopes and dreams; of knowledge systems, cultural roots and languages; and about issues alive in our community. The Festival is strong because of the relationships, collaborations and partnerships we create together. It is an honour to work with all of you to present a successful Festival in light of the many challen'ges the DTEScommunity faces. With huge THANKSto the artists, participants, audience members, community partners, funding partners, supporters, staff, volunteers, work teams, and friends for-participating in an extraordinary Festival. Ifyou have a project or a program idea to contribute or suggest for next year's Festival (Oct 25 to N<Jv5, 2023), give Terry Hunter a call: 604-628-5672. Photo above - f. to r. Earle Peach and Solidarity Notes, tiso Oavid, Paul Tavlor; Jean 5wanson Sandy Cameron Ceremony,
Memorial
Corneqie
Writing
at the
Contest Award
Theatre
Photo left - I. to r. Giiles, Morvin, Cot, AII~ Lalio, Priscitlio and Colleen at Co-op Radio Uve at the Wise Ho/f Photos:
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www.heartofthecityfestival.com
Heart of the City Festival This year's Festival opening in Carnegie Theatre, newly decorated with a full surround extention of Richard Tetrault's and friends' mural, was one of wonder arid of grief. As we celebrated the opening we also remembered the passing of many good friends, friends of the DTES and of the Festival. Kat Norris, who had been the Festival's Elder in Residence passed several months ago. We also lost Joan Morelli, Robyn Livingstone, and Sid Chow Tan. The "Art in the Streets Spontaneous Poetry" event over three days attracted a steady line-up of people who wanted poems. Fiona Tinwei Lam's clickity-clack manual typewriter attracted a lot of attention and she wrote about a dozen poems in her hour and a half. I was also kept busy. One experience I had I will never forget. A young man, who was trapped in addiction, told me of his sadness. "My family doesn't talk to me. They don't even phone me on my birthday." I wrote a blues poem, all about sadness and blues, but finished with on a hopeful note. He read it, then wept and told me, "You really do care," and asked me if I would have coffee with him one day. Boxset in the Woodwards Atrium was a surrealistic dreamscape experience explored with video, live music and dance. Fun, inspiring, and creative combinations. Gritty City, a Carnegie Jazz Band alumni performance, with it's Downtown Eastside compositions and covers of socially relevant music blew the roof off Carnegie Theatre. Loud, beautiful, energetic, and tons of fun we all felt like we were happy Saints Marching In as this final number played. Then, on a sunny Monday, we were regaled by an Evil Cult Singalong with the Legion of Flying Monkeys at Maclean Park. These musicians, though all completely nuts, do sing wildly relevant socially conscious and somewhat deranged material. Next time they play, get there. before the little men with little minds in white coats come to take them away.
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The Day of the Dead Fiesta, with an altar in the Learning Centre, and performances in the Theatre reconnected us with dear lost friends in a truly celebratory fashion. I feel, and so do many others, that we need a permanent display with ongoing renewal somewhere in Carnegie that reminds of our ancestors. Virago Nation Burlesque at Ironworks, complete with a poetry reading performed with the poet fashionably, stunningly, and elegantly dressed in nothing but nipple pasties and a G-string, implored us to breathe in her beauty, to taste the goodness of body, and to feel body as medicine - all a great antidote to the male gaze, a sexist product of oppressed sexualty that came on the boats with the colonizers. Who knew - a combination of burlesque, poetry, and history, all together and health promoting. Showcase, We Are Somebody: Celebrating the Creative Spirit in the DTES, honoured the creativity of our community by showcasing works of poets and artists whoi live or who once lived and created here, includiag Bud Osborn and Sandy Cameron. An entire day at Carnegie was spent celebrating our poetry. The Muriel's Journey Poetry Prize, the Sandy Cameron Memorial Writing Contest Award Ceremony and an event Honouring Writers of the Downtown Eastside all happened on the last Saturday of the Festival. Today's writers and poets read works by Sandy Cameron, Robyn Livingstone, Joan Morelli, Bud Osborn, and others. It's good to remember and honour the artists and activists whose steps we follow.
Some of us on the staff finished off the festival at Co-op Radio Live at Wise Hall. We ended it with all of us dancing up a storm in front of the stage, which got everybody in the hall up and moving to the music. Great way to end a super-fun, engaging, and educationai couple of weeks. There was more, so much more. I've only touched the surface ofthe 140 or so events that occurred during the Festival. We are the people of the DTES. We think; we care; we rock! And we have the Heart of the City Festival that proves it. By Gilles Cyrenne
Learning From Community: Housing Justice with SRO Tenants was billed as a showing of 3 short films. I saw one, made by Eliot Galan with input from the SRO Collaborative and The Right to Remain. It was over an hour long and showed vignettes of people working together to provide food to each other and in some buildings, how the education of tenants is done and how organizing in buildings can get landlords to provide essentials without, as a few people laughingly mentioned, poking the bear too hard. This is a common euphemism for the owner/landlord. From the Festival Program Guide: 'Nicole Baxter, Kevin Nanaquewitang, Josh Gillen, Richard Schwab and Tom DeGrey (and Wendy Pedersen after the film) told of their self-determination in housing struggles helped open up space for collective learning." Several people remarked on how well Eliot had done with the film, taking it from raw footage to what was shown. ',' Wendy joined four or five others to encourage a conversation about what was shown and the reality of over 200 SRO buildings in the Downtown Eastside. Both Margot Butler, head ofUBC's Humanities 101 program, and Jean Swanson, one of the stars of the DTES, were in attendance. All were invited to join in a collective meal while conversations on what's happening now and what still needs work went on. The SRO Collaborative has an office at 268 E Pender. • " PRT
Raising ofthe Oppenheimer Welcome Posts was a showing of rare footage, with the documentary filmed, edited and presented by Jackie Humber. 'The film captures the witnessing, cedar brushing and words of ceremony at the raising of the two Welcome Posts on the NE corner of the Park ten years ago. Invited guests included Bob Baker and Terry Hunter speaking about the cultural work and the project (led by Constant Arts Society) to provide some context to the footage. 'On a rainy, windy morning in February 2012, filmmaker Jackie Humber was invited by the carvers to film the ceremony. The film includes the words of the two gifted carvers, Hereditary ChiefGa Ba Gaawk (Henry Robertson) from KemanolKitlope, and Chiaxen (Wes Nahanee) from Squamish Nation, and those spoken by witnesses and by S7aplek (Bob Baker) of the Squamish Nation who conducted the ceremony. This documentary serves as a record of the knowledge shared during this traditional ceremony. Carver Cheaxen announced, "These posts are welcoming you to a new day." Thanks to Jackie for preserving this event! A humourous story told by Terry had to do with how bent some architect got because the alignment of the posts didn't conform to her idea of what was acceptable. The carvers set her straight, pointing out that the posts face into the park to welcome all who are there. Closing music was composed and sung by Lora Bird. The filmmaker acknowledges this documentary was filmed on the traditional and unceded lands of the Squamish, Musqueam Tsleil- Waututh nations
From 'the Library Hello everyone, My name is Daniel and I am a guest writer for this column. I am the community librarian for the Downtown Eastside, Strathcona and Chinatown communities. Currently, I work out of n;Jca?mat et Strathcona branch of the Vancouver Public Library but I used to work regularly at the Carnegie branch. Please feel free to come in and say hi! At the VPL we are constantly getting in great new books and here are a few of them. Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokeah is the uplifting story of Ever Geismausaddle and his part Mexican, part Native American family who strive to hold on to their community and traditions in a constantly changing, and often hostile, world. This is an emotionally complex novel filled with honesty, heartbreak, and inspiration. True Crime is one of the VPL' s more popular genres of non- fiction and we have recently received a chilling memoir titled Aurora and written by Dr. Lynne Fenton, the psychiatrist of lames Holmes (the "movie theatre killer") who, in 2012, entered a packed movie theatre and opened fire. This book provides insight into the patient who called himself "fear incarnate. " Finally, and on a completely different note, we have received copies of the graphic novel omnibus B.P.R.D. Plague of FrtJgs Vol. 1, which is part of the Hellboy universe. Featuring the beginnings of the epic frog war and the origin story of Abe Sapien, this is a collection consisting of the first three trade paperbacks and an expanded sketchbook. This is highly recommended for fans of superheroes and antiheroes! For these and'many others, please pop into a VPL branch! Happy reading,
HUM 101 Hum's Public Programme Series returns with two classic programs. The Documentaries for Thinkers series reboot begins this coming Saturday in the Carnegie Theatre, and A Taste ofthe Middle East meets at the Gathering Place every Monday. These ongoing groups are open to the public. No registration required. Documentaries for Thinkers When: 2nd & 3rd Saturday of the month at 6p.m. Where: Carnegie Centre Theatre, Main @ Hastings Curators: Paul Woodhouse & Claude Ranville On the second and third Saturday of every month join us in the Carnegie Theatre to watch and discuss some fabulous documentary films. This thought-provoking series will offer a selection of creative and critical films covering a wide range of topics. Hot drinks and cakes will be served. A Taste of the Middle East When: Mondays from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Where: The Gathering Place, fitness room, 609 Helmcken St. Facilitator: Shahla Masoumnejad Middle Eastern countries have a rich culture, and although the are frequently identified as one region, each country represents a distinguished culture that is rooted in ancient traditions. In this group, we explore the beauty ofthese cultures and the differences that makes each place unique.
A good idea! Spontaneous poetry, after you give the presiding poet some ideas of what you want the poetry to contain and speak to. One day Fiona Lam, the poet laureate of Vancouver, was. invited to set up her old manual typewriter on a table on the sidewalk and passersby sat down and the poetry came through. Following is what Fiona wrote with me talking about Sandy Cameron and his spiritual influence on people throughout the Downtown Eastside.:
WRITE Dedicated to Sandy Cameron I will never forget you, Wise Wolf with snow white hair and crinkly eyes that smiled at everyone you talked to. Thirty years of being and living here in the Downtown Eastside, you encouraged us all to write encouraged me to write a book that would gather all the voices and secret rhymes hidden within the words and thoughts of a community. There's a contest now in your name; so you will last forever in print, in poems, in stories inspired by your vision. I thank you. We all thank you.
Some are pacing, while others stand still. Some are scantily clad, while others cover their curves with loose-fitting attire, all desperately hoping to solicit good business tonight. The competition is in full swing. A part of me wishes to close the curtain to the discomforting scene before me. Yet, my eyes remain open. Ifeel both curiosity and concern. Ifind myself wondering: are they here by choice or out of necessity? Some wear expressions of lonely and wounded selves. Others maintain a hardened impenetrable aura. This is where some feel acceptance, a sense of belonging. For many, this is the only life they know.
Corners I gaze out my window as the city bus struggles through Vancouver's busy traffic. It's 'arsenic hour' and many motorists are impatient and impetuous in their driving. Travelling along East Hastings I become acutely aware of those claiming their territorial street corners.
A weighty sadness envelops me and I am deeply humbled. Minutes later, our bus disembarks at the SkyTrain station. I silently thank God for all I have. Those who wait on street corners remind me of where I might have stood. Jacque1ine Angharad Giles
Second Place for Poetry
Let Freedom Reign I felt as though I had been whisked away to an alternate place and time. When I first heard the song, I was in the changing room after gym class. It was in the Fall of 1978, at the beginning of grade 12. I was an awkwardly shy and introverted 17-year-old girl, often feeling out of place and extremely self-conscious when around other people. The up-beat music and the heavenly voices playing through the speakers instantly captured my attention. "The name of the song is Dancing Queen by ABBA, a very popular group from Sweden", one of my classmates answered when I asked what the name of the song was and who sang it. I felt a wave of excitement as I focused on the chorus: "You are the dancing queen/Young and sweet! Only seventeen/Dancing queen/ ... " As I listened attentively to both the lyrics and the instruments, my imagination instantaneously transported me to that same dance floor. Such a transcendental moment was a total shift in my mindset. The excitement from the disco beat was contagious! Music reverberated through everyone in the room. As Ijived to the sounds from the drums, guitar, piano, and more, I envisioned myself for the first time as beautiful, elegant and confident. I felt ecstatic, an emotion that was foreign to me. Experiencing complete and utter freedom for the first time, I felt as though I belonged to an incredible moment in which I was also popular and unbashful. My Chanel No. 5 intermingling with various sweet scents ofthose who danced was a perfume connoisseur's delight. I felt transported away from my reality -- a home life filled with abuse, ostracism, and rejection. For years I felt shackled, imprisoned in a sense. During this dance, however, I was no longer chained. I was elevated to a blissful place that I'd never imagined possible. Within my daydream's magical scene, my long golden blonde hair flowed freely with my every movement. My dangling earrings and matching stylish necklace accentuated my look. I wore a beautiful Iight and dark, blue-toned dress, soft and silky to the touch. Blue was tmy favourite colour. My highheeled shoes moved me.across the floor with grace and ease. ' Every surface reflected the many gorgeous colours emanating from the flashing disco lights hanging from the ceiling, I licked my lips to taste the salty tears of joy that trickled down my cheeks. In that pivotal moment, I became acutely aware of how my soul felt synchronized to the harmony of the music and to the symphony of the scene. Seconds later, the speakers fell silent. I was immediately brought back down to my reality. The descent was not easy to bear. It was a harsh, albeit brief, transition. It was time to leave the changing room and head home. I was determined to hold onto that newly created memory. More than 40 years have passed since that life-impacting experience. Whenever I hear Dancing Queen, I still feel a deep sense of joy, peace, and comfort. Although life has presented many difficult challenges over the years, I will forever reflect on the beauty of the fantasy created by one song in one moment that intrigued and inspired me to journey on. Jacqueline
Angharad
Giles
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Grandmother you were very young when married You were very poor but you were very strong person You lost your husband at very young age You had two girls and two boys Grandmother you lost your husband at young age You never got remarried but you left your life for your family Also you helped my family a lot too When you slept at night you had Machete under your pillow to protect your family You were so powerful and always busy You always said work hard and You live longer You always were very independent even though you lived with uncle Yaya You had your own room and made your 0\ •.•. '11 food Everyone in the family or in the Village respected you You told the big land owner ifhe put his feet in her land You will cut his foot in half with her Machete My father called you grandmother all the time Golda Mire Golda Meir the fourth prime minister ofIsrael from 1969 to 1974 Grandmother my mother said life does not have any meaning without you When you were passed away my mother died few months after you grandmother Grandmother you were the person took me to my aunt to help her at age 5 years old My aunt She used to live in another village and had lot of problem with her husband Her husband had few wife and was a big land owner and was abusive
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Bed Bug Treatment Room,
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We seem to know each other. We meet at every housing complex I move to. You have a serious profession. You get rid of the nasties. I see though your bread and butter are cooked mattress. New, old, you don't mind. Even the ones from a charitable organization. I have become familiar with the scent of cooked mattress over the past couple of decades - it permeates m body. Subsequently hardcoiled mattress taste like the plastic from the bedbug fabric that covers them. Soffcoiled ones from the foams that turn sour. Soaking in a bath doesn't help. All that chlorine just doesn't do it. Changing clothes once - twice a day doesn't either. The body just disregards the lesser scents. I see your hired help doesn't mind going home to relax at the end ofthe day - their mattresses aren't cooked. Even doctors don't treat sinuses - they call them an allergy issue. Transit drivers are the best - they will create an argument to toss one off the bus, while passengers whisper to one another. You have given me a new set of eyes with which to see. The "smellies" of the DTES. How and why perfectly new housing units reek. Why some homeless even smell better I can't shake the thought though that with all the good you do, there must be more to not making your profession obsolete. It is almost as if there is a need for your collateral damage. By whom though - everyone relates to you one way or another . Stan Vlioras
First Place in Essay Category Village Calling Today, after more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964. (1) That was before the internet. So when personal computers, email, and Facebook arrived in the global village it felt like the next thing in the natural evolution of communication and globalization. Electronic technologies are an extension of our nervous systems; our neurons are now all interconnected into a global grid in which we are intimately bonded. We are one brain instantaneously communicating planet wide. Our planetary brain is alarmed because huge wealth discrepancies, debilitating poverty, corporate dominance, and environmental catastrophes continue to plague our planet, our village, our city. Sidewalks define home for many. Climate change, with the richest one per cent of the world's population responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the 3.1 billion people who made up the poorest half of humanity, threatens us all. Global warming disproportionately sickens and kills low-income people. Inequality perpetuates climate disasters and creates an appalling absence of equity. Our central nervous system - our global brain - now a real and rhythmic planetary unity, sees that we have a serious addiction problem with consumption of fossil fuels and with inequality which fuels that consumption. We now know that beyond a secure level of comfort, more money and more stuff do not increase well-being, nor do they create more happiness. We also know that more equal societies are healthier. With that understanding, our unified connected oneness can devise and implement a vision and a course of treatment to heal this consumptive disease which threatens us, degrades our biosphere, and undervalues life. My wildly optimistic hope is that our interdependent global brain unites us with the life and caring that exists in small villages and that caring communities will become i!: gl~bal model that evolves into a new and better economic r.ilality. I grew up on a farm several miles away from a village. We knew everybody in that village, knew all the surrounding farm families, and everybody knew us. I see in retrospect how village and farm life defined a microcosm of a world we could recreate. When a neighbour was sick, we knew about it, and offered help. When a neighbour's house was burning, everyone showed up to help and while the fire was smouldering in the walls, we removed the furniture and rescued the household goods. The wheat we grew was delivered to a grain elevator staffed by my father's cousin. My mother had a flock of chickens. Their eggs were sold in the local grocery store where my cousin was a delivery boy. We had a garden, butchered our own chickens, pigs, and cattle for meat, and sold what we didn't consume ourselves. Ongoing neighbourhood relationships created fair business practices. Economy and community were not isolated entities. Every wedding and every funeral was attended by everybody. It was a different world - less individualistic - people relied on one another and knew that in times of trouble help was close at hand. Thai help - bringing soup to a sick neighbour, helping fight a fire, feeding a grieving family, women's groups volunteering to cook for the entire town at weddings and funerals, harvesting a neighbour's crop because he has a broken leg - none of that economic behaviour, none of that voluntary production and distribution shows up in GDP statistics. Yet, that behaviour is the life blood of community, the oxygen that assures the village thrives; it is what has sustained us for most of our evolution, for most of our history. We need village economics to help us survive; we need village economics to become the decentralised global norm.
I do see a lot of this village helping behaviour in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and in Camegie Community Centre. We are a continuity and a new beginning for what needs to happen in order to create a better, happy global brain, healthy global village. You, people in this community, give me hope that humanity will evolve out of its diseased greed- fueled consumptive ignorance and begin the healing we need. By Gilles Cyrenne
Apology My rude outburst Shocked you As well as me; My words were Knives unsheathed Perforating trust And wounding Our love. I spent days justifying My callousness-Waving a grievance list While my ~eart Shrive led and bled. Please forgive me. The knives were directed At me-- not you.
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Kit&dog@main&hastings Drug Overdose When will it end? Nobody knows Today's a new day One life to live Will we make it through the night? 'Nother memory escaping the sieve Escape is easy Ambition hard Sleep disturbed The dog, the St Bemard Slithers her way In my proximity Drinking the rain Eating with glee
Stewart Brinton Kit Chen
Guide Dog Angel of God, My guardian dear Creator's Love Brings me Here! On this Day, Be at my Side: Light. Guard. Guide. Trevor Buddin
The Heart and Darkness of the Downtown Eastside I wait for the #3 bus to go to work at the corner of Main and Hastings. I'm going to be late as usual, but I need my Timmy's. I'm just a janitor and I don't care. It's after 6am and the city-run washrooms outside the Camegie Centre are open. The Camegie is there to help people, guide people and even mentor people like me. I spent 9 years up on the 3rd floor in the Thursdays Writing Collective. That was run by Elee K Gardiner, who mentored me and many others in the art of writing and poetry. She changed my life. But a lot of people sleep around the Camegie's sidewalks on cardboard beds, wrapped in blankets or in sleeping bags. They hobble up and down the washroom's stairs like refugees of a forgotten place or war, ragged and dirty. A bare-footed woman in long pink hair and tattoos, jeans and just a bra on, a blanket on her back, cries and stumbles down the women's washroom stairs. The October unforgiving cold rain from last night has stopped. The corner reminds me ofa ragged and retreating army. It's packed tight with many still sleeping on cardboard beds and in tents, with their shopping carts close by holding what little they have in life. Others sit on their bikes or milk crates like they are having a street meeting. I see 3 or 4 groups selling or buying drugs. I down the rest of my morning beer and start on my Timmy's, lighting a smoke as this tattoo-faced dude I know bums a smoke off me. Then I hear that familiar cry for help: "Does anyone have Narcan?" I put my coffee down and yell back, "I'll get some from the washroom attendant downstairs," as someone waves down a passing ambulance. Coming back upstairs I get the kit ready as I fast-walk over to this big native dude on a cardboard bed that I noticed coming from Tim Hortons. The ambulance guys are there as I come up to the native man and inject him with Narcan to save his life but they stop me and say, "He's been dead for hours now. Sorry everyone." This is the heart and darkness of the Downtown Eastside. By Henry Doyle
TERRY SINCLAIR brother Terry open casket
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a week ago she celebrated one long year without a drink ... now she mourns the sister, brother at each side, would ramble through the Main and Hastings cliques and violence
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Peggy, eldest, son nearby: her thoughts soft-spoken h~r face a moment of tears and grace the other brother's goodbye words: I seen him smile he laughed so much but always pain. now he's smilin' better than ever. he's getting buried. his pain's all gone. and help us, God we need some help Your help so much. In memoriam Mike Tropp
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GALLERY GACHET
In Contempt 9 W Hastings Running October 22nd - November 25th / Tuesday - Saturday / 12pm - 6pm Trigger Warnings: SA, Abuse, References to Institutionalized Medical Settings, Racism Lead artist, Aiyana Joe Wood, invites you to reflect on her experiences of being held' in contempt' in child welfare and mental health systems. Having been branded the "problem child" - after surviving sexual abuse in a foster home in rural Manitoba - Aiyana was moved away from her 8 siblings and home community, to Winnipeg, and eventually, on to Toronto. Each relocation held promise for Aiyana receiving "care," but instead she was given interviews and medications - "more reasons to run away, than to stay." ~J.
XA (Expressive Arts) Drop-In Studio Mondays / 2pm - 4pm November 21,28 Expressive Arts (XA) is an artist-centred outreach project that will run parallel to Gallery Gachet's exhibitions and discursive programming. Every Monday, from 2pm - 4pm, artists and community members are invited to drop-in and participate in an open studio environment with facilitation, art materials, and a healthy snack. The facilitation is supportive and open, and there to expand artists' material and conceptual repertoire if desired, or simply there to provide a safe space to create artwork and social connections, on their own terms. Materials available for participants include pastels, acrylic paint, brushes, felt pens, paper, collage materials, and canvases (dependant on availability).
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First Place in Poetry
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Landback . If"landback" is just as out of reach to the native people after it's returned, truly what is the point? Whether its the , Algonquins in Ontario or the Coast Salish in BC, it's the same crooked game. First Nations do in fact get "land back" and before you can say presto change! somehow it's with a property developer instead. And as stewards of the land how do we treat it? We drain its wetlands, we log it, we bum it and we pave it to the beach. I'm not exaggerating: the Tsawwassen tribe literally did this to build a shopping mall. Although the Algonquins are no better with a housing project in kanata exploiting the land for the "benefit ofthe Algonquin people".I'n'l one of the Algonquin people. My life has not improved in any way by this betrayal of our Algonquin values. The Tsawwassen people haven't benefited from their massive shopping l1'lalleither. The carpet bagger developers sure are making out like bandits though! People should know this; this misconception land claims are like winning the lottery. I say stop. Look around you. Nothing has changed. The first nations people remain as disenfranchised as they've always been. So I say then why bother? If the lands aren't being returned to the first nations as a whole and it's being returned only to have its eco systems cleared and paved for profit, then we as Algonquins have lost our way. The land deserves better. We are supposed to be stewards ofthe land and we have failed. We are failing and this breaks my heart to see something Ion ed for by past generations going back hundreds of years being treated so callously. A commodity. Nothing more. And make no mistake. This isn't reconciliation. This is being sold out. Again. So I say why bother? Keep it my settler friend and let's call it square and move on. You owe me nothing nor do I owe you and all debts have been paid with forgiveness. Let us put anger aside and move forward, together, as a community of equals. That is what I would say if given a voice and a choice in all this. But I don't, nor do any of us, so truly why bother? It's just another empty promise to sit like acid in our bellies and nothing gained but luxury Condos native people can't afford to live in themselves, lining streets which are all named using an indigenous alphabet out of "respect" to our ancestors who would have never wanted any of this.
By Michael Sismey
My name is Michael Sismey and I live in the neighborhood of Strathcona which is an enclave of streets at the SouthEast corner of the dtes. I am also a full status aboriginal registered as a member ofthe Algonquins of Ontario. They are currently negotiating the largest land claim settlement in Canadian history ..
National Day of Truth and Reconciliation is more than a statutory holiday on September 30th. It's a day to honour and commemorate the children who were found at the Indian Residential Schools, the survivors of those schools, and the people like myself who continue to feel the intergenerational effects to this day. The federal government funded the schools and allowed the churches to operate them. The goal was to "Civilize" and "Christianize" the Indigenous children, by separating them from their families, communities, languages, spirituality, and most of all their cultural ways of life. This gave governments the opportunity to reap natural resources through hydroelectric, gas and mining projects, without consulting Indigenous communities. Sne kalyegh Phyllis Jack Webstad for raising awareness by the Orange Shirt Campaign. She is a former Residential School student. Indigenous people are more than an Indian Status or Treaty number. Many work in the job sectors, like the arts, health care, justice system, education, trades, and many more. ." Through the Turtle Island-wide digitaJlens of the show "Reservation Dogs", viewers can see some of the effects of loss of language and culture. Most of all, they are shown that "we" as indigenous people can surmount trauma by means of humour, one ofthe keys to healing. More needs to be done. We must see the end of the tragedies of missing and murdered Indigenous people that have led to so many vigil ceremonies and memorial marches. .• Yes, our Indigenous people are only beginning to heal the trauma they have endured. Let the healing process continue, for the sake of future generations. Sne kaJyegh to our ancestors for preparing a path for us and for the generations to come. Hug a tree! Priscillia Mays Tait (Babine, Gitxsan and mostly Wet'suwet'en artist and mother)
WYilPl;ntt,.."kdge that Carnegie CornnnmityCentre,lllld,. this N¥;ws/etter; are occurring on Coast Sallsh Territory.
THIS NEWSLETIER IS A PUBLICATION Of THE CARNEGlE COMMUNITY CENTRE ASSOCIATION Articles repre:sellt the views Qf ill(:!ividual contributors
and not of the AssQciati<ln.
Jenny KWanMP Vancouver East NDP Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Critic
2572 E Hastings St
WANTED
Vancouver, BC VSIC IZ3
Artwork for the CamegieNemleti:er -Small iUustr?fionsIQaccbrt1pany artiGles and ~ '. -Ccver art - Max siZe: 17crn{6%·Jl'{ld~ x 1SCm(6')high • •Subject matter pertaining to tS$ll~srele'Vaf!t to Downtown Eastside,but all work. COQsidetOO. -Slack &. While pOntingonly. ..size res\iiclions ripply (Le. ifyoor piece.is loo large, il will be reduCed.andlor cropped to lit), -An artistS ~ill recei~'ecredit for their work.. -OrlginalswiOba returned to the artist·after being copied for publicatioo. -Remvneiation: Carnegie Volunteer Tickets PI~~ submisskms tQ PaiJtTayfQf, Editor. The editor can editfrif clarity. forinat 8. brevity. butnof althe expense of the wmers message.
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