There are various processes by which the experience of trauma in one generation can influence subsequent generations, a perspective that seems to have resonated among Aboriginal peoples living with the historical, collective traumas experienced by their ancestors. Throughout the twentieth century, Registered Indian children in Canada were forced to leave their homes to attend assimilative boarding schools known as Indian Residential Schools. The mistreatment of children within these schools resulted in a national apology and the largest class action settlement in Canadian history. In an article from CBC News, Maeengan Linklater talks about the effects of being a child of a residential school survivor. “Growing up, my mother often cried or raged or drank or disappeared into herself. She found it difficult to express affection and often I wondered what I had done wrong to make her the way she was” (Deerchild 2015). His story, among thousands of others like him, shed some light on the Residential Schools’ impact that has been transmitted from grandparents to parents to children. This legacy from one generation to the next has contributed to loss of culture, social, and emotional problems experienced by Aboriginal communities today.
Residential schools were seen by the Canadian government as a way to civilize the native population and keep their children from continuing in their native traditions. At the schools, the teachings revolved around the advantages of white life and the evils of Indigenous life. Students would spend almost the entire year away from their parents in order to become fully immersed in European culture. When children did return home, many had lost the ability to understand their native language, heritage, and skills needed to help their parents. This, in result, caused for a major loss of culture for coming generations. Indigenous ways of knowing are largely built around storytelling. Stories are meant to keep listeners aware of the interrelatedness of all things, the nature of plants and animals, the earth, history, and people’s responsibilities to each other and the world around them (Partridge 2010). In a culture where individuals have a sense of connectedness with everything in their universe, storytelling is an important role in the continuity of the traditional culture. And with generations of residential school survivors having been brought up with no way of being surrounded in one’s native culture or hearing stories about their history, it is getting harder and harder to pass any form tradition or culture down to the next generation.
As more survivors are coming forward, it has become evident that traumatic events, such as the residential schools, take an enormous psychological and physical toll, and often have ramifications that must be endured for decades. Significant number of children in residential schools were victims of mental, physical, and sexual abuse and neglect. Not surprisingly, Indian Residential School survivors are more likely to suffer a variety of mental and physical health problems compared to Aboriginal adults who did not attend (First Nations Centre 2005). This has been directly linked to a study, conducted by Amy Bombay, which found that compared to the general population, Aboriginal people today are more likely to experience adverse childhood experiences, including abuse, neglect, and household substance abuse (Bombay 2011). This is a clear indication of just some of the effects being passed down through generations.
The cycle of abuse was further examined by Roberta Stout, who conducted a study that documented six First Nations women’s own words and stories, and their unique understandings of how they have been individually affected by their mothers’ attendance at residential schools. One notable similarity between the women’s stories was the way they described their mother’s unhealthy coping mechanism. As stated by one women, “I always remember that she would go on [drinking] binges and leave us and I remember [her being] a whole weekend away” (Stout and Peters 2011). As a second part to the study, Stout, looked at the daughters’ intergeneration effects. The daughters told how they have had experienced a variety of mental illnesses including depression, eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, self-hate and low self-esteem. One women confessed that she was sexually abused by a family member for several years. She then went on to say, “of that experience, my parents not being there, I’ve done some horrible things to my body…I think all those things that I was doing is that I was trying to make myself not be here, to just try to be invisible” (Stout and Peters 2011). By listening to the stories of children of residential school survivors, Stout reiterates just how much the effects brought on by the schools has on subsequent generations.
The residential school system established for Canada’s Indigenous population in the nineteenth century is one of the darkest, most troubling chapters throughout the nation’s history. Although the schools have since been shut down, the effects from the survivors are continuing to be passed on through generations and has contributed to loss of culture, social, and emotional problems experienced by Aboriginal communities today.