Indigenous stories: good hearts, good minds and an extraordinary book club
September 19, 2024
Before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released its report in 2015, UVic education professor Carmen Rodriguez de France knew what Indigenous stories had been published in Canada and had probably read most of them. But now, she says, “there’s an explosion, from children’s stories to poetry to novels. It’s hard for me to keep up!”
And keep up she does. Reading across the rich landscape of Indigenous, Inuit and Métis stories helps her to continuously reframe her work, which benefits herself and her students in UVic’s Indigenous Education program. But she doesn’t stop there. Rodriguez de France also shares stories and conversation through the Indigenous Stories Book Club, which she has been running in collaboration with the Greater Victoria Public Library since 2017.
“There’s a reciprocity in Indigenous relationships,” says Rodriguez de France, who lives here and has Indigenous heritage with the Kickapoo people in what is now the southwestern US and northern Mexico. “I feel welcomed and privileged to live in these lands. Sharing Indigenous stories in this way feels like I’m giving back some of the principles and values that have been shared with me in the past 25 years since arriving in Canada.”
All of the participants (so far) in the monthly September-May book club have been settlers here on the island, although at least one has had Indigenous heritage from elsewhere in the world. In the first years, the group tended to a middle-aged and older demographic but that is changing; in the 2023-24 group a UVic Political Science student took part. Someone else Zoomed in from Prince George.
Rodriguez de France begins each one and a half-hour online session with 20 minutes of slides to introduce the artist and the context in which they were writing. Then the group talks about what they read, how they thought about it, what their own takeaways were.
“It’s very respectful back-and-forth discussion,” Rodriguez de France says, even when people disagree—as in one memorable session about I Lost My Talk by Mi’kmaq poet Rita Joe that led to a conversation about whether English is truly the most nuanced language.
The readings are of a manageable length, like Chelsea Vowels’ blog post You’re Métis? So which of your parents is an Indian?, Chapter Two of Saltwater People by Dave Elliott Sr, and Chapter Three of UVic historian John Lutz’s book Makúk, for example. Some aren’t even readings; Alanis Obomsawin’s documentary Mother of Many Children was the selection last December.
The arts are a great venue to discuss racism, history, lands, values and culture, Rodriguez de France says. “These stories are the doors.”
From another story, small and true, comes proof that people are striding through those doors.
“One participant,” says Rodriguez de France, “used to borrow the books from the library. Now she buys the books as a way to support the writers—and passes them on.”
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Rachel Goldsworthy