Tag Archives: documentary

Module #3-4: Mental Health Issues

After I saw Kind Hearted Woman which I mentioned in module 2, I started wondering about Indigenous peoples’ mental health issues. The woman in the documentary faced so many struggles in her life: poverty, career, relationship, drug and alcohol abuse, her own identity, and so forth. Indigenous peoples have to deal with different struggles, more than we do, due to the unique circumstances of their lives.

According to HeretoHelp, in some Indigenous groups in Canada, a survey shows the number of people seeking help was as high as 17%, compared to the Canadian average of 8%.

Health Canada, the Federal department, has some information about First Nations & Inuit health on their website. Also the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) states how to cooperate with Indigenous communities across Canada to help them overcome barriers and support their vision for improved mental health. MHCC also mentions what they have learned from Indigenous peoples in Canada through their work: acknowledging realities facing Indigenous peoples; developing close partnership with First Nations, Inuit and Métis (FNIM) communities; and appreciating culture roles in supporting well-being and recovery in FNIM communities.

In Australia, Indigenous Psychological Services (IPS) was founded in 1998 to contribute to the Aboriginal mental health field. They have three main areas of service delivery, including Aboriginal mental health training, cultural competency intervention programs, and Aboriginal mental health and suicide intervention programs. What they state in the website is similar to MHCC; it is crucial for service providers to recognize the uniqueness and diversity of Aboriginal culture. The “one size fits all” approach would never work.

Module 1 – Posting 4 – The Stand Film

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Those of you in the BC area are likely aware of the controversy surrounding the proposed Enbridge Pipeline; a 1,170km route stretching from Alberta’s tar sands to Kitimat on the BC coast. From there the oil would be loaded onto super tankers and navigate some of the most dangerous waters in the world before heading to Asian markets. The narrow inlets through which these tankers would pass are not only sensitive marine ecosystems teaming with biodiversity, but they also pass through the Great Bear Rainforest and traditional waters of the Haisla First Nations.

Norm Hann worked closely of with the people of Hartley Bay as a teacher and basketball coach and was adopted into the Hartley Bay Community in 2006. Norm, an influential person in the Standup Paddleboard (SUP) community, decided to a paddle the proposed 400km route in order to bring awareness to traditional food harvesting areas of the First Nations people and document the wildlife in the area that could be damaged should there be an oil spill. The resulting documentary was called Standup4Greatbear:

SU4GB video

Seeing the original SU4GB documentary, representatives of Roxy/Quicksilver decided to sponsor a second documentary Stand. The follow up trip saw Norm paddle 350km, visiting each of the Haida Watchman sites along Haida Gwaii. A portion of the video also follows First Nations students from Bella Bella Highschool as they build they own standup paddleboards in class. The amazing cinematography and the strong message of conservation (both culturally and environmentally) make this film one worth watching (I myself have watched it a half dozen times now). View the trailer here:

Stand Film trailer

Yesterday, Stand officially released its education package. It includes the DVD and a 17 page teaching aide that fits with BC’s Prescribed Learning Outcomes for Social Studies, Geography, First Nation Studies, Science, Geology, Sustainable Resources and Physical Education. This cross-curricular package seems to be an ideal and approachable way of incorporating First Nations topics into the classroom.

Module 1 – Post 3 – A Sorry State

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I strongly recommend taking the time to watch this documentary by Canadian filmmaker Mitch Miyagawa. With a Japanese-Canadian father, an Aboriginal step-mother and a Chinese-Canadian step-father and three official Canadian government apologies to his family, he asserts that he has the most apologized to family in the country. His exploration of his family history and the meaning of an apology is at times funny and light and at others very moving and heart wrenching.

http://ww3.tvo.org/video/184814/sorry-state

A couple of the conclusions he comes to are:

There is a difference between an apology and acknowledgement. Sometimes, the acknowledgement is more important than the apology.

Apologies are more about the future than about the past. It’s about much more than just saying something.

Apologies, acknowledgement, stories and all the memorials and other ways we have of dealing with the mistakes of our past, they aren’t about endings, they’re about beginnings.

Module #1: Post #2 – Chinese-Aboriginal Identity

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After thinking about the difficulties that many women and children face obtaining Aboriginal status according to Dr. Lynn Gehl, I began thinking about other segments of the Aboriginal population in Canada that experienced discrimination by the government. I recalled watching a documentary last year called Cedar and Bamboo, which examined the challenges faced by the children of mixed Chinese/Aboriginal parentage. The 2009 film, by Kamala Todd and Diana Leung, can be viewed in its entirety here, or if you’d simply like a sample, check out the trailer here. The Chinese Canadian Stories Project also has some resources on this topic, the most useful being an interview with Larry Grant, who like those featured in Cedar and Bamboo, shares his stories about growing up in mid-century British Columbia amidst the racial prejudices that both branches of his ethnicity had to endure.

Looking beyond the systemic racism these individuals faced (children with Chinese fathers were not allowed to claim First Nations status, nor could they go to school on the Reserve with their Aboriginal cousins and friends, and they were often shunned by both Aboriginal and Chinese communities), the issue that seemed to be the underlying theme of these stories concerned identity. Most of those interviewed in these films convey the sense that at one point or another in their lives, they felt torn between two, sometimes three worlds – none of which truly gave them a strong sense of belonging. As Larry Grant recounts, once he was school age, he and his brother were boarded with a Chinese family off the reserve to attend public school. Because of his Aboriginal background, he was treated as an inferior member of the household and of the Chinese community. This disconnect between individual, place and family seems to be echoed in the larger narrative of First Nations in Canada and an important feature in the formation of Aboriginal identity. In that sense, these stories of cultural displacement are worth examining.