Where do I stand? 

Throughout my life there was as single definition for being Metis. That one unifying definition I thought existed between all Metis people was, someone that is a descendent of both European and Aboriginal heritage. Previously, I knew there was some prejudice towards Metis individuals, but didn’t quite realize how deep it actually went. Before expanding on my Big Idea, I must explain my family and where I am coming from when I speak about the Metis.  The knowledge I have about being Metis was only obtained in recent years, due to the negative connotation that being Metis had on my great grand mother. My great grand mothers family had script but  it was later stolen from them by a shopper keeper.  Her family, left their community with no land to claim as their own, fled further into the bush away from the Catholic Church. Resulting in her not having to attend a residential school. Later in her life she married my great grand father, a white man,  leaving  behind her community to be with him. My great grand mother did not want to be a treaty indian, she didn’t want the handouts that treaty individuals got from the government. Kokun (cook-um)- my great grand mother- wanted to work for everything that she got, she didn’t want to be the stereotypical lost indian, that many of her family members had turned into.  She practiced her culture but never went as far as to claim Metis status for her or for her children. My direct family has always been quite about being Metis, we would use a few words in our everyday language, but very rarely did we actively state to others this part of our identity.  I failed to realize that the negative connotation that the term Metis carried  wasn’t just within my family, it seems to be everywhere.  Metis seems to be a broken term, it is  no longer working the way that it was intended to work.  Metis is a term, I thought, was meant to work as a description of a unique group.  A group that, I believed, was not fully emerged into Aboriginal or European society, but was able to bridge the gap between the two cultures. I want to understand in which context is being Metis seen as negative.