Last Updated on March 18, 2025
“Mom I know what you do. You don’t think I know history, I do. Why would you be a social worker? How does that help children?” (Cohen Clark, age 9, Secwepemc). Present in this question from my twin son Cohen is the everyday acts of resurgence of children and youth within intimate relationships and spaces, and the revealed practices of naming and questioning the harms done to Indigenous children and youth through colonial systems, in this case social work. This chapter will theorize the processes and practices of listening and witnessing the everyday truth-telling and resurgence of our children and youth and to attend to the shape and quality of the shifting sites where this happens. I will be focusing on the witnessing from within intimate spaces of relationship as a mother and will share examples woven from the spaces I move through with my children from the intimate and familial of birth, to the resurgence spaces of ceremony. In all of these spaces I argue, Indigenous children and youth are engaged in intimate and daily acts of decolonizing.
My son texted me while I was writing this paper, asking when I was born and about a significant event in my life. I responded, 1968, the year of my birth, and when I became a mother – when you all came. This was a process of convergence, of centrifugal forces- pushing in and out, the resulting forces, or processes emerge at specific times, places, and in relation to specific people. This unique coming together is also defined by the moving in and out of spaces that also define the processes of emergence and resurgence. Mothering has shaped me, brought me teachers, and deepened and changed my witnessing practice.
ctek̓sle7íl̕t – to give birth to twins: Twin stories
The Secwepemc ontology and worldview, and my relationship to them, can also be found within stories about twins and the ceremonies and meanings associated with them. As the mother of Secwepemc twins I had often been told the twin stories from the Nation, and had dreamed of Grizzly bear during my pregnancy. These stories continued to be told in spite of their suppression by colonial researchers such as James Teit and Boas.[1]
In contrast to the powerful stories told me to of birthing Secwepemc twins, my own experience within the colonial system was one marked by risk. I remember when my twins were born, they chose to come a month early into this world, and I a solo parent was home alone with my daughter when my water broke. Living in Vancouver, we were far away from home in Secwepemc territory. Jimi Hendrix played in the truck that my friend Emily’s boyfriend of the time drove me to the hospital in. I remember him saying “it would be so fucking cool if you gave birth right now”. I arrived at the hospital, with a man not the father of my children and was met by another man, a dear friend, a Jewish rabbi and midwife. The nurses looked to both of these men as fathers, to which we all laughed and shook our heads. Later, after Tyee and Cohen come into this world – I am in the room recovering and the social worker comes in. I know her. I even hired her and trained her. I work at this very hospital as a youth health consultant where I develop curriculum for doctors and nurses to better meet the needs of “vulnerable” youth. I am surprised to see her.
“K. what are you doing here?” She becomes visibly distressed – and then says they sent her. Indigenous solo parent of twins – the box was checked somewhere- the risk box – I was in it and had not requested to be there. I sent her away – we both laughed, but this story stays with me still. How do I respond to the violence in that room, in that moment from a friend – violence written onto my children’s small bodies – coating them with risk and need before they are even a few hours old? I contrast this story with the sacred stories of birthing twins that I received in community – stories that blanketed them in power and place.
Grounding in our Own Experience: Reflexivity and Resurgence.
An essential part of witnessing practice is to see our children and youth, and to hear them – to enact our obligation to them, and to place them in the centre of our circle. I suggest that a first step in Witnessing Practice is to begin with ourselves, with our bodies and with our relationships to the lands, and the Nation where we are located – what I call “Grounding in Our Own Experience”.
As described by George Manuel (1974) Secwepemc chief and international Indigenous rights activist, in his book The Fourth World, “the residential schools were the laboratory and production line of the colonial system” convert to endnote – not in works cited(p. 63). Perhaps the greatest loss was the breaking of the sacred place of children in the kinship circle, and in many cases their spirit through the loss of language and ceremony and the resulting loss of the raising up of children as researchers. Secwepemc Elder Dr. Mary Thomas (2001) states that, “in comparison with the way I grew up, we were always asking questions: “Grandma, what is this? Grandma, what are you doing? Grandma, why do you want it? All those questions. We were allowed to talk as much as we could” endnote(p. 24). In stark contrast, Thomas describes the silencing of residential school, and I would argue that this silencing was also of the inherent researcher or questioner in every child. In returning to the question of my son Cohen that began this paper – I suggest that we must engage with our own experiences of truth-telling, of naming, and of resistance in order to stand with our children and witness their questions.
I am inspired by the practice of naming and noticing of Leanne Simpson in her keynote address for the Indigenous Women’s Symposium (2011) where she names the invisible work of mothering and grandmothering. “I thought about all the hard work that went on over just the past week in this community that was done by Anishinaabekwewag – the teaching, the mothering and grandmothering… And I thought about how all of that hard work, and how for the most part it goes completely unrecognized and too often completely un-noticed. And so I think what I want to say tonight is that this week, I noticed. This week I paid attention and it was overwhelming the sacrifices and the love that I witnessed from all the Anishinaabekwewag.”
How can we listen with the respect of June Jordan and attend to the noticing as Leanne Simpson does, invoking our “MotherING” as a site of resistance, a “political site” to enact social justice endnote(Gumbs, 2016:22).
Below are some reflection questions that I offer:
It is vitally important in our listening and our witnessing that we do not continue to create narratives of risk and harm separated from the stories of strength, resiliency and survivance.
In our Indigenous family and community contexts we weave and tell stories of violence, resistance, and healing. We are telling in order not only to share about the violence, but also to change it. It is vitally important that we see and honor our Indigenous children/youth as truth-tellers, knowledge makers and and activists.
I would like to end this paper with a poem I wrote when I was asked to be a keynote at an Indigenous youth conference – and I wanted to speak of my own acts of resistance as a youth to the risk written on my body. I offer this poem to my son Cohen in response to his question, and as a way of resisting the risk written on my body as a young woman.
Basket
Ball
Hoop dancer
A pair of green high-tops lost
Most improved player
Red high-tops stolen
Removed
Beyond risk
Do not tell me of your fear for me
If you do not share your hope
My gifts hidden from you
By the old small pox blanket you have draped over me
Woven of my risk and statistics of harm
You cannot see beyond lives lived now
Leaders of today
Not tomorrow
I remember the story of this on my body
Basketball coach whispers words while draping the blanket
I feel sorry for you, sorry for you as a child of a single parent, on welfare
Punched me
No Air
Wrapped me in the small pox blanket of your words woven of pity of shame dipped in risk
I could not
Did not recognize myself
Anger. How dare you. I threw the blanket off – marching off to see the counselor for the one and only time I did in school.
His words – Go now. Get him out of whatever class he is in and tell him how he made you feel.
Moment frozen – staring at him teaching through the school door, small window frozen in time.
Truth-telling. I know more and deeper than any of these privileged kids. How Dare you? I refuse this blanket you have made for me woven of your stories of single moms and wild child. I hand it back to you. But not without the gift of my own blanket. I can sink a three pointer, and I am much more than your story of me.
Pride. Resistance. Resistance. Survivance. Poem by Natalie Clark November 2015
Beth B., (1983). Sinister Wisdom: A Gathering of Spirit.
Jordan, J. (1977). The Creative Spirit and Children’s Literature,in Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines. Alexis Pauline Gumbs, China Martens, Mai’a Williams Editors.
Simpson, L. (2011). Daankobiidabin: These are the threads that link us together.
Keynote Address Indigenous Women’s Symposium. Retrieved from http://archive-ca.com/page/3284018/2013-12-07/http://leannesimpson.ca/2011/03/02/daankobiidabin-these-are-the-threads-that-link-us-together/
Thomas, M. (2002) The wisdom of Dr. Mary Thomas: Secwepemc (Shuswap) Elder, Salmon Arm, B.C. Lansdowne Lecturer, University of Victoria / compiled by N. Turner, R. J. Hood, J. Infanti, and D. Peacock.
[1] They are the only stories that Teit gathered through interviewing a female Elder, XwElinEk and yet these stories were suppressed by Teit and Boas along with any references to the sacred role of grizzly and women in the twin stories and ceremonies (Wickwire, 2001 convert sources to endnotes). Wickwire, W. (2001). The Grizzly Gave Them the Song: James Teit and Franz Boas Interpret Twin Ritual in Aboriginal British Columbia, 1897-1920. The American Indian Quarterly Volume 25, Number 3, Summer 2001 pp. 431-452.
Across the world right now, Indigenous peoples are facing a renewed assault on their lands, rights, and ways of life.
From extractive industries pushing deeper into ancestral territories, to governments rolling back hard-won protections,
the threat is global—and it is growing.
What makes this moment especially dangerous is how little attention it receives.
Stories like this are disappearing in real time. Mainstream media
barely covers it and the coverage is fragmented. The public is left without the context
needed to understand what is truly at stake.
That is exactly why IC Magazine exists..
For more than 20 years, IC has reported on Indigenous struggles worldwide — consistently, independently, and without compromise.
We don’t follow news cycles; we trace patterns. We don’t sensationalize; we provide context.
And when the world looks away, we stay focused.
But this work is increasingly difficult to sustain.
We refuse to lock our reporting behind a paywall. We don’t sell access through subscriptions.
And we don’t answer to advertisers. IC Magazine survives solely because readers like you choose to
support independent Indigenous journalism.
Please donate today if you can. Every contribution helps us to continue this crucial work.
Thank you,
John Ahni Schertow
Founder and Editor in Chief
