It stops here: Standing up for our lands, our waters, and our people by Rueben George with Michael Simpson

 Rueben George is Chief Dan George's grandson. In this book, which is basically a memoir, he talks about spending time with his grandfather, and how his grandfather nurtured hin when he was a child. 

He mentions the Chief Dan George prayer song (AKA Coast Salish anthem) so I listened to it while writing this post. Beautiful song. 

Overall, I thought this was a great book. Rueben is so present in Vancouver. I think last time that I saw him speak was at Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week. I always love to listen to him. He is wise and shares great teachings, but he is also funny and makes people feel good even when discussing difficult things. One might even say that being funny and making people feel good is a teaching that he embodies and models. 

Because I work in education, I'm always interested to see what people say about education. In his memoir, he talks about how his mom went to residential school. 

"Even after the children left residential schools, they were still shamed and looked down upon by wider society. My grandma tried moving my mom out of residential school and into Burrard Inlet Elementary in Deep Cove. The parents at that school held a community meeting because they were outraged at the idea of a First Nations kid going to school with their children. The parents and communities members all said that there was no way this could happen, and they demanded that the Native kids stay in the residential schools where all these horrible things were happening. My grandma went down to that meeting and heard the other parents say terrible things about how her kids were dirty and ugly. She stook up and said, "My kids are clean and healthy." Only one other parent stood up to defend our family. She said that she knew our family and that my mom and her siblings were clean, good kids, Eventually my mom did get out of residential school and went to high school, but there she was picked on almost daily. The Government of Canada was treating us as if we were lesser than people of European descent, and some of the people of Canada treated us that way too." (George & Simpson, 2024, p. 22). 

In a subsequent section, Rueben talks about his own experience and how his family had difficulty registering him in elementary school. "My mom took me to register at Plymouth Elementary School in North Vancouver, but the principal there said that he didn't want me at his school because there were no other Native kids there. He told my mom to send me to Sherwood Park Elementary because that's where the Natives went. The principal said that straight out and my mom was shocked." (George & Simpson, 2024, p. 29). 

Land acknowledgements are common place in Vancouver. I think that it's important to spend time learning about the perspectives of the people who are Indigenous to the place on which you are doing an acknowledgement. And so I'm glad that Rueben took the time to write this book and share his perspective with the world in an easy to access way.