Uprooted

Through the '60s, '70s, and '80s, the Canadian government took thousands of First Nations children from their families and placed them in white foster homes. I was one of them. Alienated from my language, culture, and community, I was taught to hate my people.

Decades later, I am still learning to heal.

- Carol Rose Daniels

One of the first memories I have of my grandmother happened on a sunny summer afternoon. She was looking after me that day. It was rare that I’d need a babysitter; the woman I referred to as my mom almost never went anywhere. Maybe there was a church meeting, perhaps for a committee planning their fall supper. I wasn’t even in school yet and didn’t ask questions. It was only later, when I was far older, that I began to ask.

“Let’s go outside. It’s time to pick the rhubarb and what’s left of the berries,” she told me. “Maybe I’ll make custard for you before your mom comes to pick you up. But don’t tell her – I know it’ll spoil your supper.” She grinned down at me. “Our secret?”

She ruffled my short hair and we headed outdoors into a slight Saskatchewan breeze. My grandma gave instructions, warning me not to pull out the roots of the rhubarb, “because it continues to grow even once it’s plucked.” 

Years later, I’d remember those words. 

I loved my grandma Lena, and she loved me. It didn’t matter that I was the only Brown grandchild, the only one who wasn’t biologically a part of the family. You would think the same love could be expected from the woman I lived with. The one I called my mom.

I am one of the many thousands of First Nations children who were taken at birth – ripped from the arms of Nikawiy (my birth mom) and placed in a white foster home. When it happened to me, they called it the ’60s Scoop – but it wasn’t just the ’60s. It began with the residential schools, with roots that date back to the early 1800s. Today, nearly half of all the children in Canada’s foster care system are Indigenous.