I was disappointed to see that ours was the only house on the street with an orange shirt hanging in the window yesterday. For those who don’t live in Canada, or who do live in Canada but have been living under a rock, yesterday was the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. It’s a federal statutory holiday that was created to honour both the lost children and survivors of residential schools.

See, Canada hasn’t been very nice to its First Nations people over the course of its history. Starting in 1831, Canada began forcing children of First Nations descent into something called “residential schools,” which is just a more convenient way of saying “assimilation camps.”

In these schools, indigenous children were forced to abandon their cultural background, traditions and languages, adopting English as their primary language and Catholicism as their primary religion. It was nothing less than an attempt at cultural genocide, and it went on until as recently as 1998, when the last residential school closed.

Those who survived these schools did so with the PTSD that follows years of physical and verbal abuse, molestation, and other such traumas. Many did not survive, and bodies of children who died and were unceremoniously buried are still being discovered at the site of former residential schools.

Why Orange Shirts?

The reason Canadians are asked to wear orange, or at least place an orange shirt in their windows, ties back to the experience that Phyllis Webstad endured on her first day of school at St. Joseph’s Mission residential school in British Columbia.

Her grandmother had given her an orange shirt to wear to her first day of class… when she got to school, however, all of her clothes were taken away, including her new orange shirt. To Phyllis, the colour orange reminds her of her experiences at that school, and how they made her feel unloved, uncared for and utterly worthless.

Phyllis started Orange Shirt Day to represent the message that every child matters. Nobody deserves to endure what the children in Canada’s residential school system went through.

Orange Shirts Aren’t Enough

I’m lucky enough to work in one of the federally-regulated sectors, which means I got yesterday off work. It was important to me to honour the spirit of why that was the case though, not just treat it like any other free day off. Similar to Remembrance Day, I spent some time yesterday reflecting and reading about Indigenous history from the perspective of Indigenous writers.

I encourage you to do the same, because much of what I read was very painful. I learned about how the atrocities committed in the residential school system affected not just those who attended, but their families and descendants as well.

In one particularly poignant example of this writing, an article by Anne Spice, whose grandfather attended one of the schools, she talks about how her mother told her that “I am never going to know what actually happened… what it caused in my family was silence.”

Anne then goes on to talk about how her father, through his silence, destroyed himself from the inside out. He did this in an act of sacrifice, in order to protect the rest of his family from being exposed to whatever brand of atrocity was most prevalent at his school.

I can’t imagine what that must have been like for him. But I have to try. We all do. Because if we’re going to talk about Truth and Reconciliation, I believe it needs to start with empathy. It needs to start with education, with trying to place ourselves in another’s shoes, to understand history from their point of view, and commit to doing better going forward. If you do nothing else, please, for the love of god, read the article I link to above. It will help give you some perspective on the topic.

Wrapping it Up

Truth & Reconciliation isn’t an easy topic to write about. It’s not easy, and it’s not comfortable… but it’s so important. When this day comes around again next year, I challenge you to put yourself in a position where you’re more educated on the matter than you were this year. I’ll do the same; we’ll go on this journey together.

To the Indigenous community: I see you. I am trying to feel you. And I am committed to supporting the 94 calls to action as set forth by the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, with the goal of creating a more compassionate and connected future together.