Lessons from Mae: Carrying Forward the Dreams of Our Elders

Spoiler alert: this week’s teaching comes from an episode of Ted Lasso. If you haven’t seen the series, you’ll learn how one storyline plays out. It won’t take away from what you’re about to read.

Sometimes a teaching shows up on an ordinary evening, on the couch, watching a show about football. This week, Wholwolet’za shares what a woman named Mae brought up for him.

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Uy skweyul siiye’yu (Good day friends),

Before we get into this Teaching Tuesday, I want to give a content warning. I am sharing some harsh truths and I want to warn all of those reading. 

Watching Ted Lasso has given me so many insights and ideas for Teaching Tuesdays. Sometimes our teachings come from ceremony, from our Elders, or from the land. And sometimes they come on an ordinary evening, sitting on the couch watching a show about football. This was one of those ordinary days that ended up teaching me something.

In one episode, Mae, an elderly and devoted fan, is given the chance to travel with the Lady Greyhounds to a road game. Before the match, Ted and the other coaches ask Mae to share a few words with the team. Mae tells them she always dreamed of being a professional football player, but she never could, because women weren’t allowed to play back in her day. She wasn’t short on heart or talent. She simply wasn’t permitted.

That moment stayed with me. I found myself thinking about all the things my ancestors were not afforded back in their day. Not long ago, many of my ancestors were restricted much like Mae. Not because they lacked ability, strength, or love for their families and their ways of life, but because of laws and systems that were built to hold them back.

Our people were forced off our lands and placed onto smaller, less desirable pieces of land, and those places were named reservations. Once there, our movements were controlled by Indian agents. Our people needed special permission from these agents just to leave our own communities, whether it was to hunt, to fish, to sell what they had made, or to visit relatives. Imagine needing a piece of paper signed by a stranger before you could go and see your own family.

Our people were also not permitted to hold our ceremonies. We were not permitted to hold potlatches. We were not permitted to sing, and we were not permitted to dance. We were not permitted to do the very things that bring so much healing to our people and to our communities. Our ceremonies are where we gather as families, honour our loved ones, mark the important moments in our lives, and share what we have with one another. Many of our people kept these ways alive in secret, at great risk, so that the generations to come would still have them. I am so grateful that they did.

Then our children were stolen from us. They were sent to residential schools, where they were not permitted to speak our languages, and when they did, they were beaten for it. I think about this every time I open one of these messages in Hul’q’umi’num’. Every word I share with you is a word that someone, somewhere, was punished for speaking. That is why it means so much to me to keep using our language, and to share it with all of you.

Our people were also sent to Indian hospitals, where they were segregated from everyone else and where horrible experiments were conducted on them. Even when our people were found to be healthy, they were often not permitted to be released and return home.

Later on, the child welfare system did not allow our people to raise their own children. Our children were scooped out of their homes and communities and placed with non-Indigenous families across Canada, the United States, and all over the world, all to continue removing the Indian from the child. This is known as the Sixties Scoop. Having led my own community’s Child and Family Services department, I carry this part of our history very close to my heart.

At the same time, our women were often pressured into having abortions, and some who went into hospitals on their own accord were sterilized, given full hysterectomies without their knowledge or consent. When I think about that, I think about all of the grandchildren, the aunties, the uncles, and the cousins who never had the chance to be born.

These are just some of the harsh things that have been forced upon Indigenous people. I don’t share them to make anyone feel guilty. I share them because understanding where we have come from helps us understand why our families and communities carry what they carry today, and why our healing matters so much.

I hope our ancestors can look upon us and see the progress that has been made. Our languages are being spoken again. Our songs are being sung, and our ceremonies are being held openly once more. Our young people are walking proudly in both worlds. But please know there is still so much work to be done. Our children are still overrepresented in care. Our people still face discrimination in hospitals, in schools, and in everyday life. The restrictions may look different now, but many of them have not fully gone away.

To my Indigenous relatives, I want you to know that you are living proof of our ancestors’ strength. Every time you speak our language, practice our teachings, raise your children in our ways, or simply stand tall as who you are, you are living a dream they were never allowed to live.

To my non-Indigenous friends, thank you for reading and for caring enough to learn. You have a part in this too. You can listen when Indigenous people share their stories. You can learn whose land you live on. You can speak up when you see unfairness, and you can help make sure the next generation doesn’t face the same walls their grandparents did.

Mae finally got to see her beloved Lady Greyhounds take the field and succeed, living out a piece of the dream she was once denied. I hope our Elders get to see us succeed as well. There are hundreds of years of hardships to overcome, but I have hope. Hope for a better future. A future where my people can live in this world with dignity and respect, and where no one’s dreams are limited by who they are or where they come from.

So I’ll leave you with a question to sit with this week: who are the Maes in your life, and whose dreams can you help carry forward?

Huy ch q’u | Thank you

Wholwolet’za | George Harris Jr

Wholwolet’za left us with a question. Who are the Maes in your life, and whose dreams can you help carry forward?

This week, if you feel comfortable, pick one person. Ask them what their dreams are. Then listen, and ask how you can help carry it.

Our community calls happen on the first Wednesday of every month from 6 to 8 pm, and the next one is this Wednesday, November 4. If you’d like to join us in virtual circle, hit reply and let us know.

Huy tseep q’u, 

🧡 Kim + the CC Team