 Hello, have Friday, and welcome to a brand new episode of Perspectives on Global Justice ThinkTech Hawaii. This is your host Beatrice Cantamal. Can imaginary stories create new spaces for deeper understanding and appreciation, foster new friendships, healing, and conciliation under deep wounds caused by colonialism? Colonialism is never an easy topic to be addressed, especially when we talk about the devastating legacy and the negative impacts caused in their lives, culture, language, education, family structure, relationships, land, legal and human rights of Indigenous peoples. Today's episode touches base on these topics. How do current and future generations recognize and agree to continue to repair such damages? And how do people walk together towards recognition and healing? What is the role and responsibilities that each government must take to facilitate this process? And how does the truth play a role in this ongoing process as well? The effects of colonialism dominance are think of the past, or does it remain alive today? So, we have the pleasure of conversing with guest Hazel Pio Hudson and Blanche Brucehead. Blanche and Hazel are Canadian nationals and have a very special international friendship. They also have quite a story to share with our viewers. Hazel wrote The Wolf Child, a story of bravery and truth, which was selected by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Blanche Brucehead is an Indigenous elder who attended Indian Residential School in Canada. She was quite moved by Hazel's story and the rest of this story that we're just about to start, you'll have to stay tuned and learn all about it. On that note, welcome so much to our show, Hazel and Blanche. Hello. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Absolutely. So, I'm going to start by asking Hazel, Hazel, how old are you and did you go to school? I'm 11 years old and I am in basically a program called Distance Learning where I go to a school in McGrath for band and gym and then I learn the rest with my grandfather. How lucky you to be such a special programmer and having your grandfather as your mentor and what about you, Blanche, may I ask, how do you spend your days and if you will not retire, what would you be doing with your time? Seriously, retirement just doesn't fit into my way of life. It's where the kind of people that we work every day, whether it's a physical job or otherwise. Nine times out of ten, we're doing mental work. We're always sort of on call for people who might want to just draw and visit and talk with you. Since I reached seniorhood, if that's a word, I've noticed that I'm very popular, especially for people that wish to connect with the First Nations people. Right. That's so special that First Nations people are open and welcoming and available for this beautiful connection. I want to talk about this beautiful connection that you and Hazel have developed. Before we do that, Hazel, I would like for you to tell our viewers about Wolfchild's story and to give them a background of how did you create the story and why, and that just to tell us a little bit about the story in itself. Okay. So Wolfchild is about an 11-year-old girl named Named Wolfchild. The year is 1927, and she lives on the blood reserve outside of Lethbridge. Whenever she goes into Lethbridge to shop with her family, she faces a lot of racism and sometimes threats or violence, and one day when her sister, Mi'Guan, is hit on the head with a rock, she decides that she wants to do something about this. And so she basically becomes an activist, and she goes to this event for Indigenous rights and she delivers this speech, which is way out of her comfort zone. And I actually, I based her a lot, like myself, and it's shy and like an introvert. And for her, this was a really big thing to do, this speech, but her family and was really proud of her, and she changed a lot of mindsets in her community. Basically, how I started it was, we saw this poster in the McGrath Library, and I was like, oh, that's cool, and I love writing stories. So I was like, yeah, maybe I should do this. And I also based it off of a series of novels called Dear Canada, and it ranges from the Titanic to the Holocaust to World War I and you to the polio epidemic. And I love reading those stories, even though they sound a bit tragic. But basically, I wrote Wolfchild in like a journal or a diary form. And I was really excited in doing this because writing is just my thing. And so what did you do with your story after you finished it? Did you share it somewhere? How did you plan to get to read about your story and learn about it? So it was kind of funny. Any time I made an edit on the story, I sent it out to the family, which probably shouldn't have done. But I was a little nervous about writing the story and sending it in because I don't know how it feels to be Indigenous. Like, I'm not really sure how it is to be in a residential school. And so my stepfather, Tim, recommended that we see Blanche Bruce Tedge and he knew they're from the Fort at Lethbridge. And so we met with her and she gave me feedback. And then we've been friends ever since, pretty much. So that's a lovely place. So you just to make sure that I did this correctly. So once you had your final version, you submitted your writings to a contest or to a place. Where did you send that to? So I submitted it to the Truth and National Reconciliation Centre. And we sent it off right at the deadline, right on the very last day of the deadline. And then just a couple of weeks ago, I got an email saying that it had been selected. And I was like, oh, my gosh, wow, OK, I did not think that would happen. Well, congratulations. So it was selected. So what happens? What does that mean with that you say will selected? So basically on March 1st to the 3rd, I'll be in Winnipeg. Sorry, May 1st to the 3rd. And I'll be attending some leadership workshops. And I have to give one to two minute presentation as well. About what to write. OK, so I'm going to take a quick transitional shift here to get a little bit of Blanche into the future. So Blanche, so when you started getting the drafts over Haysdow's writings, what were your thoughts? What went through your mind? Well, seriously, features. We just so and I and her grandfather and her parents met once and she read me the story of her iPad. And there's a lot of them. The statement that she had put down were right on. They were the truth. There was just a little bit of tweaking that needed to be done. And so I didn't do very much in helping her with her story because she got it ninety nine percent of the truth about the way things used to be by the day here in the southern Alberta. And it was just one time she read me the story and we kind of worked on it for about an hour, hour and a half. And things just started rolling from there. And then about a week or so ago, she and her grandfather called me and let me know that they're headed to Winnipeg, Manitoba, to the. The I guess it's the center where they'll be dealing with this the the results of this contest. Like this little girl has opened doors. I don't think even she totally understands between First Nations and the rest of the world. And also, it really gives me a lot of. Pleasure to also let you know that the. Greats, the junior high grades in courage to know we're using her story as a basis of the. The resolutions that were given by the. The commission, the TRC, the 13. Resolution points that are going to be. Entered into the educational curriculum here in Canada. That's really amazing. So before we talk a little bit about there are a lot of things you'll provide in there, but I wanted to make sure I don't. Miss the intention of asking you as an Indigenous elder who sounds like you spent most of your formative years away from the First Nations and in the school, a residential school. So for our viewers who don't understand what residential schools in Canada would lie for Indigenous people. Would you mind giving us a little perspective on it? To begin with, you'd be removed from your family. How old were you when that happened? Well, three and the ages of three to maybe six years old, seven years old at the latest, you'd be removed from them and you'd be placed into a community where. Two, three hundred of the same age group would be in one. What they call dormitories, so to speak. So there was junior girls and senior girls and our intermediate girls and senior girls, the same for the boys. And you'd be in this. This would become your family and most First Nations that myself included that was removed from my mom and dad. And speak English, but we were not allowed to speak our language out loud during the first, probably the first to first year, second year in residential school. You had to have a guardian who you would whisper everything to in your language so that you could receive the services that they needed, such as toothpaste, toilet tissue, second servings of whatever they were feeding you. All of this was and then that was why most of us First Nations, especially the age group that I was in when I first was placed in residential school. We we learned the English language really, really fast. Basically, it was it was a it was a way to survive in that in that community. And you would stay in the residential school. And I first went to the school. I was there from the end of August to a week before Christmas. It's home for Christmas for a week. And then I'd be placed back at the residential school and I'd be there till Easter and then again till the end of June. And so I only went home on specific holidays. Oh, my goodness. May I may I ask you, we need to take one minute break for Komashou, but we'll be right back and OK, thank you. Aloha, I'm Karikunisue, the host of Konnichiwa, Hawaii, Japanese talk show on Think The Kawaii. Konnichiwa, Hawaii is all Japanese broadcast show and it's streamed live on Think The Kawaii at 2 p.m. every other Monday. Thank you so much for watching our show. We look forward to seeing you to them. I'm Karikunisue Mahalo. Hey, Aloha, my name Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on Think The Kawaii live from the studio. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keep you safe, your co-workers safe, your family safe, keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me because Security Matters, Aloha. Welcome back to Perspectives on Global Justice, Think The Kawaii. And this is your host, Beatrice Kuntama. And we are back with Blange and Hazel. So Blange, we were talking about your time at the residential school. So so then before we took the break, you were talking about having very specific and very short periods of time to be allowed to do with your family. And so, OK, so you said you learned English very quickly in order to be able to survive. And it sounds really hard that you were not able to speak your own language. Were you able to practice any of your Indigenous, traditional and cultural values and anything while you were in school? No, we were like myself. I was put into a Roman Catholic Indian Residential School and I was immersed in that religion totally away from the ways or ways of life or my culture for the times that I was within that community. But I'm one of the fortunate ones. My great-grandmother, my dad, did not speak English. So when I came and I was home, I just resorted back to being Blange, the Indian girl. Oh, good for you, you know, that's strong spirit, you know, and the resilience that came through. So I want to talk with you about the proof and reconciliation, which I know there is also so there is a commission in Canada. There is also something very similar in the United States, I think in all the countries, too. So I don't want to you want to elaborate a little bit on what do you think reconciliation commissions do and why was created and what does it look like in Canada? I think reconciliation, I think it's a lot about acceptance, also like apologies, but I also I kind of wanted to talk about some activism stuff, I guess you could say. And we will have time for that, too, but yes, go ahead. OK, so this is a little off topic, but it'll quick. So with women's rights and stuff, everyone is all and I fully support this. Everyone says we need to support the woman if you see like you need to be careful in the streets if there is a man like you need to be extremely careful because there are like men everywhere and that kind of thing. But I think like woman and many quality is kind of like residential schools and indigenous people because there is a lot of men and feminists out there. Like I know there's my dad's, my stepdad. There's my grandpa and no one really talks about that. They talk about the bad men, men who don't like support women give women a chance kind of thing. And that's kind of like residential schools because I've heard a couple of stories where indigenous people have actually benefited from residential schools. And I know this is really not common, but they have learned, they enjoyed learning math and social studies and language arts and that and they benefited from it. But no one really talks about that. And they all say, oh, yeah, residential schools are very, very bad, which I agree, they are a really big mistake. So there are some positives of that. And but there were also a lot of pain that was inflicted and that's part of an injustice as well. And that's why I think reconciliation, through the reconciliation commissions were created and not only to open up the platform for like yourself and the rest of the world and the community, especially indigenous people, to be able to speak out their truth from their experiences, to give the bad and the ugly of those experiences and also to be able to start sorting out, you know, what was really done and about, more importantly, would we go from here and what kind of rap patients are needed and can be done. And then once that is identified, you know, how do you take action as a country or as a community to make sure that that of course. So I completely value your insight and the recognition that there was also goodness and in that process of children going to the school and the learning process. But I want to be able to bring Blanche back to the conversation and ask for a whole perspective on based on her own experience. What was it like for you, Blanche, in terms of if you had a choice of staying and growing up, learning everything that you needed to learn in a first nation versus being forced to go into residential school, what would you have done? I stayed home because my people had all had lived the ways that we had lived when complete connection was nature. Nature was our ally when I was placed in a residential school. That was deemed the ways of my people were deemed to be based on saddury, uncivilized, uneducated, being educated, which was not true. Today, looking around, I'm almost 70 years old and I see finally the other society is now starting to understand that they had used common sense and learned from us to begin with. I think we would all be living in a very much better world, healthier world, cleaner air, cleaner water, the whole nine yards because we didn't destroy. We... You presumed that you were great in environmentalist, yes? Yes, we were the what they call the stewards of this land. That's why when the early Europeans showed up here, they thought it was uninhabited because we did not destroy. So now they're starting to understand that, hey, connecting with nature is not a bad thing. It's a very, very common, sensible thing to do. Right. Well, I want to bring this back to Hazel and Hazel. I think that part of the plan to have said would be like, you know, going back to that part over, wouldn't it be amazing for the world to listen to one another and figure out a way to learn from each other? Imagine a school where, you know, you could learn math on science and all of the ancient and traditional wisdom of indigenous people, just of Canada, all over the world. And that becomes part of everyone's formative education and the foundation to prepare them to become, you know, more wholesome and balanced human beings, which I imagine that's what you are kind of going through right now. So many races later. I think we would all really benefit from that. I believe that too. But the sense is math is an English word in my language. It's simply it's just the math, the science, the social, the chemistry, the biology, all of those were in, we practiced them, ancient ones practiced them, but they weren't given those names. So now the generations coming are going to get the two full barrels. Let's put that for a natural nature, the world, because it really should have been after with the way the natives look at things through math and science. All of that is in place. They just need to connect with nature. And they will become wiser. I'm grateful for that because I'm again going into my seventies. So I'm really looking to the younger generations to take good care of me. Oh, as it should be, and you have taken care of so many people and you still take care of our youth in your role. So much of this dinner and as an elder with so much pride and so much to say, I have an invitation for both of you, which is to come back as my guest in a couple of weeks so we can give continuity to this conversation, which I think has just got to warm up. But because we are out of time, I can't live up quickly. Not a minute to buy, but I am so happy that we were able to get started with this conversation. And I really look forward to covering it and making it even deeper. And also to hear about how the story of Hazel is going to be used in schools, in curriculum, and hear more about the actions, the 30 actions that are going to be working with in that frame of reconciliation, right? Yeah. Right. So would you please come back, I guess, again so we can come out of that, too? I would say, yeah, I would say yes, too. And also with Hazel and Don going to Winnipeg, Manitoba first part of May, come back here and tell us what they went through in Winnipeg. Right. I would like to learn more about that. Well, that's all about the exchanges and the connections from the hearts and those seeds that help us keep back and forth with more inquiry, more learning, more appreciation and more love. I think love is the secret ingredient of all of this. I love each other, love for nature, love for this universe, for the sport that we have on that note. Thank you so very much for being my guest today. Thank you all viewers for watching us and see you next time. We hope.