I am not a number

The following is a poem inspired by the text  I Am Not A Number by First Nations member Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer as well as research on the horrors of life in residential schools in the rarely discussed bleak years of Canadian history.

 

This is my story

But I am not a number 

I am a human 

Although  they thought I was a commodity 

They removed me from my family 

Took me to a residential school 

They called it assimilation 

Civilizing the savage 

I faced dreaded events 

Also witnessed the horror 

I saw clergy  who worshiped  Christ 

Sexually molesting my brothers and sisters 

It was cultural genocide

They took away our identity 

If we spoke our native language 

We faced severe punishment 

We underwent humiliation 

Beatings and  piercing of tongues

Isolation and  shaving of heads

That took our dignity away 

So this is my story 

This is what they  did to us 

It may not be in the history books  

But this is what truly happened

I am old now 

I am destitute and wasted 

I am a survivor  

But I am not a number 

Dr Ruwan M Jayatunge