September 30 is Orange Shirt Day: A Day of Rememberance of Residential Schools   
      
   Posted By Levi Rickert On September 30, 2014 @ 6:58 am In Currents | 3 Comments   
      
      
      
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   Every Child Matters [2]WILLIAMS LAKE, BRITISH COLUMBIA - Phyllis Webstad's   
   grandmother took her to buy a new outfit for her first day of school. Even   
   though she was only six years old, her grandmother allowed Phyllis to pick out   
   a shirt to wear to school.   
      
   Part of the outfit, she selected was an orange shirt. Excited about attended   
   school, she wore the orange shirt with pride.   
      
      
   She was to wear the orange shirt only one day at residential  school - the   
   first day. She never saw her orange shirt again. It was taken by school   
   officials. She was given a uniform to wear.   
      
   "The color orange has always reminded me of that and how my feelings didn't   
   matter, how no cared and how I felt I was worth nothing," reflects Webstad   
   decades later about her experiences at the Indian residential school.  "All of   
   us little children were    
   crying and no one cared."   
      
   Phyllis, along with others First Nations children who attended residential   
   schools, were stripped of their own clothing and made to wear uniforms   
   furnished to them.   
      
   The military-like Indian residential schools for were to First Nations Native   
   students were what Indian boarding schools were to American Indian students in   
   the United States.   
      
   Phyllis Webstad  [3]   
   Phyllis Webstad   
      
   Removing Native children from their families and putting them in government-   
   and sometime religion-run residential - or boarding schools - in the guise of   
   "killing the Indian, saving the man" was federal policy both in Canada and the   
   United States that    
   continued for close to a century.   
      
   Most of the Native children were not allowed to see their parents or families   
   for months - and some even years. The intention was to strip Native children   
   of their "Indianness."   
      
   It is a dark chapter among Native people. So much so, one elder in Canada   
   refers to September as "crying month" because of the history associated with   
   September being the month children were removed from their homes.   
      
      
   "I finally get it, that the feeling of worthlessness and insignificance,   
   ingrained in me from my first day at the mission, affected the way I lived my   
   life for many years. Even now, when I know nothing could be further than the   
   truth, I still sometimes    
   feel that I don't matter. Even with all the work I've done!" Webstad told   
   Native News.   
      
   September 30th has been declared Orange Shirt Day annually in Canada, in   
   recognition of the harm the residential school system did to children's sense   
   of self-esteem and wellbeing, and as a reminder of the pain it represented to   
   our ancestors that    
   lingers even to today.   
      
       
      
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   Article printed from Native News Online: http://nativenewsonline.net   
      
   URL to article: http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/september-3   
   -orange-shirt-day-day-rememberance-residential-schools/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)