Bev Sellars was separated from her family twice in her young life: in the fall of 1960, when she was five, she was sent to be treated for tuberculosis at the Coqualeetza hospital in Sardis, near Vancouver; three weeks after she was released from hospital, she was required by Canadian law to attend St. Joseph’s Mission school, south of Williams Lake. Run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, her experience at the school is now part of the terrible history that marked First Nations families for the past 50 years. Bev Sellars was at St. Joseph’s from September 1962 until June 1967. Her memoir, They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at Indian Residential School has just been released by Talon Books, a Vancouver publisher. Recently, Chief Sellars spoke to a standing-room-only crowd of elders, students and professors at First People’s House on the University of Victoria Campus. “I was 38 before I went to university,” she told her audience. Afterwards, she answered Lynne Van Luven’s questions in an e-mail interview.
“Like a computer that cannot run at full potential if it has viruses, Aboriginal people need to eradicate the destructive viruses so we can run at our full capacity, ” you say towards the end of your book. What would be the first “viruses” you would like to see eradicated today?
The fact that many Aboriginal people have been led to believe that they are inferior. That is the biggest virus that needs to be eradicated. If you don’t feel equal with others, how in the world can you fulfill your potential? If all people are treated as equals despite cultural differences that need to be respected, then that will be a good start.
What would you say is the biggest hurdle Aboriginal youth face today?
Acquisition of the basic skills to compete in the world today. This includes knowing who they are as Aboriginal people. Not too many Aboriginal youth make it to the university level and many do not even finish high school. Also, many of the ones who do make it to university feel an obligation to use their education to help fight for their human rights as Aboriginal people. It would be nice if my grandchildren could study a discipline that they enjoy and not one with that obligation over their head. Someone said if you are born Aboriginal, you are born into the political world. But we are fighting for the rights that our ancestors lived and died for, the younger generation will take up the fight if need be. That is sad that this is the way it has to be still, in 2013.
You and your peers suffered in so many ways in the residential schools, in your case, in St. Joseph’s Mission at Williams Lake. As a white reader, I felt angry on your behalf when I read your book. How have you managed and learned from your own anger over the years?
Before I met my husband Bill, I didn’t manage my anger. I would either blow up at someone or I would get so angry I would just shut down — and that was not productive. Bill showed me that talking about things and dealing with the issue was more productive. I am still angry about the way Aboriginal people are still treated, but now I don’t just seethe and do nothing about it. I have found my voice and make my views known.
I have heard many First Nations leaders say that “education” is the key to Aboriginal success. If you agree, can you explain how you define that term, and how it should be achieved?
It is entirely inadequate to suggest that education is simply a matter of trying to achieve non-Aboriginal graduation rates for Aboriginal children. True reconciliation in education would mean Aboriginal people having the opportunity to define citizenship and determine how education will develop Aboriginal citizens to fulfill their nation’s goals. As with the rest of Canada, education for Aboriginal people would be about identity, citizenship, nationhood and taking their rightful place in the world. Not until this ideological foundation is in place will Aboriginal people be able to go on and meaningfully define education, its goals, and its standards of success well as equivalent graduation rates for their children and adult learners. There has to be a shift in thinking about Aboriginal people and by Aboriginal people.
Yours is the first full-length memoir to be published out of the Williams Lake community. What would you say to others who have similar stories to tell?
I would encourage them to write their stories even if they are not going to publish them. I would hope that they at least would share [stories] with their younger relatives who need to know the history. Maybe some will write it and burn it and that’s okay too. I found that writing my story and connecting the dots between my childhood and my adult life gave me such an insight into the dysfunctional behavior I needed to change. Mine is just one story of many that need to be told, and I hope my book encourages other to tell their stories as well.