This is a must-read book for anyone who cares about truth and reconciliation
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Finding Otipemisiwak: The People Who Own Themselves
Andrea Currie | Arsenal Pulp Press
266pp | $24.95
“Neither European or First Nation, the Métis were referred to by the Cree as O-tee-paym-soo-wuk, the people who own themselves.” Kelly Saunders, “No Other Weapon: Métis Political Organization and Governance in Canada.
Reader, imagine armed police and implacable social workers breaking into your home to steal your children. Or imagine being one of the babies stolen and taken away to live among strangers, far from your home and your people. For Indigenous people, this is not just a scary thought experiment. For the far too many who suffered under a brutal system of child theft known as the Sixties Scoop, this was the agonizing reality of their lives. Andrea Currie was one of those stolen children, and Finding Otipemisiwak is the story of how she found her way home and reclaimed her Métis identity. This is a must-read book for anyone who cares about truth and reconciliation on the broken ground some call Canada, some Turtle Island.
It is hard to wrap the mind around the heart-numbing statistics. The stories of individual survivors and families are necessary to really grasp what was done to Indigenous children, and to recognize it was done in our names during the Sixties Scoop and the long shameful history of Canada’s attempts to “kill the Indian in the child.” That’s where brave accounts like Finding Otipemisiwak come in. The author only began her process of return when she was 38 and connected with her birth mother. She has since embraced her Métis roots and trained as a therapist, a skill she dedicates to working with other Indigenous survivors.
Currie and her cherished brother Rob, another Métis adoptee, suffered cruelty and rejection in their new home in the white suburbs of Winnipeg, and knew the comfort of loving each other; her memoir is dedicated to his memory.
This is a book every Canadian should read.
Highly recommended.