At the age of 17, I provoked what was to become a pillar of my cultural identity by going to do my 12e year to high school American, hosted by a typical Southern family who was going to feed me grits and make me speak South Carolinian by adding y’all on all occasions. Back in Canada, the experience having been enriching in so many aspects of my life, I was already working to shape the next cultural immersion.
As far as I can remember, the idea of doing my cultural exchange elsewhere in Canada had never crossed my mind. I deduce from this that I have been little exposed to such occasions, and possibly have been more attracted by the unknown, therefore the international. What if this notion of the unknown took on another meaning?
In 2021, I was visiting the Yukon. A first for me in one of our territories. The intimate encounter with the Carcross/Tagish First Nation would grip me. Passionate about culture from a young age, how had I never been encouraged to cultural immersion with one of the first peoples of my own country?
Offering a social project to our young people in which they would be encouraged to take part in cultural immersion in an Aboriginal community for non-Aboriginal people, and vice versa, between the ages of 17 and 25, for example, would constitute a concrete way of building one of the missing pillars of reconciliation.
With recent events coming to light, including the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the harrowing discovery of potential unmarked graves of Indigenous youth at a former residential school site , in Kamloops, I feel an unsettling inner malaise. I thought I knew my country, but suddenly, an identity void sets in.
Who are these indigenous communities with whom the “whites” live together? Why was “modern society” deprived of their contribution when no one else could better convey the notions of spirituality, sharing and relationship with nature that are missing from our collective DNA, to name only those -the ? The current of the past deprived the nation that Canada has become of a more harmonious life that was predestined to it precisely thanks to the presence of the First Peoples.
A few organizations exist here and there, offering short immersions. But we seem far from an offer that would allow all our young people to be exposed to it. Stays with the 50 nations and more that shape our country in search of a flouted identity: this is a model that would make people want to. Such immersion, without the prerequisite of a diploma, could allow young people to take a break from their studies or their work to live an experience of involvement in a community lasting from 3 to 12 months. A model that could be closer to the Citizen Service that former deputy Léo Bureau-Blouin wanted to create before his departure from politics in 2014. In Europe, we talk about the European Solidarity Corps. In the United States, we can draw inspiration from the Americorps program, created in 1993 by Bill Clinton.
The difference here is that the community involvement would be within “the other people”. For the non-native, for example, it would mean meeting an Aboriginal, Métis or Inuit community. One thing is certain, the success of such a project would only be possible with the endorsement and inseparable participation of the Aboriginal communities.
Independent senator and Indigenous activist Michèle Audette, whom I have had the good fortune to meet, agrees: “When someone talks to me about such a project, I see them in action, our young builders of a reconciled future, and natives. I see them discovering the best of the other people through the culture—discovering the benefit of tolerance—awakening their five senses, and welcoming the healing of an unjust slice of history that has been imposed on us. While I did not know who I was, I myself experienced cultural immersion in the communities of Donnacona, in Quebec, and then in Brazil, with the support of Canada World Youth. What I have to say: “Thank you, life!” »
Let us, non-natives and Aboriginals, take this opportunity to rebuild our collective identity. An identity based on mutual knowledge, tolerance and inclusion. That it becomes natural for every young adult to dedicate a stage of their life to cultural immersion with another people in Canada, while contributing to community projects, with the added bonus of learning another language, c This is perhaps where the real glimmer of this non-native-Aboriginal encounter lies, which has been searching for a path of healing for four hundred years.