Aboriginal - Girls Action Foundation

If they hadn’t protected me, both my mom and grandma, and shown me another world,
allowed me to be who I was. I would have never been able to play basketball in Hawaii,
or play in the Indigenous Games. I would have never been able to live independently, and
leave the reserve to study journalism. I would have never been able to fail and still feel
like I accomplished something. I would have never been able to deal with molestation
and forgive the perpetrator; I would have succumbed to drug addictions.
Witnessing the strength of my mother: who dealt with judgments for having a child at
an early age, who endured through abusive relationships, and still finished her university
degree and witnessing the strength of my grandmother: who survived residential school,
who was always thankful, and believed in being a poised lady at all times; provided me a
sense of strength to become my own woman.
Because they believed in me, and made me realize at an older age, that there were some
horrible things they had lived through, and persevered, I knew that deep down inside I
could do the same.
Because they were strong, proud Blackfoot women, women who could rodeo, women
who could raise six children with less than a grade six education, women who could rise
above the stereotypes, and become a CEO of a management Corporation. Women who
could take care of her children’s children when times got too hard for them, women who
could not only provide guidance, support and leadership, but women who could make
you behave with a look in their eye. I knew that I would get through.
Just recently I was shown a black and white photograph of my great grandmother, her
Blackfoot name was Tsii’kiinaa’kii, in the picture ladies dressed in proper suits and high
heels stand in the background. They are watching from a distance; my great grandmother
is walking down the street in her moccasins. With a scarf wrapped around her head in true
Blackfoot granny style, she carries a piece of paper that looks to be a diploma. I am not sure
what she carries; I like to think that it is her diploma. That she is smiling because she knows,
that not only will her daughter, but her daughter’s daughter, and her daughter’s daughter
will be able to do the same. Walk in the world we live today, with moccasins, and the pride
in knowing that she is a successful, proud, fourth generation First Nations Woman.
42 Katie Jo Rabbit