alumni Profiles
S a l i a J ose p h
I
can confidently say that my time in the First Nations and Indigenous Studies program changed my life. Being mixed race, having grown up off reserve, outside of my ancestral Sḵwx̱wú7mesh territory I grappled for a long time about how to belong. I felt a lot of shame about what I didn’t know about my ancestry, culture, and about my timidness in my own community. FNIS helped me contextualize so much of what my family and I had gone through and help take away the shame I felt, taught me it wasn’t mine to carry. FNIS helped me understand the structures of colonialism and how to apply these critical lenses to my own experience. This was so immensely healing. This learning also happened amidst the beginning of some of my most important friendships, other Indigenous people that I met in the program that are now my family. I have deep reverence for the professors in this department and will always have gratitude for them and all their labour taking us in, calling us home, demonstrating that Native bodies belong in all spaces and that no one can tell our stories better than we can. Dory, Glen, Daniel, Janey, Sheryl, David, Johnny – you are all such an important and influential part of my life and thank you for each of your roles in sending me home to my community with a new lens that made me feel deserving of Sḵwx̱wú7mesh joy and belonging and the tools for advocacy. Following my degree I went on to spend several years learning and teaching my language and running a non-profit that focuses on adult language immersion and revitalization of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh language. I also run an Indigenous consultancy called Host Consulting inc. which is run by women of the three host nations of Vancouver, Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh (MST). Our goal is to advocate for our nations and for MST representation on our land. We do this largely through public art consultation and art advocacy as well as through facilitations and critical anti-racist and decolonial dialogues. I stand behind the program and know from experience that it sets you up for success in so many areas and there will be plenty of work waiting for you on the other side. Tima ta kwetsi.
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