the journal Vol. 148, Issue 13
Queen’s University
Friday, November 13, 2020
Situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples.
Since 1873
A breakdown of barriers: Indigenous veterans and the World Wars PHOTOS BY MAIA MCCANN
ILLUSTRATION BY
ASHLEY CHEN
R aechel H uizinga Editor in Chief Zoogipon Ikwe didn’t know her great-grandfather served in the First World War until she began researching her own genealogy. “I put a post up about him on a website and this lady from Turtle Mountain contacted me and said ‘hey, we’ve been looking for this guy, he disappeared off our register. We don’t know where he went to.’ I said ‘oh, that’s my grandfather.’” Ikwe is an Algonquin and Ojibwe woman who lives in Kingston. She works as an Indigenous Navigator at the Cancer Centre of Southeastern Ontario. “I see patients who have cancer and I help them with accessibility and breaking down barriers and advocacy,” she said in an interview with The Journal. “I also do a lot of traditional, spiritual counselling with my medicine bundle.” After the War, Ikwe’s grandfather came to Quebec, where he met her grandmother. He was originally from the Turtle Mountain Chipewa reserve in North Dakota. “I found the form he filled out to join the military, the little card he had to fill out, and it was so cool to see his writing,” she said. “I imagine it probably wasn’t his writing. It was probably someone else’s writing and he made a scribble.” Nov. 8 is Indigenous Veterans Day. While not formally recognized by the federal government, it’s nationally recognized as a separate day of commemoration for Indigenous veterans. In Canada, Veterans Affairs estimates there are 12,000 Indigenous veterans, but exact statistics are unknown. Only 7,000 names are recorded on the Aboriginal Veterans Tribute Honour List, which was last updated on Nov. 12, 2020. “When you think about it, a lot of times when [Indigenous folks] joined the War effort, they also lost their native status,” Ikwe said. “They call that enfranchisement. They would often be promised land and Canadian status in exchange for their service.” queensjournal.ca
Ikwe said that sometimes Indigenous veterans didn’t return home after fighting in the World Wars. “But others did go home, so there’s a lot of pride that goes around veterans.” For Ikwe, though, it’s not about military service. “To me, I see them as victims of politics, really,” she said. “They’re heroes in the way that they gave their lives for something they believed in, but in my opinion, they and their families are victims of the government and colonization.” Many benefits offered to World War veterans were denied to Indigenous veterans, and today, not much has changed. “My friend is a veteran,” Ikwe said. “He’s younger. He served and was discharged medically, but there’s nothing for him. There’s nothing for veterans, let alone Indigenous veterans around here. He’s been having trouble finding support and things like that.” Scott Sheffield, a history professor at the University of Fraser Valley, has dedicated more than two decades of research to Indigenous contributions to the World Wars and Indigenous veterans. He echoed Ikwe in saying there’s not much support available to both World War and recent Indigenous veterans. “After the War, Indigenous veterans were in many ways forgotten until the 1970s and 80s and 90s when they again came into the public eye,” he told The Journal. “There’s been steps that have been constructed since then to include Indigenous people in national acts of remembrance.” He pointed to recent Remembrance Day ceremonies which saw Indigenous representatives laying wreaths, as well as Indigenous-specific commemorative events. See Veterans page 3 @queensjournal
Four Directions talks importance of visibility on campus. Page 4 Navigating the colonialist
McGill sets example with scholarship
Page 6
Page 11
nature of curriculum
for Indigenous athletes
Billie the Kid
Indigenous representation
Page 9
Page 13
discusses her poetry
@queensjournal
in film and TV
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@thequeensjournal