Telling our Healthy Stories

Pho­to­graphs tell us many things about the past — what our ancest­ors looked like; how our cit­ies or towns once appeared; or who was present at import­ant polit­ical events. People look to their pho­to­graphic archives for their his­tory. Yet when Abori­ginal people look for images of their ancest­ors, what their com­munit­ies looked like, or import­ant his­tor­ical events in their lives, the records become scarce. We are more famil­iar with the ste­reo­types of the Indian chief and squaw, the Eskimo, or Half-breed, than enga­ging with them as real people.

~Jeff Thomas (Iroquois), in Where are the Chil­dren? Heal­ing the Leg­acy of the Res­id­en­tial Schools (pub­lished by the Leg­acy of Hope Found­a­tion, 2003

For the past sev­eral years, I’ve been immersed in devel­op­ing use­ful health inform­a­tion for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people across Canada. I’m pas­sion­ate about mak­ing sure that Abori­ginal people in Canada get inform­a­tion that empowers them to think about achiev­ing good health in their tra­di­tional ways.

My good friend Jack­son and I have an ongo­ing dia­logue about what it means to be healthy (and ulti­mately, happy). While my own per­spect­ive as a mixed-race First Nations woman is unique from Jack’s, our com­mon bond is that we both under­stand first-hand the issues that Abori­ginal people are deal­ing with — isol­a­tion, poverty, healing.

As an inter-generational sur­vivor of the res­id­en­tial school sys­tem (and the foster care sys­tem, and the six­ties scoop, phew!), I grew up sur­roun­ded by a lot of anger, guilt, abuse, and mis­trust. As I grew into a young adult, the act of cre­at­ing became very import­ant for me to deal with all of these emo­tions. Jack­son is a per­son who gets the import­ance of being cre­at­ive along the heal­ing jour­ney, and thank­fully, he has often been the impetus for my creations.

That’s why I asked Jack­son to join me on my research jour­ney this year. Thanks to a Tril­lium grant, I’ve been look­ing at what we can do to help pre­vent obesity in Ontario’s Abori­ginal com­munit­ies. People kept telling me, “We need to see people who look like us.” So many books and reports that aim to help Abori­ginal people actu­ally serve to rein­force many of the ste­reo­types that aren’t exactly helpful.

I dis­cussed this with Jack. He knows me well, and he knows I’m a stub­born force when I’m work­ing to achieve my vis­ions. I knew he would be able to under­stand, respect, and most import­antly, help me to achieve my vis­ion when it came to put­ting my friends and other people I love in front of the lens.

We’ve now col­lab­or­ated on sev­eral photo shoots in Toronto and Ott­awa for my research. Jackson’s images help me turn my words into some­thing that people can actu­ally use, some­thing that inspires them. I see faces light up when they see our pho­tos. Jackson’s shots help people to get an under­stand­ing that as Abori­ginal people, we don’t fit into the ste­reo­types that so many hold about us. Not all of us are brown or red, and some of us even have blonde hair and blue eyes. His images help every­one (includ­ing me!) to ques­tion our ideas about what we think about Abori­ginal people.

Get­ting this far wasn’t easy. There is no guide­book to pro­du­cing use­ful images of Abori­ginal people in a cul­tur­ally appro­pri­ate way. Most of my friends don’t have hand­lers, and I had no budget for light­ing, loc­a­tions, or much of any­thing else. Jack­son had to get up close and per­sonal with many of the chil­dren, aunties/uncles, par­ents, teach­ers, and grand­par­ents. He couldn’t walk into a room, shoot the chil­dren, and leave. He actu­ally had to engage.

One warm, sum­mer even­ing I invited Jack­son to meet some of my close friends for the first time, a beau­ti­ful Métis fam­ily that I love dearly. They had arranged a deli­cious feast for all of us to enjoy together. As we sat down for our meal, their 4-year-old was smil­ing wildly and climb­ing all over Jack­son as if he were a jungle gym. His par­ents smiled warmly at me, and I was clear on the fact that every­one knew we were safe with Jack. For us, this child’s act spoke volumes — we believe that chil­dren are closest to the Cre­ator, and they know when they are safe.

My research isn’t over, and neither is my col­lab­or­a­tion with Jack. Many people are excited about this work, so I’m aim­ing to expand it and get us up north to meet the Dene and Métis people in the North­w­est Ter­rit­or­ies. It’s sort of selfish, I guess — hav­ing Jack­son around helps me feel safe. It means there is someone sens­ible to listen, give use­ful feed­back, and help me to stay inspired and sane.

For now, I present to you what we have achieved so far. Jackson’s pho­tos provide the beau­ti­ful images for this video, and the back­drop for the research I’ll present at the Our People, Our Health con­fer­ence in Ott­awa in the com­ing weeks. Stay tuned for more or visit my web­site, beststart.org for more information.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YnW1793enw

Guest blog entry by Melanie Fer­ris (con­tact: m.ferris@healthnexus.ca)