Empty Spaces

• Autores: Jordan Abel
• Localización: Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, ISSN 0004-1327, ISSN-e 1920-1222, Vol. 51, Nº. 2-3, 2020 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Indigenous and Postcolonial Studies), págs. 233-270
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This piece is an excerpt from my forthcoming book NISHGA and is taken from one of the concluding sections. NISHGA is a deeply personal and autobiographical book that attempts to address the complications of contemporary Indigenous existence. As a Nisga'a writer, I often find myself in a position where I am asked to explain my relationship to Nisga'a language, community, and cultural knowledge. However, as an intergenerational survivor of residential school—both of my grandparents attended the same residential school in Chilliwack, British Columbia—my relationship to Indigenous identity is complicated, to say the least. NISHGA explores those complications and is invested in understanding how the colonial violence originating at the Coqualeetza Indian Residential School impacted my grandparents' generation, my father's generation, and ultimately my own generation. The project is rooted in a desire to illuminate the realities of intergenerational survivors of residential school, but sheds light on Indigenous experiences that may not seem to be immediately (or inherently) Indigenous. Drawing on autobiography, a series of interconnected documents (including pieces of memoir, transcriptions of talks, and photography), NISHGA is a book about confronting difficult truths. NISHGA is also about how both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples engage with a history of colonial violence that is quite often rendered invisible