How to Find Parents and Lose Friends: An Urban Indigenous Story About Bullies

I learned the approximate location of my biological mother one year ago. While I was teaching HIST 4508 Cultures and Colonialism at York University, I got an alarming email through my website. A stranger reached out to tell me about the adult woman who gave birth to me when she was fifteen. Around the same time, Indigenous identity fraud allegations rocked the online world. Wilfrid Laurier University placed a senior educator on leave pending an investigation in response to allegations that came out roughly this time last year. It is safe to say that 2024 was a year of shocks.

The hardest part about meeting my mother was I lost faith in non-racialized, self-identifying folks in urban centers, particularly university towns. As soon as I met my mother, I could not imagine disowning her. It is spiritually and ethically impossible for me to lie about my birth. I will never throw my siblings under the bus or get an ego so big I think money and lawyers make truth. I cannot believe there are people in the world who take advantage of Scoop survivors to commit identity fraud. Unfortunately, this is my experience in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.

When this senior university employee was placed on leave, lower-level identity fraudsters must have panicked all over town. I lost days and days to online bullying from a non-racialized, self-identifying, person of settler descent. I did not confront this person with allegations of identity fraud (I am not the police) but more importantly, this person self-combusted without direct accusation. Panic made this person call me an “elitest, ableist, Karen who uses their intelligence to hurt people” in response to an offer I made to summarize books on Indigenous identity via text message.  I used the breakdown of this relationship as a learning experience for me and my students. This settler taught us how and why identity frauds write vague, misleading biographies, steal sales at markets from authentic First Nations, Inuit, and Métis, and place themselves on boards of “Indigenous” not-for-profit organizations they made with a small group of supporters.  I showed my students how four minutes, a Facebook page, and two obituaries can recreate a settler family tree for four generations on Ancestry.ca. If you are a white Canadian, all you need is the first and last name of a deceased Canadian and the internet.

One year ago, the most I could do was double down reading my so-called “elitist” history books then drag myself to class once a week to teach non-Indigenous students how bullying connects me to my ancestors. When I talked about daily Métis hate I see on social media, I said “if Tony and Christi Belcourt-the most Métis people and family I can think of in Ontario-if Tony Belcourt can be bullied for being Métis, then so can I.” I cannot unsee the hateful narratives my Indigenous and non-Indigenous peers perpetuate online which is meant to erase Métis people. I can’t sit beside these people at art markets knowing it’s only a matter of time before they turn on me.

I have always known non-Indigenous people on this territory are hostile to Métis people because I survived high school in Wingham, Ontario. The urban safe space I imagined in Kitchener-Waterloo does not exist either. I am blessed to be racialized Métis because my childhood Scoop displacement forced me onto the Haldimand Tract. If I had my way, I would have grown up in Saskatoon near my mother because I could have blended in with my people. Now I know I had to be removed from the territory because my mother never stopped walking the streets of Saskatoon looking for me. Instead,  I was told by non-Indigenous people from Ontario to hate my mother and myself for being visibly Native. Now that non-Indigenous people lie about their birth for jobs, social media clout, and praise … I guess my ancestors knew what they were doing when they blessed my appearance? I look exactly like my mother and brother. Without specific Indigenous physical identity markers, would I recognize myself as a Scoop survivor? I see this question reflected in the historical record and in the Scoop survivors I know, both white-passing and racialized.

I have everything identity frauds want: a horrifying Scoop story (to trauma dump) and I am racialized. It does not matter what I wear, what I say or what I do: I look Native because I am. Identity frauds will steal my confidence, words, and bead sales. But they can’t steal my real-life experience or my future. I take comfort in the brown eyes, seasonally brown skin, and black hair of my brother, mother, nieces, and nephews. I used to be an active member of the Kitchener-Waterloo urban Indigenous community, but I see no safe space. I got distracted by successful, insecure people who have clout but lack spirit. I thought I wanted clout, but it turns out all I want is a stable job so I can support my family.

 I will give you one more example of how bullying from an individual made more than one space in Waterloo unsafe for me. Right before the first COVID lockdown, a low-level university administrator called me into their office for a one-on-one meeting. They started this meeting by saying “I know you are going to take this the wrong way because of your experience in the child welfare system…” After that topic sentence, no more exposition is necessary, but I will continue because I turned on my Best historian listening ears to remember when this Indigenous administrator looked me in the eyes and said,

“Laurier is not the community. This is not the community. Why don’t you go to Healing of the Seven Generations? Do not come back here unless you are invited so we can host you. Don’t worry, I will have this meeting with all the alumni, not just you.”

Did any other Laurier alumni get called into a similar meeting? One example of why I was asked to leave was because alumni ate too many granola bars: it is not fair to Laurier to waste resources on alumni. This administrator ended the meeting by giving me a sheer yellow scarf with black moose print. I held on to that scarf long enough to notice that administrator move to a similar role at the University of Waterloo.

I am grateful to Sara Hotomanie and Skye Johns for helping me through this time in my life. I was surrounded by physically strong, emotionally intelligent, and Indigenously-secure women. We knew the administrator was sending all three of us a message through me. The comment about granola bars was just specific enough to make my friends laugh and say, “oh, my b.” I have no idea where the granola bars are. I got rid of that moose scarf because it is bad medicine. I have not returned to the student centers at Laurier or the University of Waterloo even though I have history degrees from both institutions. I have since found a supportive urban Indigenous community at York University as well as an ever growing family network in Orillia and Saskatoon.

Meeting my mother face-to-face helped me understand I was used by identity frauds because I am a Scoop survivor. I am a talented educator with a passion for independent research, so these identity frauds used my words and presence to convince others. These people lie when they say evidence of their race, their parent’s race, or any contact with the state was lost in a fire. Or, maybe their papers are so important to the fabric of the state of Canada their documents are guarded by a well-paid RCMP officer? I am here to tell you that the province of Ontario sends child welfare case files via email with clean pdf document attachments because it is 2024. I dedicated 10 years of my life to Canadian history to tell you: we are 200 years into paper-based colonialism. The last time the “I lost my papers in a fire” excuse worked was before World War II because most documents from the 1950s through the 1970s exist on microfiche and are stored in fire proof buildings. I will believe your fire story when you show me the newspaper article that covered a devastating Canadian archive blaze which destroyed your documents (or your roll of microfiche). The whole point of the Indian Act was to make a really long list of Indians ON PAPER so employees of the state of Canada could come up with methods of extermination which make the list shorter until we don’t exist at all, ON PAPER. At what point did your ancestors interact with that list-making process? My ancestors were kicked off the list at least 4 generations ago which is why I am non-status Métis speaking and writing English in 2024.

I was born into a world where land is stolen, trees cut down, trees are made into paper, then laws are written on our trees to “govern” said stolen land. Paper is the lifeblood of the state of Canada, and I mean that in terms of resource extraction as well as legislation. Yes, all the terms are made up. The truth is, we live in a cold climate where state interactions are recorded and stored in warehouses. State interactions are central to all Canadians, not just Indigenous children. However, Indigenous children are perpetual targets of state sponsored surveillance. This surveillance is called the child welfare system but it used to be called Residential Schools. The state of Canada has no problem sending documents to you if you ask nicely, fill out the correct form and pay fees in full. There is no problem because the state is protected by privacy legislation. You can have access to all the redacted information you want! If you want an unredacted version of your documents, all you have to do is pay the lawyers, pay the state, ask nicely, and wait a long time. For example, the province of Saskatchewan took three years to process my first freedom of information request. My request took three years because privacy legislation states social workers are allowed to write racist things about me as a child, but I am not allowed to read racist writing as a full-grown adult researcher. A second example of my legitimate struggle for documents is that the state of Canada stole names with privacy legislation: I still do not know my birth father’s name. I am not allowed to see my Indigenous or Vietnamese family names in my own child welfare case file. This information is brought to you by a determined Scoop survivor who does this work to heal. I am not fucking around. If you need more help understanding the concept of Scoop survivor paperwork in the last 70 years, please stay tuned for my seven-chapter dissertation, coming Spring 2025.

Let me be clear, going no contact with your non-Indigenous, white-passing parents, because you wish you were birthed by someone else is not the same as a Scoop experience. A traditional “adoption” in the culture is not the same as a Scoop experience. Two white Canadians who chose to relocate their family from one province to another for better job opportunities is not the same as a Scoop experience. Please be more considerate of Scoop survivors when you use words like adoption, displacement, or write vague statements like “bringing my family into the future.” As self-identifying, non status, racialized Indigenous people, we must be educated enough to know when someone is bullshitting their biography to get into Indigenous art markets or onto the board of a new not-for-profit. We need to be secure in our identities to know the difference between a legitimate displacement story and identity fraud.

 Racialized Indigenous people with consciences must act to protect youth from cosplaying groomers who make settlers Native for social media clout. Do not waste time trying to elicit honesty from identity frauds. Tell the truth for them! The truth is, not all children who were stolen from their families survived. Some kids who were scooped lived and died as non-Indigenous. Some elders lived over 60 years before they learned the term “Scoop survivor” let alone used the term to describe themselves. “The Scoop” was coined by Patrick Johnson in the 1980s in a state-funded report. Only a paid state agent would give a cute nickname to a genocide. One day we will move away from the cute misnomer “Scoop” to call this phenomenon what it is: a genocide perpetuated against Indigenous children by the state of Canada. We do not need non-Indigenous people to race shift to boost our numbers. First Nations, Inuit, and Métis are the fastest growing demographic in Canada because we love babies and you aren’t allowed to steal them from us anymore.

Identity frauds tend to reference examples from the 1920 version of the Indian Act to race shift in 2024. Non-status, racialized Indigenous youth in care (like me) have been a provincial responsibility for at least two generations across Canada therefore all money is meticulously tracked, traced, and typed. Discrepancies between provinces are typically explained by varied timelines. For example, Ontario has the best bureaucratic infrastructure because the center of colonialism in Canada took financial responsibility for Indigenous children to force a policy shift from assimilation in Residential Schools to integration into public schools. This means Ontario has had more time to develop a system to return documents. However, my people actively oppose this erosion of Treaty rights in Saskatchewan. Colonial, bureaucratic structures are less developed and there are more visible Indigenous people on the prairies than in Ontario and Quebec which means documents take longer to process out west. To be clear, both status and non status Indigenous children cost provinces a lot of money through education and child welfare therefore the state has a vested interest in creating paper documents for financial responsibility. My people continue to fight Canada for sovereignty through financial control of child welfare and education for all status and non-status Indigenous children.

All Canadians interact with the state in a way that creates a paper trail. There are no Canadian citizens in their thirties who have ZERO documents. That does not make sense. You may not know how to access your documents but that does not mean documents do not exist. If you found out you have an Indigenous ancestor yesterday, you do not start a bead business, start selling dream catchers, or accept grants tomorrow. If you lived your whole life in a white-passing experience AND your only connection to Indigeneity is a deceased person’s delusion, please do not start singing songs for capitalism about how hard discrimination was after you got a spray tan and dyed your hair black. We are not the same.

I don’t know why some frausters pretend the border between Canada and The United States of America was porous during The Great Depression and into the Cold War. Some lies require us to believe it was possible for young Indigenous women with babies born in the state of Canada to become American citizens without being documented during moments of upheaval. Another part of high level identity frauds rely on hearsay from deceased family members or statements that read like elder abuse. An even BIGGER identity fraud unrelated to the one I experienced at Laurier was reported by CBC and The Fifth Estate this time last year. This fraud from The United States saw one sibling sign documents to say their younger brother never saw them born, how would he know if I’m Native or not? If my big brother told me he’s white because I never saw him exit our mother’s womb, I would not believe him. Why do we believe rich, powerful, race shifters because their lies are forty years old? There are many, many Scoop survivors who did the work to find their documents with limited resources and time.

If you have access to a team of lawyers, please pay them to attack the state of Canada for putting us in this position rather than use a colonial punishment against your own family. If you have enough money to pay for an affidavit that swears you are Indian according to an unrelated elder, then you also have the resources to access real documents that will truly connect you to your ancestors, Indigenous or otherwise. Don’t tell me that forty years of good deeds hiding a lifetime of dishonesty is enough to speak over real Scoop survivors. Your heart might be Indian but your experience is not. The nature of a Scoop experience is that we did not grow up in the culture. How is it possible to speak on behalf of a culture you did not grow up in? Stay in your lane. Remember that honesty is one of the Seven Grandfather Teachings. Honesty requires practice. This year I learned that honesty is difficult to find. Lies will make your spirit sick from the inside out. Indigenous people know that truth in Canada is a game of patience. Canadians are distracted by reconciliation, or “getting over it.” I cannot “get over it” because my Scoop experience is ongoing. Please read Eve Tuck and Wayne Yang’s article called “Decolonization is not a metaphor” for more specific examples of how settlers move to innocence. You can access this article online at the link here.

 This year I used absence to make my opinions known. I took myself out of unsafe spaces. I have too many real-life problems to deal with to take on unnecessary bullying. Here are two examples of real life bullying that are more important than being called a “Karen.”

 Example #1

1)    This year I lost my job to strike and I wrote two drafts of my dissertation. The most successful work I did this year was organize 354 pages of my case file by chronology and theme. I did just enough paper trailing to convince my supervisor that I’m not just fucking around. I lost my contract faculty job at York University to strike in February. I was already operating at a financial deficit to make that teaching gig work with dissertation writing. I took a leave of absence rather than wait for a strike resolution because I was in a bad position. I abandoned my students. I am not capable of protecting students in a university setting because I am a target, that is what I learned from my second York University strike.

I go back and forth on my case file. Sometimes I find the information helpful other moments I am convinced its all bullshit. I learned the exact date social workers realized bonds between my mother and I severed. That sentence still hurts to write. I can feel myself coming out of a long writer’s block but putting words on the page feels so final, even when I know that I found Mom and we are making new memories all the time.

In the picture below you will see a social worker noted “Cecilia has no recollection of her birth mother.” I was stolen from my mom 30 days after I was born. I was born in September (or October), but I spent my first Christmas with non-Indigenous people in foster care…and all 31 other Christmases … Up until this year, the social worker was correct. I visited Mom in foster care for two and a half years before my guardians decided it was time for me to forget her. You can see a concentrated effort throughout my case file by non-Indigenous guardians to go against social worker advice: this strategy will cause problems later. I see evidence social workers worried about my relationships with mother and brother. This document convinced me I need to be better to my brother. This document makes me feel guilty that I do not do more for my mother. This document makes me very angry. It is safe to say going through my case file while living my Scoop experience is a lot. I am emotionally drained at the end of a good research day.

Page 126 Cecilia child welfare case file is heavily redacted including family last name. Note “Cecilia has no recollection of her birth mother.”

Example #2

2)    I am very grateful to the stranger who used my website to contact me about the woman who gave birth to me. However, this man went on to spend one full year making my life more miserable.  I included a screenshot of real messages. I lose days and days to phone calls and texts because I don’t understand who these people are yet. This stranger sends harmful statements that I cannot imagine repeating to anyone let alone a Scoop survivor. I do not have the means to take care of myself at this moment, let alone a 47-year-old addict who lives three provinces away.

I am working very hard to finish my doctorate so I can get a job that pays well. Once I make enough money to pay my own rent, I will do everything in my capacity to take care of my family members. It is unreasonable to put pressure on me to be my mother’s mental health cure or her reason for sobriety. I would love to call my mother every single day. However, I never ever want to call this stranger because I feel unsafe (MMIWG2S+). This is not the first time a non-Indigenous person used my mother to manipulate me. This is not the last time I will be used to manipulate my mother. Next time my Mom calls, I will tell her why I refuse to call that number. I don’t know why this stranger keeps getting in between us. I wish my mother had a safe place to go so we could talk on the phone in peace.

There is no debt for me to pay off. Non-Indigenous social workers, guardians, and teachers told me I was unwanted and unlovable that is why my adoption incurred a debt. My adoption debt must be paid through housework, people pleasing, and blind loyalty to non-Indigenous adults who are paid by the state to house me. As a full-grown adult in 2024, I say from experience THERE IS NO DEBT TO PAY. I am a Scoop survivor. I survive every day. My Scoop experience will never end. My guardians used to say, “we put clothes on your back and a roof over your head. What more do you want from us?” I know for a fact my brother and I rather live on the streets of Saskatoon with our mother than under their roof, in their clothes. My guardians used to say “if it weren’t for us, you would be working on a street corner.” It took me thirty years to realize non-Indigenous people are talking around the fact Mom is a victim of child sex-trafficking and violence against Indigenous girls. I am the product of violence against one specific Indigenous girl. Canadian racism knows no bounds.

After a good research day combined with a few angry text messages from a stranger on Saskatoon time, I struggle with nightmares. Some nights I am too afraid to close my eyes. I refuse to go to sleep for as long as possible. When I get so tired I have no choice, I wake up drenched in sweat, so physically uncomfortable I forget what I was dreaming. It probably doesn’t matter what the dream was about because my brain can’t make this shit up.

Thank You so much for reading. 2024 was a really lonely year defined by panic attacks, unemployment, and my own childhood trauma. If you made it this far, please please reach out unless it is to bully me. If you want to bully me so I have hate fuel for another post that’s okay, I guess. Your insults better be creative. Despite what my bullies say, I work very hard to pass ethics reviews both in formal university documents and for funzies. I doubt the “elites” will ever accept me as one of their own but its nice to know my bullies think I am ELITE. I have a hard time accepting compliments. I’m much better at debunking lies. If you wanna make me real uncomfortable, say something nice!

All the best,

Cecilia Elizabeth Best

Screenshot image of text messages from stranger about my birth mother. How often do you call your mother? What is the appropriate number of times to call a stranger who lives 3 provinces away?

would you reply to this email?