Identity, Memory, and Documents: How Structural Barriers Impact Scoop Survivor Histories 1945-2023
I presented this work at The Society for the History of Children and Youth at the University of Guelph on 8 June, 2023. This is an introduction to my dissertation work.
Locate Self
My name is Cecilia Elizabeth Best. I am a Scoop survivor. I was born to a 15-year-old Metis girl in Edmonton, Alberta in October 1992. My birth father was a 38-year-old Vietnamese man. I was hospitalized in Saskatoon a month after I was born. I was apprehended by Saskatchewan’s child welfare system directly from the hospital in November 1992. I was separated from my brother and sister to be raised in foster care where I visited with my birth mother for a few years. Eventually guardianship was transferred to the state so I could be adopted out (permanent ward). My brother and I were adopted out to a non-Indigenous family from Ontario which is how I ended up on the Haldimand Tract (six miles on either side of the Grand River). My PhD dissertation is how I process trauma through education. I am at the end of the fifth year of my PhD studies at York University. I study the child welfare system to better understand how I landed in this situation. This is what I know today.
What is The Scoop?
I define The Scoop as an ongoing process of colonialism that perpetuates the goals of assimilation (genocide) funded by the Canadian state from the post war period to today. The Scoop as a process is any interaction with the Canadian state which has the power to make decisions on behalf of an Indigenous child or their natural parent(s). At one point in our shared history, all Indigenous people were considered children by law. The Scoop is a process that evolved out of the development of the state of Canada. I see the Confederation of Canada as a dark time for Indigenous people. There is a direct line between the development of the state of Canada and the oppression of Indigenous Peoples.
The Scoop is a series of overlapping colonial processes which are the foundation of the state of Canada. The Scoop refers to systems which separate Indigenous children from land, culture, and community. The Scoop is the result of several overlapping professions. My research focuses on social work, medicine, law, psychology, and education. There are many more professional networks involved with the child welfare system. Future research will expand this list. The case files I study show that capitalism and The Scoop are linked because our jobs make us complicit in The Scoop. We are all complicit in systems that oppress Indigenous people. I am complicit because I participate in events like this where my research is only accessible to people who can pay for it. I am employed by a university that benefits financially from stolen Native land. Worst of all, my research is funded by the Canadian state (SSHRC). How effective is it for me to write about state sponsored genocide when I benefit financially from the state? My challenge to everyone in the audience is to accept that you are complicit too. What is colonialism? If you do not have an answer right now, you have work to do. How are you complicit in colonialism?
The Scoop is a colonial process not a timeframe. The Scoop is ongoing because there are more Indigenous children in care today than ever before. The Scoop is colonialism. Colonialism is personal. Survivors get to define The Scoop, not the state. Dates associated with The Scoop are for legal, state-centered processes that affect many people at once (ie court cases, class action, money). I used to think I needed several professional university degrees to have my voice heard. I am here with several professional university degrees to tell you that Scoop survivors define The Scoop, not academics or the state.
My research is micro history which privileges the individual voices of survivors. Therefore, I work hard to keep in mind that state building is a gradual process that is important but not definitional. Personally, I will not allow the Canadian state to define my race, identity, or personal history so I resist using state-based definitions for anything, including the timeframe of The Scoop, my race (ie. Status card), or my gender.
The Indian Act, the Residential School system and The Scoop are all directly related, they overlap, and these processes impact us all, not just Indigenous people. The Scoop is foundational Canadian welfare state history. Public education about Indigenous Peoples history is suppressed which puts the burden of education on survivors rather than on everyone who is complicit in the system (all of us).
The Residential School system and The Scoop overlapped from the late 1940s until the late 1990s. By the time the last residential school closed in 1996, the state of Canada invested 50 years funding and perpetuating the child welfare system to replace Residential Schools. I was raised in child welfare just as residential schools were closing. My experience in the child welfare system reflects the evolution of church-state partnerships to entirely state funded genocide which occurred in private homes rather than “schools.” However, religion continues to impact Scoop experiences because foster and adoption placements were approved based on “desirable criteria” such as religious background. The religion of government employees (ie social workers, lawyers, court system) also impacts Scoop experiences. For example, I was forced to attend Roman Catholic school and church but I was never allowed to fully participate because I am Native and am “unbaptized.”
Introduction to Research
My research is an extension of childhood curiosity and confusion over my status as a Vietnamese Metis foster kid. At some point, I realized that if I ask different adults the same question, they give different answers. This difference was particularly impactful to me when I started to ask adults, “why was I adopted?” Answers to this question will always vary. There are many answers to this question. I think what I have to say about my journey so far will be helpful to Indigenous youth, elders, and community members who are going through similar situations.
Barriers
1) Time: This is a time-consuming process, for the survivor and for the state. The forms take time. Redactions take time. Healing is not linear. Identity develops over time. Relationships require time. The Scoop experience cannot be rushed.
2) Definitions: I know from experience that definitions are tricky. Definitions are central to the history profession. Definitions are barriers to Scoop survivors. Any point at which a Scoop survivor must interact with the state is another opportunity for trauma. A barrier for Scoop survivors is that the same process that tried to make us less Indigenous, is the exact same life experience that makes us Indigenous.
a. Show Bill’s letter about The Scoop to illustrate the problem with state definitions. I miss The Sixties Scoop settlement by one year. The most recent course cases end in 1991. I was scooped in 1992.
b. State Definition of Race: why don’t you get your status card? Indigenous people ask me this all the time. To get my status card, I have to find my mother somewhere in Saskatchewan, ask her if she has a status card. If she doesn’t, then I need to figure out why not. Then I need to solve that problem. There are so many intergenerational reasons why a family would have been “enfranchised.” Enfranchised is the state definition of the process wherein our ancestor’s race card taken away and their territory was stolen by the state of Canada piece by piece. I am telling you that looking the way I do with no status card, in the middle of white Ontario, is a confusing life experience to have. I feel guilty about not “being Indigenous enough” or “the wrong Indigenous” because I am on this territory as a Metis person. Indigenous peoples are not interchangeable. A barrier for Scoop survivors is not having access to our history in documents, parents, relations, or kin while being a child. I carry a lot of guilt for the breakdown of foster and adoption placements but at the end of the day, I was a child. As a Scoop survivor, I must work twice as hard to validate my identity while also understanding that state-funded race identification is a really messed up concept.
c. Every Scoop survivor is different. Every Child Matters. The Scoop experience is defined by the individual, not the state of Canada. As historians, we can come up with trends and theories and opinions based on evidence. At the end of the day, every Scoop story is unique. This is a barrier because the child welfare system successfully isolated Indigenous children from our cultures. Isolation is powerful and successful. Many Indigenous people who interacted with Scoop processes do not know because they were busy surviving the process rather than defining or trying to change the system “from within.”
3) Paperwork and Case Files
a. Where are your documents? The first step is to figure out who has your documents, and this is unique to each person. This takes time and technical skills that our elders need help with. The fact that every province has its own system is a barrier. The fact that we have to ask the state for our redacted information is a barrier.
b. Government ID and forms: some people do not have the things we take for granted such as driver’s license, government identification, or credit cards. Poverty seeps into every aspect of life, including the ability to hold on to “important” documents across several generations. There are many, many reasons why a Scoop survivor would prefer not to interact with the state again.
c. Time: Show my document acquisition timeline, PhD research timeline. My case file is heavily redacted. My redacted case file was sent to me 39 months after my request.
d. Redactions: another colonial process that is central to The Scoop in real time. Child welfare case files are state work product which is protected by legislation. Case files define the welfare state rather than who we are as people. I think it is more useful to think of the case file as a physical representation of the Scoop experience. The Scoop is work product for several overlapping professions: social work, law, medicine, psychology, and education.
4) Memory: Memory is a barrier because my childhood memories are incomplete. I do not have contact with the adults who were once my court appointed guardians. My memory of specific events is limited. The nature of memory is beyond the scope of my research but the nature of memory impacts how I take care of my spirit. This research is slow and deliberate because I am reliving memories from my case file as a researcher and as a survivor.
a. Trauma: Some of the information in the case file is traumatic in ways that I did not predict. In my experience, case files take an emotional toll that is not immediately apparent. Redactions are jarring and suspicious.
b. Childhood memory: I do not remember many, if not most, of the dates or events mentioned in the case file. I remember feelings. I remember how I felt as a child. I remember feeling suicidal, scared, unhappy, alone. But I do not remember what events caused those feelings.
c. Adult: Reading my case file did not make anything in childhood clearer. If anything, I come away feeling angrier and more suspicious about my time in care. I am still living through another colonial process (the case file). I am working on an beadwork piece about this to take care of myself and to honour my spirit.
5) Identity
a. Documentary identity: a colonial process that perpetuates The Scoop. An example of documentary identity is a status card. In my case, my documentary identity is the descriptions of myself that social workers, psychologists, teachers, and doctors wrote. I’ve had several sets of guardians so I do not know my own childhood history. On the one hand, I rely on the state to tell me about myself. On the other hand, I don’t trust anything the state says or does. I am particularly suspicious of the redactions in my case file.
b. Survival: day-to-day realities, poverty, intergenerational trauma. Poverty impacts our ability to explain the processes of colonialism while they are happening (The Indian Act, reserves, residential schools, band councils, Bannock, status cards, pass system, stolen land, forced removals, MMWIWG2S, etc). There are too many reasons to list why a survivor does not have the capacity to unpack or define a Scoop experience. I made this work into a full-time job. This is how I survive. Excessive education is my lifeline out of poverty, at least that’s what I was told. I do not advise others do healing work this way. Healing is at odds with the realistic demands of survival. Part of what makes The Scoop such a powerful tool of genocide is that silence is a survival tactic. It is the Scoop survivor’s right to choose the strategy that works best for them.
c. Lack of education: public school is also funded by the state of Canada. Education as a tool of assimilation is a foundational context of Canadian history. Timelines, definitions, and selective education work together to confuse us all about the narrative of the state. Many Indigenous folks do not know they are Scoop survivors until they are elders. Many Indigenous people do not know that their ancestors are Scoop and Residential School survivors at the same time. Many non-Indigenous educators in this country actively erase Indigenous history where the truth is uncomfortable. The truth is, Canada is an overlapping system of oppression which makes education about Indigenous people difficult to access, especially for survivors.
d. Community: The point of The Scoop is genocide. The Scoop separates children from community, land, and culture. The Scoop is extremely effective. Right now, I do not feel Indigenous “enough.” I cannot prove my identity with a state-funded race card. I must unpack all of my unknown family’s intergenerational trauma to find out if I am “eligible” to be an “Indian” according to Canada. All I have is my experience in care and my face. As a child, I was raised to hate the colour of my skin. However, my lack of race card is mitigated by my skin colour and face. Now I see my racialized experience as a blessing. However, I am excluded or not invited to opportunities in urban community spaces because I am mixed race Indigenous and my identity is confusing. I have to work twice as hard to find a place in community because I was taken from the territory of my ancestors. I often feel as if I am the “wrong kind of Indigenous” because I am racialized Vietnamese and Metis from Saskatchewan in Ontario. I am here because of the child welfare system. People invalidate my Indigenous identity because I am also Asian. My birth story and my Scoop experience are trauma. I am often forced to relive, list, and justify my trauma to prove that I am Indigenous “enough.” I cannot receive funding or participate in any event that requires a state-funded race card (ie Indspire, All-Native Basketball, OSAP, scholarships). Isolation is a Scoop experience. I carry a lot of guilt about taking up space because of all the people outed as faking Indigenous identity. I am afraid of being attacked online because my identity is confusing and urban. Most days, my guilt and fear outweigh my pride in being Indigenous. This is The Scoop experience.