Valentine's Day: Remembering the Missing & Murdered Native Women in Canada

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Article by Joseph Ames

          The film Finding Dawn is about the unsolved cases of missing and murdered Native women in Canada. It starts by covering the story of a missing Native woman who lived on the East Side of Vancouver, whose name is Dawn. She lived a troubled life growing up Native in white foster homes. She was abused sexually at a young age while living in a foster home. When Dawn grew older, she followed a difficult path in life leading her straight into prostitution and drugs. On the days of her last known appearance, she was living in East Vancouver, a neighborhood known for prostitution and drugs. Several other Native women were also living in that neighborhood. Dawn's last point of contact was her sister. Her sister knew that something had happened to Dawn when she could not get a hold of her. The family reported Dawn missing to the police department and awaited any news. The police did not find anything leading to Dawn.

The director of Finding Dawn, Christine Welsh, brings attention to the unsolved cases of missing Native women occurring in Canada. The film develops many questions regarding the issue at hand. Why are these Native women being targeted and kidnapped? Why haven't the police caught any suspects involved in these kidnappings? Why is the response time for investigating the kidnappings taking so long? This film creates a public awareness in order to stop these outrageous crimes from continuing to happen. The film has brought the Native communities together to fight what is taking place amongst their people.

Many Native women have been kidnapped off of Highway 16 across Canada and their stories remain a mystery. Highway 16 runs from east to west across some of the most beautiful mountainous terrain in the world. There are so many firebreak roads leading off of the highway and heading deep into the mountains; they can be hard to locate anyone traveling on them. Some family members believe that because of the race of the women missing, that they do not have priority for the police department to look into. The families state that if the victims missing were white, the investigation done by the police department would be more thorough and evidence could be found.

The Native community has set up an awareness day on February 14 in Vancouver, Canada for the missing women. On February 14, which is Valentine's Day, the Native communities gather and walk the streets of East Vancouver. The walk represents an awareness that the missing Native women will never be forgotten, or become a closed case. There is still hope in finding them.

The film Finding Dawn was a rude awakening for me. I had no idea that this was going on in Canada. With the large amount of women that have gone missing, it is hard to comprehend that no one has been caught. Hardly any evidence remains in regards to the missing women. The question still remains, why hasn't anyone been caught yet for the kidnappings of these Native women? It is a huge controversy and the families of the victims are looking for answers. It seems that Canada just leaves the investigations up to their local law enforcement of the area the kidnappings took place. I would like to further investigate into the missing Native women of Canada in the future, and hope to see some important evidence leading to the findings of the person(s) of these cruel acts. I would also like to see the missing Native women's bodies be accounted for with a proper burial.

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Missing or murdered native women list grows to 582

Rainbows, Teddy bears, and drugs - Poem by Osita

I had a good childhood

Rainbows, Fun, and love

Rainbows at Santa Rita on Bright rainy visiting days

I remember the heaviness in my pockets,

The change I would put on my mom's books, thinking it would make a difference.

Walking around Oakland with the cops following us,

Being just a little girl and knowing what it was all about.

We always had it all

My mama took good care of us

Even though she was addicted

To that white powdery stuff

She was like a goddess to us.

I remember playing with drugs, cold guns, sharp knives, and cute little baby dolls.

I didn't even know my dad's name, yet the names of drugs slurred out my mouth.

Till this day I remember clearly the day they took my mommy away

The pigs pulling her away, I cried my little heart out trying to make her stay.

But they did not let her go, not even so she could explain

That day I met hate

I was a little girl who felt pain in her heart and hate in her veins

While other little kids were at home talking with their mom

A tear dropped on the letter I was writing to mine

I loved my childhood with big smiles, emptiness, love, and pain,

I don't want to live in shame when there's things I just can't change.

Poem by Marcie Rendon

Earth Memory

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Earth memory holds me

I lay on the bones of my ancestors

Rhythms of silence run deep

As each breath

Each breath gives life

our grandmother’s dust

Is watered with the fallen dreams

of all women

all women

all women

sacrifice dreams for future generations

A breath of wind

Weaves Water

weaving dreams

We live whole lives between

Each breath

Our grandmothers dust

Waters our dreams

This accumulation of hope

Feeds our souls

women

Breathe life

Breathe life into being

In this season of abundance

Hear grandmother’s breath echo

Her breath moves

All the winds of time

All life intertwined

Earth memory holds me

Holds me to the ground

Holds me on the ground

Holds me in the ground

And sets me free

Poem by Marcie Rendon

Untitled

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a history

Drenched in blood

Relocation

Forced

Acculturation

Termination

Extermination

Contamination

Radiation

Oh wa Ya hey

Oh wa hey

There are no

Broken memories

Only

Forgotten destinies

Hey yah hey

Oh wa hey

Hey yah way

My hope rising

Rising hope

De con tam in ates

I hear women call

I hear all women call

You cannot kill us twice

Oh wa hey

Hey oh aay

Lakota Dakota

Ho chunk

Anishinabe quay

I call

All healing

This earth

Calling all

All healing

This land never was gone

My feet never left this earth

Never left this earth

You cannot kill us twice

This earth never lost

My feet never left this earth

This earth never gone

Poem by Jennifer Lisa Vest

When

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Everybody wants to be an Indian

A pow-wow fancy-dancing

Feather-wearing Indian

Everybody wants to be the

Noble Savage of America

The old man on the banks of the river

Crying about pollution.

But who wants to live on the reservation

Bad coffee, beans, lard, diabetes

And too much TV

Who wants to farm on swampland

Bedrock and waterless sand?

Who wants to wrestle alligators for a living?

Everybody wants to wear suede

And fringe leather jackets

Patterns from Guatemala

Pretty beaded hair barrettes

And turquoise

But who wants to dress up

In fake Indian clothes

For snotty-nosed camp kids

Who call you "Hey Indian"

While you give them a tour

Of your culture?

Everybody wants to be an Indian

To be indignant about

"The crimes of white America"

To be spokesperson for the slighted

And the slaughtered

To write books about ecology

To teach workshops on herbology

But who wants to send their kids

To foreign schools that teach foreign language

Foreign culture

Shame

And how to disrespect?

Who wants to be laughed at in traditional dress

And told they have no culture

In the same breath?

Who wants to be idolized, romanticized

And iconized into something

You can never represent?

Everybody wants to be an Indian

A vision-seeking, sage-burning

Dream-catching Indian

Everybody wants to eat peyote

Dance at the Sundance

Sweat in the sweat lodge

Return to "the way things were"

And dress up like Pocahontas for Halloween

But who wants to have

Sports teams

And four-wheel drives

Named after your ancestors

Or your tribe?

Who wants to be studied

And who wants to be questioned

And who wants their every action

Scrutinized

By non-Indians who claim

To know more than you do

About your way of life?

Everybody wants to be an Indian

When its popular

When its glamorous

When its easy

When its fun.

From the anthology Turtle Island to Abya Yala

Indigenous Voices of Abya Yala (2010) Contributors

Evelyn Isabel Barba is a Mexican American student who enjoys fashion and drawing and is currently attending Laney and Alameda College.

Adriana Blanco is a Xicana danzante, teacher and student from the Bay Area, just left of Aztlan.

Ras K'dee is a Native California Pomo/African American musician who is the co-founder and director of the Native youth media organization SNAG and vocalist/producer of the band Audiopharmacy.

Nayeli Guzman was born in Michoacan, Mexico and raised in Los Angeles where she is influenced by street art, her Meso-American culture, and Spirit in all its manifestations.

Melissa Lozano is a Chicana poet, author of Bullets & Butterflies, and is an undergraduate student in the English Literature program at Mills College in Oakland, California.

Venaya Yazzie is of the Dine' and Hopi nations of the southwest and a poet, painter and photographer from northwestern New Mexico.

Poem by Melissa Lozano

 Chicano Aztec Lover
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Bronzed skin hitting the afternoon sun

And it’s a Sunday afternoon of Mariachi

Festival fun. So many Chicanos in the park

Wearing their Sunday best, macking

Socializing in the San Jo heat.

Chicano Aztec Lover.

Some wear their colors on their sleeves

But me I am sending out that vibe you know that vibe.

I’m looking for a tall Moreno guapo Chicano Aztec lover kind of guy.

And then there he is next to the oldies vendor stand.

A bronzed firme Chicano and I am thinking to myself he has to be down.

Down enough to go down to the barrio and buy me a real carne asada taco

and not one of these overpriced sin queso sin aguacates tacos.

He must wear obsidian rocks and tongues

around his neck. He must whisper my name in Nahuatl.

and if he’s a poet, a definite plus.

Chicano Aztec Lover.

I bump oldies out of my 64’ and I pray to my mini

Virgen sanctuary located in the back of my trunk.

Just to prove to you baby, I ain’t about no junk.

I’ve read the Chicano Manifesto from front to back

back to front and now it’s my turn

to read you. I come for reals baby.

I want to be your Chicano Aztec Lover.

Let me wrap my long hair around your body.

I’ve been growing it for years for my Aztec dance tribe.

My bronzed body is tattooed with the Aztec calendar.

The symbols of the United Farm Workers and a tear drop to boot.

I may not have served time but I feel I am a prisoner of this country.

I don’t fly Mexico’s flag on Cinco de Mayo

but every day. I want to be your Chicano Aztec Lover.

I just don’t pump my muscular body with weights and ego.

My body is a temple and you

shall worship it. But enough about me.

Y tú, como te llamas?

Me llamo Chicana

Sin verguenza fuerte Azteca

Discoteca mama poeta

love him and

leave him lover.

And if you could

please move

you’re

blocking

my sun.