we resist by loving each other

It's Canada Day on Hay Lakes Indian Reserve 209, on Treaty 8 Land, in what is known as Alberta, in what is known as Canada. It is my first time spending July 1st on a reserve.


I am not in High Level, an hour away, where there is a barbecue, parade, and bouncy castle. I didn't have a ride, but I also think there is a reason why Canada Day is mostly a celebration for children.


On the one hand: literal rain on the parade. In the cloudy dark of my living room, I think about Indigenous children in care across Canada, the numbers of incarcerated Indigenous folks, about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Thoughts like a black chain. Water drips from the roof.



There’s not much for me to say about this. Indigenous people across Canada, both as activists and community members, have long fought and spoken for justice. We are a part of this work.



On the other hand: a strong warm feeling. Today is a day I think about millwrights and truckers, and the people who make breakfast cereal. I think about people on sidewalks in their business clothes and the folks who look so tired on the bus. I think of Kalyna County babas and Sikh farmers in Abbotsford. What’s up in Pond Inlet? I want to be your Walt Whitman.



I don’t know what nationalism can do for us, but I admire these people hard. I want to smile at every stranger.



As an immigrant, child of immigrants, I am grateful for this home. I was taken into this country and made safe from violence, corruption, and economic disenfranchisement. Canada worked for me.



These feelings fight, and I hope I can find space for both of them. Reconciliation requires work from all of us, and I don’t think we have the right to celebrate a single thing about Canada until it is true for everybody.



Here and in the city, I am trying to be courageous and to listen. Remember that Canada is not 151 years old, but 13,000. In the words of Chief Lady Bird, artist and badass, “we resist by loving each other”.