Description
Spirit of the Grassroots People: Seeking Justice for Indigenous Survivors of Canada's Colonial Education System, is edited by Raymond Mason, a respected survivor, activist, and Elder who resides in Peguis First Nation, Manitoba; Jackson Pind and Theodore Michael Christou. Spirit of the Grassroots People is a firsthand account of the personal and political challenges Mason confronted on this journey – a memoir. A riveting and at times harrowing read, Spirit of the Grassroots People describes the author's experiences in Indian day and residential schools in Manitoba and his struggles to find meaning in life after trauma and abuse. Mason details the work that he and his colleagues did over many years to gain recognition and compensation for their suffering. Drawing from Indigenous oral traditions as well as Western historiography, the work applies the concept of two-eyed seeing to the histories of colonialism and education in Canada. The memoir is supplemented by a final chapter in which Theodore Michael Christou and Jackson Pind put Mason's story into a historical and educational context. An essential key to understanding the legacy of Indian residential and day schools, this text is both a documentation of history and a deeply personal story of a human experience.