Thursday of the Second Week of Advent
Cultural genocide can begin with a name change.
In Canada alone, over 100,000 Indigenous children were placed into residential schools, forcefully severing ties with their tribe and erasing their Indigenous identity in an attempt to "civilize" them. One step in undoing the harm of assimilation is by offering reasonable pathways for Indigenous people to reclaim the identities that were violently stolen from them.
Restoration can begin with a name change.
-Meditation by Administrative Assistant and Indigenous Solidarity Collective Member Revalon Wesson.
The 2022 Advent Calendar is a project of CTA's Indigenous Solidarity Collective, a working group that addresses the Catholic Church's historical and current role in colonialization. To support more projects from working groups like this one, please consider making a contribution!
Call To Action's 2022 Advent Calendar, planned and written by the Indigenous Solidarity Collective, provides 27 days of prayer and study to lead into action and solidarity with Indigenous communities. Here is today's meditation.
Call to Action: 16-17 Language and Culture
“16. We call upon post-secondary institutions to create university and college degree and diploma programs in Aboriginal languages.
17. We call upon all levels of government to enable residential school Survivors and their families to reclaim names changed by the residential school system by waiving administrative costs for a period of five years
for the name-change process and the revision of official identity documents, such as birth certificates, passports, driver’s licenses, health cards, status cards, and social insurance numbers.”
December 8th, 2022
Remember Their Names
The National Center for Truth and Reconciliation has published a Memorial Register, which lists the names of children who did not survive residential schools.
The watercolor paintings featured on this calendar were created by Duane Yazzie, an artist of Hopi and Navajo ancestry. Yazzie creates artwork that reflects his Indigenous heritage and his childhood spent in the Southwest.
