“Fifty-five to stay alive”
I think my experience in law school probably was a bit different than most law students at that point. I was a single parent of two children. They were three and one. So my focus was quite a bit different than I would say other law students. Less social I guess, just because I had other family responsibilities and other pressures.
So for me, it was: get through and just try to keep your head above water. Funny enough, a group of us that were Indigenous students starting out first year together came up with a slogan. That was “Fifty-five to stay alive,” because that’s what you needed to get through the first year. Most of us did better than that. But we at least were honest in where a lot of us were going, because I wasn’t the only one that was a single parent at that time. I would say the majority of us were older. I think that’s just consistent with Indigenous students in general—we’re generally later to enter into academia, we’re later to enter into the workforce. So I think with some of that, there’s those added family pressures.
Daycare at the Longhouse
But I have to say, though, when I was at UBC, there was a daycare at the Longhouse. For me, that was extremely helpful. It was Indigenous-focused. Actually a number of my community members worked there and they knew my kids growing up, so that was helpful. And plus, to be able to drop in when I had a one-year-old at daycare was helpful for him as well as for me. So I’d be able to do that.
It’s unfortunate that UBC had moved away from that. I’m not going to get into their decision-making processes, but to have safe and sacred space for kids I think is extremely important, particularly if you’re trying to recruit lifelong learners, and that’s what Indigenous people are. Plus the Longhouse gave that other opportunity to have a study space above, right? So I could be even closer. Because part of going to law school is it’s a place where you make networks as well, and a lot of the times you make lifelong networks and lifelong friends and colleagues. And having daycare close to UBC that would close at five would provide some of that networking opportunity for myself as well as others. To me, that was really important as well. I mean I couldn’t attend everything because there’s a lot of evening events and I was limited that way, but at least having my kids close by, knowing that I was able to somewhat engage on campus, and then be able to go home and do the rest of my work that needed to be done, I think that was important for me as well and extremely helpful.
Colonial confines
Working in colonial confines, that was for me personally probably one of the most difficult things, because you do change. But it’s how you change matters, right? And having that odd relationship between the law and what the law has done to Indigenous peoples versus “Okay, well, I’m going to use the law now. I’m going to make things better,” and having that understanding and being able to navigate between those two worlds has been I think for a lot of Indigenous learners, even myself, difficult. But it’s how you manage that and stay real and grounded, I think that really matters.
Caretaking
I was fortunate. I only applied to UBC. I wasn’t going to go anywhere else, just because again my family situation. I didn’t want to move my kids away from any of the supports that I had. But you have people that are travelling out of their communities across the country into a very foreign area. And then it’s not very receptive at times. And that I think for some of those students, that was part of it. And this is the thing that I don’t think the law school or even UBC was well equipped to deal with when I was going through law school—the fact that you have also community responsibility. If you have someone that something happens and they have to go home, there’s no real understanding of “What does that mean?” There’s no real cultural understanding as what our roles are in our communities.
The best Native law program … ?
I believe in first year we only had the option to actually take one or two electives, and we had to pick between three. I think one was to do with understanding Indigenous relations, if I recall correctly, alternative dispute resolution, and something else. So, though UBC was touted as the premier, at that time, Native law program in Canada, unfortunately they didn’t have any mandatory-type programs in first year. I think that every student would actually at that point have benefitted from understanding where they’re coming into and what this actually means.
Because I remember—you know, you have your student orientation and all the students are together, and I think you have to sort of introduce yourself. And I was introducing the fact that it’s on my own territory, and people had no idea what that meant. So you can kind of see that—I don’t want to say it’s an ignorance, I guess it kind of is—but you could see that play out in courses later on, where it’s like, “Why do we got to learn about this?” Like “Why do we [have] to learn about Indigenous history?” or “Why is this important?”
[The] mindset since [then] to now I would imagine has changed dramatically. I mean, I’m hopeful that it has. But back then, it wasn’t something that was well-understood or well-embraced. And that can create some tensions in classrooms without a doubt.
I’d have to say that when I was there, there was not a lot of Indigenous course content. Particularly first year. You would touch on it here and there. Unless you took—I believe it was not even a mandatory course, it was an elective in first year if you wanted to learn a little bit about Indigenous history and rights, probably more focused on Section 35 in the Constitution, that kind of thing. Which made sense, but wasn’t mandatory.
So you might intersect on it in a bit of real property, but no deep dive. It’s just like, “It might have been an issue,” or whatever, but no actual fundamental underpinnings of what has happened in Canada. [Even] in Legal Institutions—[that] was [a mandatory course] for us, more or less a poli sci class, I thought—it’s talking about federalism and constitutional law, but not really incorporating our shared history as Indigenous peoples in this country and what has happened.
Even in second and third year, not a lot of course content available. And I think it partly is there were some transitions that were happening. I think that also at the time—this is just me looking back and reflecting on where the law school was and where it is now—it probably wasn’t a priority either. And I think that takes leadership and that takes change. I can say over the years, at least what I see now, there’s more thoughtful intention around recruiting Indigenous scholars. And part of that is making sure that those are not just sessional [instructors]. We need actually to ensure that we could fast-track and keep tenured profs, because if not, they’re going to go somewhere else. So I think that in itself wasn’t a very well-developed strategy in the beginning, because again, I don’t think it was a top priority at the time. Now with [the] Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we have the Residential Dialogue Centre, Indigenous Strategic Plan. There’s more willingness, more openness to teach these and a myriad of programs and courses in law school.
I think we had maybe three [courses]. Now I would imagine there’s a lot more, which I think is great.
What I found very strange, [was that] UBC [was] touting itself as one of the best Native law programs and schools but kind of fell short on the content. I think [that] was disappointing. And for a lot of students, too, especially those who are coming from Manitoba and Saskatchewan. It is what it is at that point. But I’m glad to see that things are changing. Even with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, we need to have people coming in and talking about that and teaching that. I think we’re on a good trajectory now and path forward to ensure that more Indigenous content is available and taught and mandatory, but at that time it wasn’t.
So it didn’t feel like [it was] a very inclusive place and space. And even though I was on my own territory, I think a lot of other students felt that way, too—Indigenous students, that is.
There’s a point where you kind of just give up because people aren’t interested, and you don’t want to be that sort of broken record. But I know I wasn’t the only one. There were many other voices that were quite vocal around these issues. But then people would see them as confrontational or aggressive—[but] we’re doing direct action, right? So there [were] some weird labels that were placed on those that were really trying to help educate, so that in itself became, I think, a challenge for people wanting to actually speak up, especially when [there are] 150-200 people, you have like 19 [Indigenous students], right?
I’ve always [shared] my opinions quite widely. I don’t have an issue with that. But when I figure that someone’s not wanting to listen or learn, you kind of just shut down. There’s no point. It’s like, “Yeah, I’ll just keep focusing. Do-do-do-do-do,” right? “Get through, get through, get through.” But it’s sad because you know that a lot of those people were going out in the corporate world or government and there was a lot of stereotypical things that would come out, for sure. And it’s unfortunate they’re going to be interfacing with the real world with not understanding what it means to attend UBC Law and on the territory that it’s on. And I think that was a missed opportunity for the institution at that time.