It Took The Government 36 Years To Tell Me What I Already Knew: I Am A Status Indian

It took Canada 36 years to acknowledge that I am a Status Indian. I grew up in Matachewan, Ont., a township near Matachewan First Nation. There were only seven houses on the First Nation, so most band members lived in town with French and English neighbours. There, nobody questioned that I was Indigenous. I didn’t question it, because I knew who I was. Yet, according to the Indian Act, my siblings and I were anything but.In December 1952, my grandmother, Laura Flood, became one of mor