{"id":73,"date":"2017-10-31T10:30:40","date_gmt":"2017-10-31T14:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/manitoba-migration\/?p=73"},"modified":"2017-10-31T09:52:49","modified_gmt":"2017-10-31T13:52:49","slug":"first-nations-canadians-frustrated-by-refugee-welcome-but-join-in-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/manitoba-migration\/2017\/10\/31\/first-nations-canadians-frustrated-by-refugee-welcome-but-join-in-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"First Nations Canadians frustrated by refugee welcome, but join in anyway"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Tobias Stoner<\/em><\/p>\n

Many First Nations Canadians have been taken aback by Canada\u2019s well-publicized warm welcome to Syrian refugees, says Karyn Pugliese, Executive Director of News and Current Affairs at Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, or APTN. \u201cNot to be unwelcoming,\u201d she emphasizes, \u201cbut because of a sense of \u2018why aren\u2019t people paying attention to our problems?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s history of relations between First Nations peoples and Europeans is long and fraught, explains Ms. Pugliese, and First Nations populations continue to face greater difficulties than white Canadians. That background, she says, casts Canada\u2019s enthusiastic embrace of struggling newcomers as slightly hypocritical from many of the country\u2019s original inhabitants. But Bob Cox, publisher of the Winnipeg Free Press, says \u201cCanadians like to think they\u2019re too nice.\u201d And this may explain why Canadians have mostly accepted the newcomers.<\/p>\n

Indigenous Canadians fall into three categories \u2013 First Nations, Inuit, or m\u00e9tis, with both First Nations and French ancestors \u2013 explains Sky Bridges, APTN\u2019s Chief Operating Officer. First Nations peoples only received full voting rights in the 1960\u2019s, he explains, and some people still reject their Canadian citizenship, seeking the creation of an independent state. Canada is currently holding hearings on the unresolved murder or disappearance of approximately 1600 indigenous women, an issue highlighted in APTN\u2019s nightly newscast. Even the creation of APTN reflected the \u201cghettoization\u201d of indigenous people, says Ms. Pugliese \u2013 \u201cBack when we couldn\u2019t get a seat at the table, we had to build our own table. Now, I don\u2019t really want to go sit at somebody else\u2019s table.\u201d And Ms. Pugliese notes that the most recent government dramatically increased First Nations representation in the Canadian Parliament, to approximately 50 First Nations MP\u2019s out of 338 seats.<\/p>\n

APTN is proud of its imposing circular table built for its board meetings, says Sky Bridges. He emphasized indigenous traditions of welcome to strangers or other races. Many First Nations traditions, he says, include the symbolism of a wheel with four colors \u2013 white, black, yellow, and red \u2013 representing different races sent out into the world, as well as an aspiration to unify them. Ms. Pugliese also added that at least three indigenous communities have held welcoming ceremonies for refugees, and elders have helped to coordinate donations for them, though she notes that the ceremonies also helped to raise publicity about First Nations communities. This welcoming stance may also be influenced by the general identification of indigenous people with leftist parties, says Ms. Pugliese, partly because of a total lack of outreach or availability from Conservative politicians.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the First Nations response to new refugees may not be very different from that of Winnipeggers in general. Assimilation in Canada is made easier, says Mr. Cox of the Free Press, because \u201cwe don\u2019t have something called a Canadian that you have to become.\u201d In some ways, he says, the \u201cfundamental definition of a Canadian is to be not American.\u201d At a moment of rising xenophobia in the US, that may be good news for anyone seeking asylum, and a new home, in Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tobias Stoner Many First Nations Canadians have been taken aback by Canada\u2019s well-publicized warm welcome to Syrian refugees, says Karyn Pugliese, Executive Director of News and Current Affairs at Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, or APTN. \u201cNot to be unwelcoming,\u201d she emphasizes, \u201cbut because of a sense of \u2018why aren\u2019t people paying attention to our<\/p>\n

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