Si'Yam Lee Maracle’s unflinching look at life on Turtle Island under settler colonialism has propelled a generation of storytellers. In a recent interview with the CBC, the author of path-breaking books such as Bobbi- Lee: Indian Rebel, and Ravensong talked of the bigotry she faced trying to tell Indigenous stories as a young woman growing up in 1970s Vancouver. "Publishers were telling me they don't publish Indians — that's what they called us at the time — because Indians can't read or write," she told the CBC.
She responded by interviewing Indigenous people living in Vancouver’s notoriously dangerous Downtown Eastside. What she found was roughly two-thirds could not read; nearly all were victims of forced resettlement and the residential school system.
This sparked a life of teaching and activism — beginning with projects helping Indigenous people to read and write.
To honour a lifetime of education, scholarship and organizing, Maracle — one of the first aboriginal writers to have fiction published in Canada — will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Waterloo. [...]
