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.
Angela Larkman
The writer, left, and her grandmother.
In December 1952, my grandmother, Laura Flood, became one of more than 11,000 Indians who were “voluntarily” enfranchised through the racist legal framework of the time. These individuals received Canadian citizenship, but had to renounce Indian status for themselves and all future descendents. When Bill C-31 and changes to the Indian Act abolished oppressive assimilation practices in 1985, my grandmother applied for her Indian status to be reinstated. She received status in 1986, followed by my auntie, uncles and their children.

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