The article linked below is called, "How Residential School Trauma of Previous Generations Continues to Tear Through Indigenous Families." It shares the story of Adam North Peigan, who at a young age was placed into the forster care system after his mother attended the Residential Schools. The article says, " . . . Loneliness created a new cycle of dispair which included suicide attempts, drug abuse, and alcoholism" (Cuttler). Peigan also says that being placed in the foster care syste led him to "[lose] contact with [his] family and heritage" (Cuttler). The trauma endured by the survivors from the Residential Schools has had a lasting ripple effect on new generations as they navigate their lives.

As I was reading through this article, I immediately thought about how eloquently the speaker summarized the impacts of trauma at the conference Jacquie Red Feather was attending in There There. In addressing the high rate of suicide amoung Indigenous youth, the speaker says, "They're making the decision that it's better to be dead and gone than to be alive in what we have here, this life, the one we made for them, the one they've inherited" (Orange 104). This statement is especially powerful because it speaks to how detrimental trauma has been on the lives of Indigenous youth. They would rather perish than face the realities of the lives they have now after the trauma that has been inflicted on past generations.

To read the full article, take a look at this link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/residential-schools-intergenerational-trauma-kamloops-1.6052240

Works Cited:
Cuttler, Marcy. "How Residential School Trauma of Previous Generations Continues to Tear Through Indigenous Families." CBC News, 4 June 2021, https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/residential-schools-intergenerational-trauma-kamloops-1.6052240
Orange, Tommy. There There. McClelland & Stewart, 2019.