Strong Women's Stories: Intro. & Ch. 1

She's is very excited to return to her home and is very proud of her Mi'kmaq heritage. I'm not really sure if she feels her time at the university was well spent. She and her family regret sending her to get an education because she was expected to adopt and accept western values as her own. She said her identity as a Mi'kmaq was stripped and taken from her. She experienced a lot discrimination because she because of her Mi'kmaq heritage; she could not find a job even though she was an educated woman. The Mi'kmaqs' claim their identity as native people even though the government makes it difficult. The Canadian government forces the Mi'kmaqs' to legally prove their pedigree. Fishing licenses are given to the fishing plants first. The Mi'kmaq rely on fishing to feed themselves and their family and often resort to fishing illegally to provide food for their families. The government seems to go to great lengths to oppress the Mi'kmaqs' and dissolve them as a people. Yet the Mi'kmaqs' maintain their identity and their culture and come together as a community to find solutions to the difficulties their community faces.

1. Encountering discrimination at the university was probably very frustrating for her, as well difficulty finding work because she's a native woman. She has a college degree; the fact that she
is a Mi'kmaq and a woman should not even factor in the job she's applying for- she probably did not expect this to be an issue when she's looking for work(because it shouldn't be) and yet it sounds like she faced a lot intolerance because of who she was.

2. There was probably a lot of conflict within her. At home she was with her family and the Mi'kmaq community. Perhaps she felt unaccepted socially because she was Mi'kmaq and felt alone and angry being in a place being in a place where she was expected to be someone she wasn't.

3. Fishing has been a major part of the Mi'kmaq way of supporting themselves and their families. By making fishing illegal; the Mi'kmaqs' are(by law) not allowed to fish waters they have been fishing their whole lives and have also been cut off from their main source of food. A large part of their life has been made "illegal". Licenses are given to commercial fisherman before they are given to the native people of the area.