Remembering Residential Schools on Orange Shirt Day

Are you wearing your orange shirt? Better yet, have you even heard of Orange Shirt Day? . Started in 2013 as a day of observance, Orange Shirt Day has been is now observed as a Canadian government holiday a decade later on September 30th. The orange shirt symbolizes how the school system worked to remove the indigenous identities, culture, and language of the children, and they have never recovered. It is celebrated every year on September 30th across Canada to raise awareness of these residential schools. . When it’s hard, we don’t talk about it. There isn’t an easy way to talk about the damages done to Indigenous People done by European explorers. There isn’t an simple solution to right the wrongs. Wrongs here in America - Canada and, to a lesser discussed extent, the US. . In 2021, after the discovery of more than 200 bodies in a mass grave at a residential school in Canada, it was renamed the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The last residential school in Canada did not close until 1997. This is not distant, foreign history. 1997. . . Let’s educate ourselves and the kids. Maybe when they have kids, the US will have stepped up to have its own day. If nothing else, my kids will remember that day every fall when their mom read them the same books and wore orange. And choose to be kind to those who are different. . These books are hard. They’re personal. They’re first hand accounts by those who loved it. Read one. Or I watch it read on YouTube. . 📕I Am Not a Number JennyKay Dupius and Kathy Kacer; illustrated by Gillian Newland . 📗Fatty Legs: A True Story Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton; ill. by Liz Amino Holmes . 📘When I Was Eight 📙Not My Girl Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton; ill. by Gabrielle Grimard . 📕Shi-shi-etko Nicola I. Campbell; ill. Kim LaFave . 📗Unstoppable: How Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team Defeated Army Art Coulson; ill.by Nick Hardcastle . 📘The Orange Shirt Story Phyllis Webstad; illustrated by Brock Nicol . Now, go learn! 🤓