Indian residential school experience a "holocaust".

[Amarow121]

I just think the word "holocaust" is being thrown around a bit too freely, that's all.

So that leaves the question, if the children weren't killed, but they were no longer part of their parents culture.... is that a holocaust?

Not the way I see it. After all, Nazi's didn't tell Jewish, Slovak, and Soviet folks - "- This is how you speak German..."

True - but they did take some of (not all of) the (Slovak and Soviet) children, place them in German homes and raise them to be good Aryan citizens. Admittedly Jewish children were not that lucky (if it can be called that) and were eliminated same as their parents. (Ugg I hate talking about this, it makes me so angry!)

Perhaps "cultural" holocaust is a better term? I'm not aware that there's a good word to describe the systematic un-learning or never learning of one's culture.

[really]

Likely more than we will ever know about. There's quite a few dead bodies out in the woods around the residential schools.

Well, I wouldn't compare a sociological experiment that went sour even though it resulted in "few dead bodies" to a systematic killing of entire nations.

REALLY! Please get over your own sense of what a minor thing the devastation the whole government program was of getting the indian out of aboriginals. I am white, child of anglo saxon parents who were poor but could always seek out lots of relatives in my commumityfor help, kinsmanship, links to my past and connections to my history. My wife cannot say this an she doesn't know her extended family as she had a mother that was taken off the reserve when she was 3, had the Cree beat out of her and never saw her 4 siblings or mother for over 40 years. When she did finally see them again, the ability to connect and emotional iq to build and maintain relationships was a void in her life, not a nuisance. She was successful in her nursing career, great at caring for strangers but completlely distant to her kids, fought psychological issues her whole life and died of a disease that had she known her family medical history may have been preventatively treated.
People who have family structure, traditions, connections to your past, take for granted and know nothing of the damage that the lack of that causes. Say nothing of the mental, sexual and physical abuse my motherlaw and her siblings endured. The objective of the "assimilation" of the "indian" was the wholesale and systemic cleansing of the aboriginal indiginous culture in Canada. Now perhaps Holocaust is the wrong word, but it certainly is not far off. Funny how certain cultures receive more understanding for horrors their people endured while others are dismissed as that was years ago or they are better off now. I don't think the body count or group matters, extermination of any kind as it relates to a people is just plain wrong!

[Piecemaker]

Great post, really.
Sadly, what you have written is the "norm" for so many aboriginal Canadians.

[grammafreddy]

REALLY! Please get over your own sense of what a minor thing the devastation the whole government program was of getting the indian out of aboriginals. I am white, child of anglo saxon parents who were poor but could always seek out lots of relatives in my commumityfor help, kinsmanship, links to my past and connections to my history. My wife cannot say this an she doesn't know her extended family as she had a mother that was taken off the reserve when she was 3, had the Cree beat out of her and never saw her 4 siblings or mother for over 40 years. When she did finally see them again, the ability to connect and emotional iq to build and maintain relationships was a void in her life, not a nuisance. She was successful in her nursing career, great at caring for strangers but completlely distant to her kids, fought psychological issues her whole life and died of a disease that had she known her family medical history may have been preventatively treated.
People who have family structure, traditions, connections to your past, take for granted and know nothing of the damage that the lack of that causes. Say nothing of the mental, sexual and physical abuse my motherlaw and her siblings endured. The objective of the "assimilation" of the "indian" was the wholesale and systemic cleansing of the aboriginal indiginous culture in Canada. Now perhaps Holocaust is the wrong word, but it certainly is not far off. Funny how certain cultures receive more understanding for horrors their people endured while others are dismissed as that was years ago or they are better off now. I don't think the body count or group matters, extermination of any kind as it relates to a people is just plain wrong!