Chief R. Stacey Laforme: The Battle Of Dignity Peoples

Battle of Dignity Peoples of the Indigenous culture over an extensive time period of history have faced loss of land which has lead to many occurring themes. The poem I Love This Land by Chief R. Stacey LaForme highlights the narrative of lost land for the Indigenous people. The Indigenous peoples have had a history of struggle against the Canadian government, but have used culture and community to come together and be strong. The author of this poem demonstrates this through injustice, unity, sacrifice, and misrecognition. Through times of unnerving pain and little recognition, would you fight for what is rightfully yours? On the battlefield, unity is what created the heart for the Indigenous peoples, as they stood freely shoulder to shoulder with all, no matter the race.

This passage from the second stanza uses irony, suggesting that shoulder to shoulder meant equality and mutual respect from the government. In reality, it was quite the contrary, as the values of the government differed from their practices. Through I Love This Land, we learn about the many cultural injustices created by the government and settlers. The effects this has laid down on the people of Indigenous communities have dampened their outlook on life itself. “I gave so much, lived through so much and then you, you who I would give all for; you pushed me aside as if I was inconsequential”(Stacey 16). This speaks for all of the Indigenous peoples, as they have all once felt like being inconsequential, as if they were not enough. They go onto use imagery in the next line of the stanza to create a picture in the reader's mind of how the disrespect felt deep down to them: “I feel as if I have been spit upon by one I honored”(Stacey