In interviewing my mother and sister-in-law, I was fully aware that there would be two distinct perspectives relating to health, healing, birth and death. The fact that my mother did not acknowledge our indigenous bloodline was of no surprise to me. That is partially due to the society she grew up in, where repressing any indigenous identity, were rejected influences by colonization and intergenerational trauma. Whereas, interviewing my sister-in-law who is indigenous and identifies as a Kichwa woman, grew up with a completely different philosophy, belief and acceptance. The reason I state this is to give a clear understanding of how these two opposite ideologies influenced my world.
I was born and raised in Toronto with mestizo parents
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He is six years older than me, and as a male, my parents allowed him liberty to leave the house and explore the world. Compare to myself, where I was to stay close to my parents and ask permission to go anywhere. I recall my early teen years he took me to my first pow wow at the Native Canadian Center in Toronto and a ceremony performed by an Ojibway elder. My brother is a musician and has a passion for Andino music which is traditional music from the Andes mountain region of South America. This too influenced me to learn more about traditional, indigenous songs and dance. Eventually, he married a woman from the Kichwa community from the highlands of …show more content…
She drinks tea when she is not well and at this point has been healthy. I do give her children’s Tylenol when she is not feeling well. When my mother visits, she does influence my daughter about seeing the doctor for everything. It bothers me greatly; I tell my daughter that not all things have to be resolved by a doctor, but instead, we are capable of curing ourselves depending of course on the degree of the injury or illness. Having this generational differences have affected my child, as I strongly encourage her to learn and integrate with her indigenous culture, and community from Ecuador and Canada. Whereas, my mother, has no interest in teaching her home remedies but instead encourages her to talk about princesses and speak English to her instead of teaching her