Foreword to Warrior Women

It was at the Canadian Association for the Study of Indigenous Education in 2010 in Concordia University that I first heard from the women who were part of this study. They lined up in the front of the room in desks to share each their part of what would become the foundation of this book. The topic was their post-secondary education experiences becoming a teacher. Among them were a few of my Mi’kmaw relatives and long time friends. I remembered two of them as youth in Eskasoni when I lived there. The story they told was familiar. It was at the kitchen tables that I first heard about the experiences of these Mi’kmaq youth going to school off reserve. The traumatic events were regaled over and over, and everyone had stories to share about the racism they experienced taking the bus to the nearby town to go to high school, and the coached determination they received to continue going to school everyday. By the time graduation came each year, the buses that were filled at the beginning of the school year emptied out, and at most a handful of determined steadfast students graduated.