The effects of the Canadian residential school on the modern aboriginal people - Essay Example

The effects of the Canadian residential school on the modern aboriginal people Affiliation: :Date: IntroductionImagine being forcefully taken away from your loved ones and being introduced to a new culture and being forced to forget the culture (the only one you have known since birth) only to be later on subjected to inhumane treatment and abuse including sexual abuse, this is what happened to the Indian children and they were set up in the residential schools by the Canadians. The children were forbidden from acknowledging their culture and were forced to assimilate and adopt the culture, language and even the Christian religion of the Canadians.

Once in these residential schools, they were subjected to different forms of torture ranging from physical to sexual abuse and provision of inferior education that was not competitive with the Euro-Canadians (Barth, 2008). Several effects of this treatment are being felt up to date by the modern aboriginals.One of the effects of this is the loss of the aboriginal culture that is passed down generations and this means that the modern aboriginals do not recognize fully their culture. The abuse these people passed through when young has affected their present whereby they become abusers or do not know how to maintain relations.

Since the children did not get a chance to be nurtured properly by their parents since they were away in these schools, they also do not know how to nurture their own children. The abuse led them to have a low self-esteem and even feelings of worthlessness which has translated to a large number of them attempting suicide now that they are grown up (Episkenew, 2009).ConclusionThese effects will continue unless measures are taken sooner. Some of these measures are slow or not tailored to reverse some of these effects like culture loss which even with therapy will not come back (Austin and Boyd, 2010).

ReferencesAustin, W. and Boyd, M. (2010). Psychiatric & Mental Health Nursing for Canadian Practice. New York: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.Barth, W. K. (2008). On Cultural Rights: The Equality of Nations and the Minority Legal Tradition. Boston: BRILL.Episkenew, J. (2009). Taking Back Our Spirits: Indigenous Literature, Public Policy, and Healing. Manitoba: Univ. of Manitoba Press.