Today, I offer an Indigenous land acknowledgement on the unceded homelands of the Hunquminum speaking peoples of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish nations of Turtle Island, where we have the duty as educators of learning and unlearning the truth’s and the untruth’s; the colonial history that was written down and taught to generations of settlers through the lens of the colonizer and the oppressor. Our education system, shaped by historical colonial frameworks, has played a significant role in the ongoing harm experienced by Indigenous Peoples across Turtle Island. Through residential schools, through genocide denialism and through hidden micro aggressions in our current structures, and we must do what we can within the system to create change for the betterment of every child.
I also want to recognize my ancestors and the rich cultural diversity of my family. My patriarchal lineage is Palestinian, and I am indigenous to Palestine. I can trace back my heritage through both my grandparents to the town of Bethlehem (or Beit Lahm in Arabic) where we still have our extended relatives living to this day. We are of Christian Palestinian Heritage and our roots in the city go back to the original followers of Jesus. My last name, Kawas, holds significant meaning and literally means “sceptre carrier” and my father was a Boy Scout monitor in the Church of the Nativity as a teenager. Nonetheless, to this day, my family isn’t allowed to return to live in our ancestral family house, a house to which my father has the deeded title to.
My matriarchal lineage is Ukrainian and British. My Ukrainian grandfather grew up in the small town of Arbakka, Manitoba, served in WWII for Canada and lived in Ottawa, Ontario most of his life where he was an English teacher.
The Palestinian culture and teachings of being connected with the land, similar to those teachings across Turtle Island, is the heritage that I relate with most deeply as my paternal grandmother (my Sitti in Arabic) helped raise me when I was a child. Yet she did not have an easy life. She was a survivor of the initial forced expulsion, colonization and genocide of the Palestinian people in 1948, where she was living in Jaffa at the time. She was pregnant with my father and was forced to flee on foot, while gun shots rained above her head, back to Bethlehem, to the safety of her family.
Today, May 15, marks the anniversary of that initial forced expulsion – the day that the state of Israel was created. Palestinians call this day The Nakba, which translates to the great catastrophe. Bethlehem remained under Jordanian control until 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and my grandfather was forcibly separated from his family while working in Jordan. Indigenous peoples know all too well the pain of family separation. My father, being the eldest boy, at 19 years of age was made to cross the Allenby Bridge, the crossing between Jordan and the West Bank, to go and help figure out what the family should do. That was the last time my father ever saw his homeland. This incident would be a defining moment in his life that would shape who he would become; a fierce advocate for human rights and anti-colonial resistance for Palestinians and other marginalized communities, including the indigenous people of Turtle Island.
As an elder in the Palestinian community in Vancouver, my father was gifted an eagle feather by the matriarchs of the Downtown Eastside Womens Centre. This precious gift, which he refers to as “his visa to this place” symbolizes the shared bonds of trauma, the shared resistance to settler colonialism and the enduring spirit of defending the land. The late indigenous writer and poet Lee Maracle was a family friend and spoke many times of her great affinity with the Palestinian people. She even appeared on stage with the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish in 1976 at a public meeting in Vancouver.
The indigenous people of Turtle Island have always been a shining example of steadfastness which we call Sumud in Arabic. They have refused to bow to the settler narrative, they have refused to be silenced under the guise of progress – to continually challenge the denial of their histories and to always defend against the destruction of their land.
So I would like to conclude my land acknowledgement with the following human rights saying – Land Back – Land Back for the indigenous people of Turtle Island and Land Back for all the indigenous people across the world.
(By Dalal Kawas, educator and activist.)
