On Orange Shirt Day, writer shares her grandmother's residential school story

On the cover of Jenny Kay Dupuis's book I Am Not a Number a First Nations girl holds back tears as a pair of white hands, scissors at the ready, prepares to cut away her long blackhair.

• Orange Shirt Day: How Phyllis Webstad's 1st day at residential school inspired a movement

The girl who inspired the book is Dupuis's grandmother Irene, whowas sent away to aresidential school in Northern Ontario in1928, along with two brothers. Upon arrival,nuns at the school cut short Irene's hair. It was the first ofmanyindignities she would suffer there.

"This meant much more to me than a haircut," Dupuis writes, retelling the story inher grandmother's voice. "Back home, long hair was a source of pride. We cut it when we lost a loved one. Now it felt as if part of me was dying with every strand that fell."

At the time, government-sponsored religious schools,designed to assimilate First Nations children into European culture,were in operation across Canada. Students, including young children, were separated from their families,often subjected to horrific abuse, and prevented from speaking their own languages.

Writer shares her grandma's residential school story

8 years ago

Duration 0:40

Jenny Kay Dupuis reads an excerpt from a book she co-authored about her grandma's experience in a Northern Ontario residential school in 1928.

Dupuisco-wrotethe book to keep alive the memories of her grandmother's struggle and the anguish of other residential school survivors. But unlike other books on the topic, I Am Not a Number is an illustrated children's book, geared for readers as young asseven.

In one scene in the book, children are burned with a pan of hot coals for speaking their language, Ojibwa. Students at the school were told they were dirty, and had to wash the brown off their skin.In another scene, Dupuis tells how her great-grandfather hid his children in his taxidermy shop whena government agent came to take them back to schoolafter summer.

Not easy material for a kids' book but in an interview on CBC Radio's Metro Morning, Dupuis said she felt compelled to lay bare her grandmother's story, in all its uncomfortable detail.

• Listen to the Metro Morning interview here

"Nobody talked about the history," she said. "Nobody knew about the history. It was silent for many, many years. People need to know what happened to the residential school survivors."

Her appearance on Metro Morning comes on Orange Shirt Day, when students across Canada wear orange shirts to remember the children forced into government-run residential schools.

Orange Shirt Day was inspired by Phyllis Jack Webstad, a Stswecem'c Xgat'tem First Nation elder in Williams Lake, B.C. In 1973, at age six, Webstad attended a residential school. She was given a bright orange shirt by her grandmother, a special gift for her first day of school. But the shirt was taken from her by school staff on the day she arrived. WhenWebstad told her story three years ago,Orange Shirt Day began.

Dupuis is hoping her book will "spark deep and meaningful conversations" with students about topics like oppression, loss of identity andassimilation.

"It was a piece of history that was missing from the school curriculum. It was time."