RadRoots Book Club Cohort Member

Thursdays, biweekly (Oct 2 – Nov 13)

4 : 30 PM – 6 : 00 PM PDT

The RadRoots Book Club is returning this October! Join our Fall Cohort in reading Five Little Indians by award-winning Cree author, Michelle Good—a novel about the intimate, interwoven stories of five residential school survivors navigating adulthood in so-called Vancouver.

This semester’s theme, “Indigenous Stories of Survival and Healing from Colonial Violence,” invites deep reflection on how centuries of colonial violence manifest in intergenerational trauma and the continued oppression of Indigenous Peoples today. Through biweekly discussions, we will explore themes around Indigenous resilience in a local context, and what it means to approach climate equity and food justice through this lens.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

RadRoots Book Club is a semesterly cohort designed to deepen students’ understanding of anti-oppression, decolonization, and equity through literature and student-led discussion. Our goal is to encourage students to think more critically about what it means to approach climate equity and food justice through an intersectional lens. What are the ‘roots’ of climate inequity and food injustice, and what are the many resulting forms of oppression that exist?

Books are chosen thematically by the JEDDI committee in alignment with this purpose and with preference given to books written by local authors and / or authors of systemically marginalized backgrounds.

The Cohort will meet biweekly on Thursdays from 4 : 30PM to 6 : 30PM in the Embark Studio (SUB #1310) from October 2 – November 13. Preference will be given to registrants who can make all cohort meetings this term.

Land Acknowledgement

Embark Sustainability’s work takes place across the unceded homelands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səlil̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), kʷikʷəƛw̓əm (Kwikwetlem), q̓íc̓əy̓ (Katzie), Qayqayt, Kwantlen, Semiahmoo, and Tsawwassen Nations. We greatly encourage our community members to reflect on the lands they are tuning in from; learn whose lands you occupy through native-land.ca.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Content warnings : This novel contains depictions of addiction, child abuse, sexual violence, forced institutionalization, and self-harm.

We recommend that cohort participants with personal triggers to certain content share this in the registration form, and how we can accommodate accessibility needs relative to this. Research of the book’s themes ahead of meeting with the cohort is also recommended.

Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie are barely out of childhood when they are finally released after years of detention.

Alone and without any skills, support or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn’t want them. The paths of the five friends cross and crisscross over the decades as they struggle to overcome, or at least forget, the trauma they endured during their years at the Mission.

Fuelled by rage and furious with God, Clara finds her way into the dangerous, highly charged world of the American Indian Movement. Maisie internalizes her pain and continually places herself in dangerous situations. Famous for his daring escapes from the school, Kenny can’t stop running and moves restlessly from job to job—through fishing grounds, orchards and logging camps—trying to outrun his memories and his addiction. Lucy finds peace in motherhood and nurtures a secret compulsive disorder as she waits for Kenny to return to the life they once hoped to share together. After almost beating one of his tormentors to death, Howie serves time in prison, then tries once again to re-enter society and begin life anew.

With compassion and insight, Five Little Indians chronicles the desperate quest of these residential school survivors to come to terms with their past and, ultimately, find a way forward.

Accessing the book

Embark will have limited copies of this book available on a first-come, first-served basis. It is otherwise the responsibility of cohort participants to source their own copies of the book by the first meeting on Thursday, October 2. We recommend reaching out to local public libraries and the SFU Library to source copies of the book.

Michelle Good Michelle Good is a Cree writer and a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. After working for Indigenous organizations for twenty-five years, she obtained a law degree and advocated for residential school survivors for over fourteen years. Good earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia while still practising law and managing her own law firm. Her poems, short stories, and essays have been published in magazines and anthologies across Canada, and her poetry was included on two lists of the best Canadian poetry in 2016 and 2017. Five Little Indians, her first novel, won the HarperCollins / UBC Best New Fiction Prize, the Amazon First Novel Award, the Governor General’s Literary Award the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Award, the Evergreen Award, the City of Vancouver Book of the Year Award, and Canada Reads 2022. It was also longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a finalist for the Writer’s Trust Award, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes. On October 7, 2022 Simon Fraser University granted her an Honorary Doctor of Letters. Her new work, Truth Telling : Seven Conversations about Indigenous life in Canada was released May 30, 2023.

Program Accessibility

The RadRoots Book Club is free and open to Embark Sustainability members which includes Simon Fraser University undergraduate and graduate students, as well as Embark Sustainability Associate Members.

The program will be held indoors at the Embark Studio, room #1310 of the Student Union Building (SUB), SFU Burnaby. The Embark Studio is :

• wheelchair accessible
• welcomes all gender identities and expressions
• a tree nut and peanut-free zone
• located near wheelchair accessible and gender-neutral restrooms
• provides access to a quiet space for personal meditation, reflection, or prayers

Other accessibility details include :

We aim to make our programs accessible to as many of our community members as possible. If we can take further action to make this event accessible to you, please contact our Director of Engagement at engagement@embarksustainability.org.

Health and safety

Participants who register are agreeing to release Embark Sustainability Society from any liability related to COVID-19. Masks are optional but encouraged.

Community Agreement

By registering to attend this event, you are agreeing to be respectful when listening to and communicating with others, and be mindful of the space you are taking up amongst your peers.

Embark Sustainability does not tolerate violence or aggression against others on the basis of race, ethnicity, place of origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious affiliation, or ability. Please also refer to people using the introductions they provide and do not assume pronouns / gender / knowledge based on someone’s name or appearance.

If these agreements are broken by someone, we will have to ensure the safety of our community members by removing them from the event.

Questions

If you have any questions about this event, please contact our JEDDI Officer at jeddi@embarksustainability.org.

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