The best people build lifelong friendships, and their work has benefited our community a lot. But what many of them wrote about us, or what they said, did not match our life experience.

For centuries, the humanity of the indigenous people has been hidden behind stereotypes, myths and prejudices. Indigenous voices have been suppressed for a long time and are only allowed to be heard when “experts” such as pastors, scientists, politicians, or bureaucrats believe they are effective.

By denying us access to the dialogue that shaped this country, we were written into history books as relics of a bygone era.

Even before Canada became a nation, colonialism weaponized stories about indigenous peoples. These are used to scare settlers into thinking that we are dirty, dangerous and drunk-untrustworthy or sympathetic. These stories made the settlers feel contempt for the indigenous people who survived colonialism.

Our stories make us human; they are our way of conveying our culture, language, and lifestyle. They are the way we connect with our family and ancestors. When you delete us from our own story, we lose who we are. When the church and the state take indigenous children from their homes and place them in boarding schools, they can remove the children from stories that tell them part of their proud, strong, and beautiful lifestyle. Instead, they were told stories that they were broken, went to hell, and needed to be tamed.

Many children in these schools have been abused, tortured and killed because the church and the country refuse to see our humanity and refuse to hear our stories.

As indigenous people, we have always known that our worldview is dynamic, our storytellers are fascinating, and our views are unique and diverse. When we have the opportunity to share our stories with others, it is an opportunity to recognize our common humanity, see our similarities and learn from our differences.

This does not mean that people from outside our community cannot accurately portray us. But even if they are well-intentioned, they may miss important nuances, misunderstand the context, or lack important details. Ancient metaphors about indigenous people can emerge from their subconscious minds and enter their work. All aspects of Aboriginal lives may become flattened to accommodate pre-existing prejudices.

Sometimes you just need that kind of life experience to really explain something.

When I travel outside of Labrador, or even Newfoundland, I realize that not many people know us. This makes me want to be a reporter or some kind of storyteller, share stories about my family, let people know about Labrador, and make us feel inclusive, so indigenous people don’t have to do all the work of explaining the indigenous world in our In daily life.

When our indigenous stories are hidden from other parts of Canada, they are also hidden from other indigenous people. It is always a pleasure to share our stories with other indigenous people. Although we have different cultures or come from different fields, we have a lot in common. We always want to see how other people do things, especially when their land and waters are similar to our own.

I hope someone from Labrador can tell our story in a respectful and understanding way. For the past ten years, I have been working in indigenous media, initially as a video reporter for APTN, just to do this.

The ability to tell one’s own story and define one’s own worldview is called narrative sovereignty. This means you have the ability to share ideas that are important to you. When indigenous peoples have narrative sovereignty, stereotypes and myths disappear, and we are free to truly represent ourselves.

Our story is an opportunity to understand us, to understand our humanity, to see us as polyhedrons rather than two-dimensional stereotypes.

I feel proud when someone, especially someone from Labrador, tells me to continue sharing indigenous stories.

Things are changing. Indigenous people are receiving attention, and although this is a good start, we still have a long way to go. We have generations of stereotypes to prove wrong, and generations to amaze, enrich and develop our own narratives.

Ossie Michelin is the author and director of the new CBC podcast Telling our twisted history, An 11-episode series that reproduces indigenous history by exploring the meaning of 11 words that have been distorted by centuries of colonization.

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