Old teachings encourage modern women

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Tsawwassen First Nation Chief Kim Baird doesn't let her age or gender stand in the way of her dreams. As the youngest female chief in Tsawwassen history-she was elected at age 29 and currently serving a second term-and chief negotiator in the Tsawwassen treaty process, Baird said she wants to restore her community's place in the world.

"When I moved back to the reserve at age 14, I saw the impact of socialization and colonization in the community," said Baird, whose ancestral name, Kwuntiltunaat came with the responsibility of looking after her people and honoring past ancestors.

Baird has done just that. At age 20, she approached the chief-of-the-day and asked to help in the land claims process.

"There wasn't a land claims program at the time," recalled Baird, "so the chief said 'if you're interested, why don't we set something up?'" She was hired as a land claims researcher and served three consecutive terms as a Tsawwassen councillor before being elected chief in 1999.

Baird said being a young female chief hasn't been at all an issue within her community.

"I've had lots of support from the Aboriginal community, mine in particular," she said. "Other Aboriginal leaders throughout B.C. have been very supportive as well.

"The biggest problem I've ran into is dealing with different levels of government, media and other mainstream audiences," said Baird. "I find they often have preconceived notions that since I'm a young women, I don't know much about Aboriginal issues . . . But I never take it personally."

What Baird does take seriously is her role in the treaty process, and making sure the final results contribute to a long-term reconciliation between her community, and the governments of B.C. and Canada.

"I'd like to see a shortening of social-economic disparity, economic development that provides quality employment opportunities and enough land to use for current and future generations," she said. "Culturally, I want to protect what we have left and revive what we've lost and with fishing being our only resource left, we want an allocation to support our social and economic needs."

Baird owns and operates a fishing vessel. For her, fishing provides a connection to her heritage and nature.

"Being on the water and harvesting the resource that my people have been harvesting for thousands of years is very satisfying," she said.

As for women in leadership roles, Baird said traditionally women have always been in leadership positions, but now she is seeing an increase in women as spokespersons as well. It's a trend that Yvonne McLeod is exploring for her PhD thesis with the University of Regina. She is currently the director of the Native Indian Teacher Education Program at the University of British Columbia.

"In the past, women were often the decision makers, but the visible roles of implementing these decisions were men," explained McLeod, whose thesis focuses on the leadership styles of First Nations women and whether they're following traditional First Nations models.

"Now I'm seeing women still making a lot of decisions, but they're also required to be the ones out there implementing," said McLeod.

McLeod has also noticed a lot of women in leadership roles have daughters striving to become leaders themselves. She said education has become an important tool for self-empowerment, as it was in her own personal journey.

When McLeod's two children were placed in special education in a provincial school on her reserve back in 1978, she started asking questions.

"Even as an uneducated mother, I realized something was wrong with the education system," she said. "I approached the school board and started doing research on my own."

What she found fuelled a thirst for knowledge and brought her to eventually earn a Bachelor degree and Master's in education.

Her daughter is also following McLeod's footsteps into education administration, participating in an educational leadership program in Saskatchewan.

McLeod says while her generation may not have had the opportunity to pursue higher education at a young age, the new generation of Aboriginal youth are coming on stronger than ever. "I'm a late boomer," she jokes. "I look at my daughter and how far she's come. I often wish I were as strong at her age as she is now."

At UBC, training students of First Nations ancestry to be effective educators, McLeod said she's definitely seeing a trend in Aboriginal youth seeking their identity.

"They want to know who they are; they want to develop themselves as people of balance and as contributing to society," said McLeod.

"Many of them respect the medicine wheel teaching and as they seek to fit into today's society, they want to maintain their Aboriginal traditions."

McLeod said the past may have been tragic and hurtful, "but it proves that we're a resilient people, a lot of the women I've seen are particularly so.

"If we're going to maintain who we are as a cultural group and build respect for ourselves, even through the tragedy and negative impact of residential schools," said McLeod, "we have to fall back on what's true to us." For McLeod, nothing rings more true than the teachings of the late Tsimilano:

"Form a circle, join hands in prayer. In joining hands, hold your left palm upward to reach back to grasp the teachings of the Ancestors. Hold your right palm downward to pass these teachings on to the younger generation. In this way, the circle of human understanding and caring grows stronger."