Celeste Bull Bear- You Don’t Want the Other Children to Laugh
Her name is Mrs. Demetrichuk, in Gleichen, but she used to be a substitute teacher here at Old Sun Residential School. I remember that time she was substituting and she was telling us what page to go to. I couldn’t really understand her because she had an accent and she was saying “page thirteen,” but yet she wasn’t saying thirteen. She kept saying “page one three” and I was thinking she was saying “page one and page three.” I don’t know, I just I couldn’t understand her and finally she must’ve noticed I was getting confused.
She came over and she told me “did you find the page?” and I told her “no. I can’t, I can’t understand you.” and she told me, “I told you, it was, I said, its page thirteen.” And she was turning the pages for me, and she slammed her hand on my book. “This is page thirteen, now use your ears.” Honestly, she just came, she just grabbed my left ear, and she just twisted it. And I could… I just heard that cracking sound, and I just starting crying. And she told me, “you be quiet, you quit crying, you don’t want all the other children laughing at you.” So that’s what, that’s what I went through.
I got a lot of people making fun of me because I was shy and I just, always cried when they made fun of me. I always… I think that’s why I’m pretty shy and I get scared for somebody to make fun of me because I’m self conscious of what they, you know, what they used to call me. They called me all, you know names. You know, I just didn’t feel good about myself because I thought “well, maybe that’s how I look.” Maybe that’s how, you know. I started to look at myself like that, like as… like I was ugly. That’s why I can’t even look at a person to this day, I think I’m still like that. I can’t look at anybody, face to face because I’m thinking “gee, maybe that’s what they’re saying. Maybe in their mind they’re saying, gee she’s ugly.”
These are just some of the things I encountered, it wasn’t the supervisors or them doing that but it was the other kids that did that to me. And I just like, I still know those people; I still know them and they’re still you know on the reserve. But I just don’t bother with them. I just try not to, I try to smile at them but yeah, well, they smile back, too. But I just think, I wonder if they remember what they did to me.
– Celeste Bull Bear (Bear Chief)
Notes:
Oral interview with Celeste Bull Bear (Bear Chief). Conducted, translated, and transcribed by Gwendora Bear Chief. Old Sun Community College, March 28, 2022.
