Aquila Underwood

My mother always taught me that whakapapa (ancestry) is everything. If you have the whakapapa, it doesn’t matter how much you know about your people, because you can be taught.

There is still a preconception that Indigeneity is something to hide, something to be ashamed of — especially in our generation. But, our existence was not born of gradual and welcomed change but a forceful shift in everything we knew. But now, more than ever, we as Indigenous people are finally reclaiming ourselves.

My life is connected to those of every Indigenous woman, girl and Two Spirit person because of the violence we face daily. You may know what MMIWG2S is, but you probably don’t understand its reality.

We hope that this supplement shines light on Indigenous resistance, resilience, and excellence and shows the current rekindling of Indigenous culture taking place in so-called “Canada”.

In the Indigenous world, storytelling is how we know everything we know. Knowledge passed down from generation to generation, changing and evolving as the world does, too.