All Our Relations US Edition

Finding the Path Forward

Tanya Talaga

• Publisher: House of Anansi Press
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781487005757
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Health Policy
• Index: Social Sciences

Winner, 2024 Blue Metropolis First Peoples Prize, for the whole of her work
Finalist, 2018 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding
Finalist, 2018 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction

Tanya Talaga, the bestselling author of Seven Fallen Feathers, calls attention to an urgent global humanitarian crisis among Indigenous Peoples — youth suicide.

"Talaga's research is meticulous and her journalistic style is crisp and uncompromising. She brings each story to life, skillfully weaving the stories of the youths' lives, deaths, and families together with sharp analysis… The book is heartbreaking and infuriating, both an important testament to the need for change and a call to action." — Publishers Weekly *Starred Review*

"Talaga has crafted an urgent and unshakable portrait of the horrors faced by Indigenous teens going to school in Thunder Bay, Ontario… Talaga's incisive research and breathtaking storytelling could bring this community one step closer to the healing it deserves." — Booklist *Starred Review*

In this urgent and incisive work, bestselling and award-winning author Tanya Talaga explores the alarming rise of youth suicide in Indigenous communities in Canada and beyond. From Northern Ontario to Nunavut, Norway, Brazil, Australia, and the United States, the Indigenous experience in colonized nations is startlingly similar and deeply disturbing. It is an experience marked by the violent separation of Peoples from the land, the separation of families, and the separation of individuals from traditional ways of life — all of which has culminated in a spiritual separation that has had an enduring impact on generations of Indigenous children. As a result of this colonial legacy, too many communities today lack access to the basic determinants of health — income, employment, education, a safe environment, health services — leading to a mental health and youth suicide crisis on a global scale. But, Talaga reminds us, First Peoples also share a history of resistance, resilience, and civil rights activism.

Based on her Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy series, All Our Relations is a powerful call for action, justice, and a better, more equitable world for all Indigenous Peoples.

Index

Aboriginal people, 30–31, 121, 163. See also Australia

discrimination against, 96–102

health-care system and, 143–44, 161

incarceration rates, 163

and kinship, 93–102

suicide among, 13, 14–15, 121

Achneepineskum, Anna Betty, 4, 112–13

Achneepineskum, Sam, 44–47, 91

activism

in Brazil, 84–85, 88, 89–90, 205–6

in Canada, 156–57, 188–90, 200–201, 204–5, 207–9

in Norway, 205

in United States, 52–55, 199–200, 201–4

addiction, 172, 197

adoption, 35–36, 129–32

African National Congress, 151

Albany River (ON), 37–38, 42

Alberta, 154

Alcatraz Occupation (US), 200, 201

Alexander VI, Pope, 47, 48

Algayer, Altair, 89–90

Algonquin peoples, 24. See also specific nations

Alta Dam (Norway), 205

Amazonas. See Brazil

American Indian Movement (aim), 200

Amnesty International, 87–88

Anderson, Ernest, 207, 208

Anderson, Jethro, 8

Anderson, Jordan River, 207–8

Anglican Church, 95, 107. See also child abuse; Rowe, Ralph

Angus, Charlie, 6, 193

Anishinabeg, 22, 24, 91–92. See also...

Table of contents

• Also by the Author
• Title page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• One: We Were Always Here
• Two: Big Brother’s Hunger
• Three: The Third Space
• Four: “I Breathe For Them”
• Five: We Are Not Going Anywhere
• Acknowledgements
• Index