A Two-Spirit Journey

Paperback, 256 pages

English language

Published April 22, 2016 by University of Manitoba Press.

ISBN:: 978-0-88755-812-2
OCLC Number:: 927382779

(1 review)

From her early, often harrowing memories of life and abuse in a remote Ojibwa community, Ma-Nee Chacaby's extraordinary story is one of enduring and ultimately overcoming the social and economic legacies of colonialism.

As a child, Chacaby learned spiritual and cultural traditions from her Cree grandmother and trapping, hunting, and bush survival skills from her Ojibwa stepfather. She also suffered physical and sexual violence, and in her teen years became an alcoholic herself. At twenty, Chacaby took her children and, fleeing an abusive marriage, moved to Thunder Bay. Despite the abuse, racism, and indifference she often found there, Chacaby marshalled the strength and supports to help herself and others.

Over the following decades, she achieved sobriety, trained and worked as an alcoholism counsellor, raised her children and fostered many others, learned to live with visual impairment, and came out as a lesbian. In 2013, Chacaby led the first gay pride …

From her early, often harrowing memories of life and abuse in a remote Ojibwa community, Ma-Nee Chacaby's extraordinary story is one of enduring and ultimately overcoming the social and economic legacies of colonialism.

As a child, Chacaby learned spiritual and cultural traditions from her Cree grandmother and trapping, hunting, and bush survival skills from her Ojibwa stepfather. She also suffered physical and sexual violence, and in her teen years became an alcoholic herself. At twenty, Chacaby took her children and, fleeing an abusive marriage, moved to Thunder Bay. Despite the abuse, racism, and indifference she often found there, Chacaby marshalled the strength and supports to help herself and others.

Over the following decades, she achieved sobriety, trained and worked as an alcoholism counsellor, raised her children and fostered many others, learned to live with visual impairment, and came out as a lesbian. In 2013, Chacaby led the first gay pride parade in Thunder Bay.

Ma-Nee Chacaby has emerged from hardship grounded in faith, compassion, and humour. Her memoir provides unprecedented insights into the challenges still faced by many Indigenous people.

1 edition

Taylor Drew reviewed A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby (Critical Studies in Native History, #18)

A harrowing tale of hope

4 stars

I think this is the first book that I've read about an indigenous elder before and I'm so glad that it won Canada Reads this year, or I would have never read it at all or even known it existed.

The title alone does a great job of summarizing what this book is trying to do and I think it really does that. The narrative is told chronologically from the childhood of the author's grandmother until present (at the time of publication). The sections are broken down carefully and an easy to understand ways and there's also a very informative acknowledgment and afterward at the end from the scholar who helped the author write the book.

That being said, this book has a content warning list that is pretty extensive. The descriptions aren't incredibly graphic, but Ma-Nee dealt with domestic violence, sexual assault, alcoholism, drug abuse, homophobia, etc etc etc. …

I think this is the first book that I've read about an indigenous elder before and I'm so glad that it won Canada Reads this year, or I would have never read it at all or even known it existed.

The title alone does a great job of summarizing what this book is trying to do and I think it really does that. The narrative is told chronologically from the childhood of the author's grandmother until present (at the time of publication). The sections are broken down carefully and an easy to understand ways and there's also a very informative acknowledgment and afterward at the end from the scholar who helped the author write the book.

That being said, this book has a content warning list that is pretty extensive. The descriptions aren't incredibly graphic, but Ma-Nee dealt with domestic violence, sexual assault, alcoholism, drug abuse, homophobia, etc etc etc. there's also more than one mention of child death. If any of those things or the combination of them is going to be too much for you, I think you should probably sit this one out or do it in very small chunks--very doable because of the easy to understand structure of the narrative.

While I wish that the author hadn't had to go through any of these terrible things throughout her life, I am in awe of the extent of her resilience and the efforts she put into herself. It gives me so much joy that she found love and happiness more than once and seems to live a very fulfilling life. That being said, her experiences are a reminder that while everything takes hard work, hard work alone often isn't enough. We need the support of our community and the people who care about us.

Thanks for the lessons, Elder.

Subjects

Ojibwa Indians
Cree Indians
Two-spirit people
Indians
Biography
Lesbians

Places

Canada
Thunder Bay (Ont.)
Ontario

Lists

Disability and Chronic Illness reads