Our Voices Our Realities

Inspired by history, Our Story is a beautifully illustrated collection of original stories from some of Canada’s most celebrated Aboriginal writers. Asked to explore seminal moments in Canadian history from an Aboriginal perspective, these ten acclaimed authors have travelled through our country’s past to discover the moments that shaped our nation and its people. Drawing on their skills as gifted storytellers and the unique perspectives their heritage affords, the contributors to this collection offer wonderfully imaginative accounts of what it’s like to participate in history. From a tale of Viking raiders to a story set during the Oka crisis, the authors tackle a wide range of issues and events, taking us into the unknown, while also bringing the familiar into sharper focus. Our Story brings together an impressive array of voices—Inuk, Cherokee, Ojibway, Cree, and Salish to name just a few—from across the country and across the spectrum of First Nations. These are the novelists, playwrights, journalists, activists, and artists whose work is both Aboriginal and uniquely Canadian. Brought together to explore and articulate their peoples’ experience of our country’s shared history, these authors’ grace, insight, and humour help all Canadians understand the forces and experiences that have made us who we are. Maria Campbell • Tantoo Cardinal • Tomson Highway • Drew Hayden Taylor • Basil Johnston • Thomas King • Brian Maracle • Lee Maracle • Jovette Marchessault • Rachel Qitsualik

Our Voices is a story of a woman in search of herself that keeps on turning the kaleidoscope that is memory and life over and over again, looking for a meaning that seems to escape her; an echo into both past and future; a lyrical, deeply personal confession.

Born with Voice examines the psyche and scrape of the victims of various crimes, especially sexual discrimination-cum-exploitation, rape, and the killing of people with albinism. The author digs deeper into the hearts and minds, and plights of victims to inspire the society to stand with, and support them. The book offers some nuggets such as, understanding the phenomenon, confronting it and stopping wars that cause sufferings such as rape and death. It champions the urgency of voice for all and sundry. It challenges the industries of technologies of crime and violence to rise above selfish self-interest in the interest of human rights and voicing the voiceless victims of their greed.

The Haudenosaunee, more commonly known as the Iroquois or Six Nations, have been one of the most widely written-about Indigenous groups in the United States and Canada. But seldom have the voices emerging from this community been drawn on in order to understand its enduring intellectual traditions. Rick Monture’s We Share Our Matters offers the first comprehensive portrait of how the Haudenosaunee of the Grand River region have expressed their long struggle for sovereignty in Canada. Drawing from individualsas diverse as Joseph Brant, Pauline Johnson and Robbie Robertson, Monture illuminates a unique Haudenosaunee world view comprised of three distinct features: a spiritual belief about their role and responsibility to the earth; a firm understanding of their sovereign status as a confederacy of independant nations; and their responsibility to maintain those relations for future generations. After more than two centuries of political struggle Haudenosaunee thought has avoided stagnant conservatism and continues to inspire ways to address current social and political realities.

You always wanted to change something around you but never got the courage nor knew the process to do something. Great things never come from comfort zones. We usually stay silent and watch the world go through changes, people going through injustice, animals being ill-treated and the planet being destroyed. And there are times when we contemplate ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if I could ...?’ We have a lot of ideas but don’t act on them. Ideas that could make the lives of people better, the planet a better place, and that could bring light to the world. There are some people around us who rise to the challenges to do something about such issues. Our Voice: Our stories is an anthology of amazing changemakers who decided to plant the seeds of light for the future. This book is about to illuminate your minds. You are about to be exposed to how the simplest tools on the internet started to change ideas that later became actions. Each of them has a powerful story, and each story has one clear message – we all have the power to do something which may change the life of humans around us. Our voices: Our stories displaying the different mindsets, and these real-world examples make for a fascinating read. If you want to learn more about how to achieve it in life, this book will be a great investment in your success.

An innovative anthology showcasing Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s histories Our Voices, Our Histories brings together thirty-five Asian American and Pacific Islander authors in a single volume to explore the historical experiences, perspectives, and actions of Asian American and Pacific Islander women in the United States and beyond. This volume is unique in exploring Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s lives along local, transnational, and global dimensions. The contributions present new research on diverse aspects of Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s history, from the politics of language, to the role of food, to experiences as adoptees, mixed race, and second generation, while acknowledging shared experiences as women of color in the United States. Our Voices, Our Histories showcases how new approaches in US history, Asian American and Pacific Islander studies, and Women’s and Gender studies inform research on Asian American and Pacific Islander women. Attending to the collective voices of the women themselves, the volume seeks to transform current understandings of Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s histories.

As educators, how do we challenge and interrupt the social construction of whiteness in ourselves, in the classroom, in schools, and in the wider society? Coming from diverse backgrounds, the contributors in this volume draw on their own well-examined experiences of race, racism, and whiteness in developing effective antiracist pedagogies and classroom activities that interrupt and contest whiteness. They have explored their own lives from the selective position of their own memories and have traced the ways in which their assumptions - which they use to mediate and interpret the world around them - have been constituted by public ideological forces. They have collaborated with others in building alternative pedagogies and support systems, enabling them to teach, and at the same time, reflect on the assumptions behind and the effects of their teaching. The result is the work collected here.

What are the key issues facing black women in America today? Does God's Word offer guidance in how to navigate the realities and difficulties posed by those issues? After surveying black women across America to determine which topics are heaviest on their hearts, the authors of Our Voices present a very personal and practical overview. Ten women share with the reader their journeys and what they have learned from God's Word about His perspective on key issues facing them as black women. This book provides a powerful challenge to the reader to walk in obedience to God's Word, amid a culture that is bent on rebellion and that beckons us to do likewise.