Being uprooted means feeling like a tree that has been cut off from its roots: it is being removed from your original culture and immersed in another, totally different culture. When uprooted, a person may feel lonely, sad, or angry.
Over the course of their history, the First Peoples were uprooted several times.
Colonization by the Europeans and especially the desire to convert the Aboriginal people to Christianity distanced them from their spirituality and traditions.
The Government of Canada’s Indian Act dictated who could be recognized as Aboriginal. The creation of the reserves changed their way of life by forcing them to stay in one place. Aboriginal people could no longer make their own decisions; the government agent decided.
Residential schools tore children out of their communities to force them to stop behaving, looking like and speaking like “Indians”.
All of this created a great distance between Aboriginals and their cultural traditions.
Today, Aboriginal people work very hard and in all kinds of ways to reconnect with their roots: they express themselves through the arts, study their languages and traditions and practice activities of the past. Young people are asking their elders to help them achieve these goals.