Description
A residential school survivor finds his way back to his language and culture through his family's traditional stories. When reflecting on forces that have shaped his life, Solomon Ratt says his education was interrupted by his schooling. Torn from his family at the age of six, Ratt was placed into the residential school system-a harsh, institutional world, operated in a language he could not yet understand, far from the love and comfort of home and family. In ka-pi-isi-kiskisiyan / / The Way I Remember It , Ratt reflects on these memories and the life-long challenges he endured through his telling of acimisowin -autobiographical stories-and also traditional tales. Written over the course of several decades, Ratt describes his life before, during, and after residential school. In many ways, these stories reflect the experience of thousands of other Indigenous children across Canada, but Ratt's stories also stand apart in a significant way: he managed to retain his
