Author shares experiences from residential schools – Nanaimo News

Feb 18, 2014

When Xat’sull Chief Bev Sellers reflects on her childhood she remembers the fear, humiliation and deplorable conditions she was so often forced to endure.

“I wasn’t allowed to be a normal child … to grow and experience things and question things and whatever,” Sellers said.

Sellers spent the majority of her childhood living and attending school at St. Joseph’s Mission, an Indian residential school in Williams Lake, B.C. As was the case for many First Nations children, Sellers was taken from her home and was legally required to attend a residential school.

“We couldn’t say anything, we couldn’t think for ourselves, we weren’t allowed to think for ourselves and that was just awful,” Sellers said. “We were programmed to self-destruct, we weren’t programmed to succeed.”

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