Child’s costume detached from true Indigenous culture, people

Kate Jaimet recently published a piece bemoaning the fact her daughter’s wellintentioned “Native Princess” costume was deemed to be offensive by her teacher. Jaimet repeated an argument we have now seen many times in Canadian media: that discouraging appropriation of Indigenous cultures amounts to forbidding cross-cultural “appreciation” or, in Jaimet’s words, “imagining ourselves in someone else’s shoes.”

This argument misses the point of what Indigenous people have been telling us about appropriation. This is particularly apparent when Jaimet writes:

“Essentially, (a Franco-Ontarian school board that has advised students not to portray cultures outside of their own) is sending kids the message that a Jamaican boy can’t imagine himself a ninja. A Latino girl can’t dress up as a coureur des bois. And an Ojibwa child can’t pretend to be a gondolier.”

To imply these examples are equivalent to Jaimet’s daughter dressing up as an Indigenous person for Halloween is to imply that all Japanese people are ninjas, or all Italian people are gondoliers (the same goes for the coureur de bois example, although I would like to meet the kid who actually comes up with that costume . . . and ask her how she earned the confusing designation “Latino girl”).

These are examples of unique, storied professions, not generalizations of entire cultures or ethnicities. I am curious whether Jaimet would be comfortable with a white boy putting on brown face paint and a dashiki for Halloween, or an Indian girl throwing on a poncho and sombrero and stating that her costume that year was “a Mexican.”

So where does a “Native Princess” costume fall? Well, can Jaimet tell me what a Native Princess is? What nation does this “princess” come from? What legal order made her a “princess”? And what is she wearing that indicates this specific identity?

The uncomfortable reality is that when we settlers visualize a “Native” person, we cannot visualize an individual wearing particular garb for a particular reason, but only a hodgepodge of images we have seen of people from many different nations in many different contexts, divorced from an education in Indigenous culture and history that would allow us to understand who is who and what means what.

The result is that when we decide it is all right to dress up as Indigenous people, we are likely to combine clothing in inaccurate ways, and to adorn ourselves in regalia that is meant to mark a specific occasion or accomplishment of importance.

The message this sends is that “appreciating” Indigenous culture means having those mixed-up images in our head and finding them esthetically pleasing, rather than making an effort to discover the meaning behind them.

Perceiving this ignorance is essential to understanding why such costumes are offensive. It is general knowledge that a yarmulke on the head or a Celtic cross around the neck are meaningful symbols that shouldn’t be part of Halloween costumes, but the analogous fact that children should not be dressing up in sacred eagle feathers (or craft store approxima- tions thereof ) is widely unknown and being debated in our media.

All that Indigenous people are asking is that we stop reminding them how easy it is for us to remain ignorant of their cultures.

One valid question from Jaimet’s piece remains: how to explain this to a 4-yearold? I recommend she show her daughter photos of Indigenous teenagers wearing traditional clothes to school in support of the #WearingMyCulture campaign. Explain that for these kids, dressing like a “Native” takes bravery, since they have all been bullied for being Indigenous. Read where each of them comes from and point out how different their outfits are.

Jaimet should tell her daughter, “Yes, Native clothing is beautiful, but it is for Native people to show who they are, not for us.”

Then, she should encourage her daughter to keep learning about the people whose land she lives on for the rest of her life. That is how we gain the ability to truly imagine ourselves in others’ shoes.

All that Indigenous people are asking is that we stop reminding them how easy it is for us to remain ignorant of their cultures