The follow excerpts represent a brief glimpse into the production of narrative accounts of identity and acculturation. From a human science / hermeneutical perspective we can provide understanding of the individual life against the collective identity of the group or culture, and likewise understand the culture through the individual lives of people living through the culture.

Sarah, a 28 year old woman who is the daughter of a Chinese-Native-Irish father and a "radical ex-hippie" white mother reported growing up in poverty, washing her clothes in the "creek", and later bouncing from foster home to foster home while her alcoholic mother tried to sober up. While she experienced many challenges in life, she reports that she now jokes with other native about how many foster homes they each had been in.

She reports having grown up with feelings of alienation from the other natives when at powwows with her "white" mother. She states:

When we were out in Native gatherings with our white mother we were shunned by the Natives, and then, but when I was at school without my white mother , I was shunned by the non-Natives

Such feelings of alienation from one's cultural identity is common among other young Canadians. This is clearly seen in the case of Catherine, the daughter of a former bush pilot-fur trapper who was force to leave her "culture" behind, as Hudson Bay Company stopped buying furs, ending a tradition. Catherine states:

. . . I grew up where there would be beaver skins, on the kitchen floor. Fur trapping that is a native American and French Canadian culture, . . . . And we have a legacy of logging, trapping, fishing, these kinds of things that people don't like anymore, and my father worked for the Hudson's Bay Company, they just shut down, they laid him off at the very beginning of the recession, he was one of the first victims of that, Green-peace and all that stuff. just as loggers now are. So that's probably why, any cultural things we have in our history are things that aren't politically correct anymore, so we don't want to bring them to the forefront, don't want to take pride in killing little animals, you know

She has been "uprooted" from her cultural landscape, now having her living traditions taken away, she reports that she has been deculturated and margianlised.

Jennie also reported feelings alienation, as a new immigrant to Canada from Hong Kong. She replies to the question of whether or not she feels Canadian by stating:

I am not white, I am not born here. . . [She continues ] . . . I'm going to become a Canadian citizen next week, but it's just the right that I can live here. . . . but I'm not [Canadian], I'm Chinese, just look at me, everyone can tell. Even if I have the Canadian citizen, passport, everyone would say "ah, you're Chinese", what's the point?

Rather than being barred to practice her traditions, she does not consider herself to be Canadian because of her racial appearance.

Johnny also reported feelings of alienation with respect to being Canadian, however, this was a more typically Canadian sense of alienation, being not American. For Johnny, it is unclear where his animosity directed towards "Americans" appears to be a projection of his animosity towards his estranged father (who is American). This case illustrates the psycho-social facet of history making where "Americans" represent / are represented by his estranged father. He reports that:

Being Canadian is being anti-American and everything American that influences Canadian life I dislike and I really dislike the states, an entirely all-American view and in anything Canada is heading towards in an American lifestyle. . . .

I just dislike the fact that the States are based upon the fact that everyone can carry a gun. . . . . um I dislike the fact that the States is like the bill of rights and that they just back into this bill of rights to cover themselves up. The people in Canada just seem to be more caring of each other. And like everybody here, even our most conservative governments, we still care about one another, we still have our welfare system, and the welfare state and healthcare and everything that goes along with it. And the states doesn't. And I get the feeling that it's more like every person for him/her self and that's what the states are built on.

While there is common theme of distancing and "alienation from culture", it is manifest in a variety of forms in these cases. These varied cases are a few examples of the "putting into words" of their feelings about culture and identity, feelings that often come from their semiconscious or unconscious experience. As Rochelle, reported, there were many issues and ideas that came up through the interview dialogue, things she hadn't thought of before. By talking about some things, they were made clear for her, and she felt somewhat liberated in receiving a copy of the audio taped discussion. Talking about past events also appears to offer the possibility of coming to grips with difficult situations. Sarah talks about her youth when she had negative experiences of being Native. She says:

... in the seventies when I was in elementary school, the Native image was very negative. In grade four my teacher asked me to ask my mother, as a child I was so poor, never had any lunch, there was no doubt that that child was Native, asked me if she could come to our class to talk about the culture wit the class as a project. Sure, I was all excited, Went home and asked my mom and she said sure, and when that day came I couldn't wait for her to get there, my mother showed up, then the teacher went to the door and she had a few words with my mother and then she left. I didn't figure it out until I was an adult, we just went on and no one explained it. Cause a week later another mother came in with long black hair and some baskets and she talked about basketry and jewelry, and my mother wanted to talk about the way the government was treating Indians.

Q-How did that make you feel at the time?

Oh Devastated, I left the room, and I went to the Safeway and I stole some Certs, and I was caught.

At the time unable to verbalise her feelings, she turned to deviant action as a way to express her self-depreciation. Now, as an adult, she is able to verbalise her earlier experiences, in part reliving them, in part reconstructing them against the context of her present self-understanding. She now is developing a more positive sense of identity, but that is not without struggle. Even though she says "what it means to be Native to me means to be extremely confused", she continues to say that "Native Indians in a group feel a lot of pride, but once we disperse into society that is quickly stripped."

The context and history of our region (& nation) is marked by the forced assimilation of natives to Christian European culture, forced marginalisation and segregation, the languages, traditions and family practices had almost completely been wiped out.

Now turning back to Sarah's life, one can recognise the collective struggles of identity and history as they are played out in the life of a young woman. Sarah reports finding her tradition in the following passage:

Well there was a lot of pride in being a first nations restaurant, with BBQ salmon and bannok, deer, and especially at EXPO, it was the first time I truly felt pride in my culture. It was set up on the EXPO site and I was myself was amazed by the Native artwork, and the lineup, they would line up forever. I couldn't believe that outside of my reserve that there were people who were intrigued, other than my mother, by Native Indians. And that they didn't look at us as drunks. That here were people out there that saw us as a culture that had something to share. Something to be respected.

She is able to now grasp at that cultural world-view, including its value system in developing her own sense of strength and bildung or character. As seen in her involvement in the above shared activity, sharing her culture with the world, she develops the virtues of her ego (Erikson, 1964), developing fidelity to a way of life.

Everyday practical activity of identity (phronesis) is the process through which she is member of a culture, sharing the socio-moral order (Taylor, 1988) that defines her as a person within that tradition (Paranjpe, 1998).

In reaching her goal of becoming a Native counsellor, Sarah will be able to continue to develop her pride and comfort in being native, helping others in her community become more settled in their identity, taking part in the re-emergence of traditions and reconstruction of collective identity and history.