Holy Crow Arts Society and SFU Indigenous Studies

presents

Honor Thy Mother 

Documentary Screening and Panel

Thursday, September 25th

Reception: 5PM

Welcome & Screening: 5:30PM

FREE admission

Light refreshments & Bannock treats will be served

Simon Fraser University

Burnaby Campus

The Leslie & Gordon Diamond Family Auditorium

8888 University Drive

Convocation Mall, Burnaby, BC V5A 4Y8

Honor Thy Mother is the untold story of thirty-six Indigenous women from First Nations in British Columbia and Native American tribes in Washington State and Alaska who migrated to Bainbridge Island, WA in the 1940s, the traditional territory of the Suquamish people. Most of these women were survivors of Indian Residential Schools with some still in their teens. They went to Bainbridge Island to pick berries for Japanese American farmers. There, each of these women met and married Filipino immigrant men, creating mixed-heritage families of (Indigenous mother and Filipino father) Indipino children. 

The voices of the Indipino children, now elders, are integral in the storytelling of their mothers’ courage and resilience, women who navigated colonial oppression and also took great risk marrying Asian men, some of whom became disenfranchised from the nineteen different Nations and Tribes they belonged to. Many Indipino children grew up in homes burdened with their parents' trauma which was heightened by their collective memory of the Japanese Americans' forced removal on the Island after President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in 1942 and the tumult that ensued. 

TALKBACK & PANEL

Two of the Indipino children and members of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation), Gina Corpuz, a producer and narrator of the documentary, and Colleen Almojuela, an educator whose career spans over fifty years of work in Native American and Multicultural Education, will join host Justin Neal, playwright, grandson, and 2024-25 SFU Jack and Doris Shadbolt Fellow, as they explore the issues and broader contexts raised in the documentary. 

The three will be joined by two younger Squamish Nation relatives: Lanessa Cerrillo, the Indipino Community of Bainbridge Island’s (ICBI) Board Chair, a third generation Indipina, and co-contributor to a digital magazine called The Corpuz Family 100% Project: Multi-Ethnic Filipinos, a Smithsonian Institute Initiative via the Asian Pacific American Center and the Filipino American Educators of Washington.

Justin and Lanessa will speak to the work they are doing in sharing and carrying on the important legacy of their grandparents and great grandparents, and their families' story that underscores the vibrant North American experience.

The panelists' relatives in the Squamish Ocean Canoe Family will begin the evening sharing in song, centring us on the speakers' ancestral lands.

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Honor Thy Mother is a documentary project of the Indipino Community of Bainbridge Island