Gloria Castillo

            On Friday morning I finished memorizing “L’amour prison” (Jailed in Love) by Serge Gainsbourg and found one set of chords for it online. I’ll look for more on Saturday.

            I started doing research for my Indigenous Studies essay. So far I only found one article on day schools and this one was by an associate professor at St Vincent. She claimed there was a big connection between day schools in the Maritimes and the one residential school in Nova Scotia. She said the government deliberately under funded the reserve day schools to cause parents to want to send their kids to Nova Scotia and that all the PEI Native kids went to Nova Scotia. That’s still a far cry from kids being dragged away in handcuffs like they were out west. Her introduction is full of apologies for her privilege and assurances that she sought Indigenous sources. The language is leaden with words like “genocide". She also mentioned that there was corporal punishment in Native day schools. She would have to describe the degree to show how it was different from any other school at that time. There was plenty of corporal punishment for white kids in New Brunswick country schools. I couldn’t count how many times I got the strap. My brother got the strap for telling his teacher that he was sure that chickens have teeth. I got spanked by a teacher with a tree branch when I was in grade four.

            I took the shelving brackets that I’d bought the day before back to the hardware store along with the board that I needed them to fit. They gladly exchanged them for the right size and since the ones I needed were smaller I got some money back.

            I used one of the brackets to put up an extra shelf in the upper storage area. The vertical slats for it were already screwed into the wall from when I’d had a shelf there before. I didn’t do arrange any of the stuff I have stored up there because I’d already taken up enough time.

            I had a can of chickpeas with flaxseed oil and garlic for lunch.

            I was just finishing lunch when there was a knock on my door and before I could answer it my landlord opened the door to call to me. That’s an annoying and arrogant habit he has. He said that Benji's bathtub has started filling up again every time I run water in my sinks. He says it’s because my sinks are higher than his tub. He poured some kind of drain cleaner in my kitchen and bathroom sinks. I told him to wait until I answer the door next time but he argued that he’d knocked four times. He said he doesn't want to knock louder because he doesn't want to break his door. I guess he thinks he's the Hulk. He couldn't break that door with his fist if he tried.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Sapphire decides to take in a boarder. At first Kingfish is all for bringing in an extra $18 a week until he meets Windy Wilson, hears how annoyingly talkative he is and sees how much he eats. He ate almost a whole roast beef and almost grabbed the slice off of Kingfish’s plate. But worst of all is that Windy plays saxophone every night, and badly. This episode takes place in 1949 and so Kingfish tries to get Windy fired from his job for un-American activities. He tells Windy’s boss that he’s a spy but he doesn’t buy it. Windy gets promoted to the company’s Albuquerque branch and Kingfish thinks his troubles are over until Sapphire reveals that she’s taken up the saxophone.

            There is usually a tiny segment of the show featuring baby talk by Amos’s new daughter Amosandra. It’s mentioned at the end of the show that people can send for an Amosandra doll. They were popular from 1949 until 1955.

            I skimmed the executive summary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report on residential schools. There was a little bit in there that gave me more information on day schools.

John A Macdonald clearly believed that Native children were better off in residential schools than in day schools because day school students returned every day to their own culture.

First Nations never asked for residential schools as part of the Treaty process, and neither did the government suggest that such schools would be established. The education provisions promised to pay for schools on reserves or teachers.

            The government constantly struggled, and failed, to assert control over the churches’ drive to increase the number of schools they operated.

It was not until 1894 that the federal government put in place regulations relating to residential school attendance. Under the regulations adopted in that year, residential school attendance was voluntary. However, if an Indian agent or justice of the peace thought that any “Indian child between six and sixteen years of age is not being properly cared for or educated, and that the parent, guardian or other person having charge or control of such child, is unfit or unwilling to provide for the child’s education,” he could issue an order to place the child “in an industrial or boarding school, in which there may be a vacancy for such child.”

Residential school was never compulsory for all First Nations children. In most years, there were more First Nations children attending Indian Affairs day schools than residential schools. During the early 1940s, this pattern was reversed. In the 1944–45 school year, there were 8,865 students in residential schools, and 7,573 students in Indian Affairs day schools. In that year, there were reportedly 28,429 school-aged Aboriginal children. This meant that 31.1% of the school-aged Aboriginal children were in residential school.

Calls for day schools were, in fact, a common parental request. A 1949 call from parents for a day school at the Cowessess Reserve eventually proved to be successful.

New litigation has been led by survivors of day schools not covered under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

I found the website for the Indian Day Schools class action suit and started picking through it for bits of information.

I grilled nine chicken drumsticks and had one with a potato and gravy while watching Zorro. This was an interesting story in background because two of the main characters were Indigenous indentured servants wanting to marry each other. Buena is Diego’s servant and he has given permission but Romaldo’s master Don Tomas has refused. He tells Romaldo that cannot marry until he completes his remaining two years as a servant. Tomas’s head vaquero (cowboy) Lazaro wants Buena for himself and so he has convincingly lied to Tomas that if he allows Romaldo to marry they will run away to his people in the hills. Tomas considers this a betrayal of honour because Tomas has paid for Romaldo to go to school. Romaldo refuses to wait two years and wants to run away. Diego tries to reason with him and he and Buena eventually are able to convince him to wait. But when Romaldo returns servitude Tomas tells him that as punishment for trying to run away he is adding a year to his servitude. Romaldo fights with Lazaro and escapes. Lazaro goes to Diego’s hacienda and lies to Buena that Romaldo is injured and she must come to him. In reality Lazaro is holding Buena to capture Romaldo. When Tomas finds out about this he tries to stop Lazaro but Lazaro says if he can’t have Buena no one can. Lazaro slightly injures Buena with a knife just as Zorro arrives. Lazaro tries to get away but Zorro captures him. Tomas sees the error of his ways and agrees to let Romaldo marry Buena now as long as he agrees to complete the two years of servitude.

            Buena was played by Gloria Castillo, who starred in "Night of the Hell Creatures", “Invasion of the Saucer Men” and "Reform School Girl". She later became a successful dress designer but died of cancer at the age of 45.

            Slavery was officially forbidden under Spanish law but Indigenous people were placed under servitude by the missions and the soldiers used them as forced labour. When Mexico took over California it banned slavery in 1829. Of course when California became a US state slavery returned.

            I have yet to see any African Americans on the Zorro show even though in the late 18^th Century time there was a considerable population of African Americans in Los Angeles.