Crystal Smith is pictured with her baby λugʷaləs k’ala’ask Shaw.Supplied
An Indigenous family on Vancouver Island has launched a court petition after the provincial government wouldn’t register their baby’s name in Kwak’wala lettering, in a move that could compel the government to act quicker on its commitments to Indigenous rights.
Crystal Smith of Campbell River, B.C., said she first ran into roadblocks when she used Kwak’wala lettering when registering her son’s birth name as λugʷaləs k’ala’ask Shaw. Her son’s first name is taken from a mountain in Wei Wai Kum territory, where the boy’s father Raymond Shaw is from.
She said Mr. Shaw spoke to elders in his community to get permission to name their child after the mountain. The boy’s other name, k’ala’ask, means river in Sm’algyax.
“We knew we wanted to give him a place name because we wanted him to be grounded and know where he’s from,” Ms. Smith said.
In April, Ms. Smith received a letter from B.C.’s Vital Statistics Agency that said it was working on facilitating the use of non-English and French characters, but its systems couldn’t currently accommodate the symbols for ID documents.
“The reason for this is the impact that the registration of this information would have on our partners and their systems that are unable to accept these symbols or reproduce them onto their secondary identification documents,” the letter from the agency read.
As a result, Ms. Smith’s family had to pay out of pocket for medical appointments because her son, who is now nine months old, wasn’t issued identification until a couple of months ago when the province sent them a services card with the place holder name “Baby Boy Shaw.”
She said the Vital Statistics Agency has told other media outlets that it is working on a solution, but Ms. Smith hasn’t heard from the organization since receiving their letter in April. B.C.’s Ministry of Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ms. Smith said her family moved ahead with a court petition to push the agency to move quicker and keep its word that the problem would be fixed. The provincial government has 21 days to respond to the legal action.
Brian Thom, an associate professor at the University of Victoria specializing in Indigenous legal orders and land rights, said the family’s court petition will hopefully speed up a process that should have been already under way after Canada ratified the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which includes protections for Indigenous languages.
“We know how important it is to be recognized as who you are through names,” Prof. Thom said. “Names are so crucial to culture, whether it’s place names or individual names, these are very deep parts of our language and culture that tie us together.”
However, he expects the bureaucratic process to include Indigenous characters will be arduous, especially because of the suppression that First Nations languages and their alphabets have faced throughout recent history.
He pointed out that even the English language was much less standardized than it is now as late as the 1800s. He said it will take immense amounts of time and government support to reach consensus and standardized uses of characters among the numerous Indigenous languages, especially after decades of residential school practices that didn’t allow Indigenous people to speak their language.
The consequences of those policies still loom over Indigenous communities, said Prof. Thom, who said one 2018 study found just 3 per cent of Indigenous people can fluently speak their traditional language.
For Ms. Smith, one important reason to be able to use their own characters is because traditional English characters don’t accurately sound out her son’s name.
She also said her ancestors worked hard to create their own alphabet after colonization, and those efforts shouldn’t be in vain. “It’s about time we start honouring the people of this territory and honour the work our great grandparents did to create this language,” Ms. Smith said. “This was not easy work.”
Ms. Smith said many other people in her community have tried to use traditional characters when naming their children but eventually gave up. She hopes her efforts to have her son’s name recognized will help Indigenous communities better represent themselves in the future.
“We can’t compromise with his name, and nor should we have to,” Ms. Smith said.