“‘Heart Berries’ by Terese Marie Mailhot”. In her 2018 work, she takes back her story and explores themes of decolonization, Indigenous womanism, the postmodern Other woman and visual sovereignty. With Heart Berries, it’s as though Mailhot consciously works to remedy this colonial erasure, reclaiming the Indigenous feminist narrative by naming the long lasting impacts of intergenerational trauma. In fact, over the years, Mailhot has spoken out about her struggle with the lack of accurate representation-or representation period-that exists in literature of the experiences of Indigenous women that exist today.
Enduring a history of foster care, sexual assault, mental illness, poverty and racism, Mailhot’s story is not one we typically read about in books on the best-seller list. Retrieved from 8 November 2020.īorn into the legacy of residential school violence, Mailhot’s trajectory of pain evolves from intergenerational trauma and the silencing of her experience. “Terese Marie Mailhot, author of the bestselling memoir ‘Heart Berries’”. Over the course of her lifetime, Mailhot’s father was incarcerated for abducting a young girl, molested Mailhot at a young age, and was eventually beaten to death “over a prostitute or a cigarette” in a motel in Hope, BC (83).
And it was in prison that Bobb met Mailhot’s father, Ken, a talented artist and abusive alcoholic.
Mailhot’s mother, Karen Joyce Bobb (or Wahzinak) was a poet, writer and social justice advocate who worked with prisoners. Mailhot’s background, and that of her late mother, is Nlaka’pamux, which is part of the Indigenous First Nations people of the Interior Salish language group in southern BC. As a community, the Seabird Island Band values communal pride and respect, and works to promote a community that is self-sufficient, self-governing, unified and educated. Seabird Island is a First Nations band government of the Stó:lō people, located in the Upper Fraser Valley region, just 3 km east of Agassiz, BC.
In this article, we’ll be looking at Mailhot’s Heart Berries as an example of the power of Indigenous feminist narratives, and the ability of writing to create a path for healing.Īuthor of the bestselling 2018 memoir Heart Berries, Terese Marie Mailhot is a First Nation Canadian writer and professor from the Seabird Island reservation near Chilliwack, British Columbia. Her 2018 debut publication Heart Berries: A Memoir presents a raw, honest portrayal of her struggles with intergenerational trauma, mental health, poverty and sexual abuse. Terese Marie Mailhot is a First Nation Canadian writer, journalist, and teacher from Seabird Island, British Columbia.
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