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Opinion on the Sixties Scoop

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Throughout the 1960s, the Canadian government took aboriginal children out of their homes on the reservations, and sent them to live with white families. The name, "Sixties Scoop," was originally used by Canadian author, Patrick Johnston, to describe the mass amounts of first nation children, who were removed from their communities, and left to the child welfare system. Drew Hayden Taylor is an Ojibwa playwright, author, and journalist from Curve Lake, Ontario. He has written plays such as, "Toronto at Dreamer's Rock," "400 Kilometers," and, "The Boy in the Treehouse." Taylor's play, "Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth," tells the story of a woman who was part of the sixties scoop, and how she is distanced from her family. Although Hayden Taylor's writing style is very humorous and sarcastic, it is clear that he has a negative view on the Sixties Scoop. His struggles are exemplified in his essay, "Pretty Like a White Boy," and in, "Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth." In his essay, "Pretty Like a White Boy," Drew Hayden Taylor discusses his own experiences with identity crisis. Even though Hayden Taylor is really an Indian, he was confused about who he is as a person, because he looks white. "My pinkness is constantly being pointed out to me over and over and over again. 'You don't look Indian?' 'You're not Indian, are you?' 'Really?!?' I got questions like that from both white and Native people, for a while I debated having my status card tattooed on my forehead" (Hayden Taylor 1). Hayden Taylor was confused as to whether he was supposed to fit in with the white community, or the Indian community, and he really had no idea how to act. At one point in his life, he had a serious identity crisis, and was determined to prove to people that he was Indian. Hayden Taylor stated that, "like most insecure people and specially a blue-eyed Native writer, I went through a particularly severe identity crisis at one point. In fact, I admit it, one dep

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