THE INTERVIEWER: Julia, I’ll get you to spell your first and your last name for me.
JULIA MARKS: Julia Marks.
Q. Et à quelle école êtes-vous allé?
A. École Christ King.
Q. Comment épelez-vous cela?
A. Christ King.
Q. Christ King; bien. Et où est-ce?
Une capitale.
Q. Au Manitoba?
A. Au Manitoba.
Q. Wow. Nepinacks (ph.)?
R. Oui.
Q. Il y a beaucoup de Nepinacks (ph.) Autour de Capital.
A. Ma petite-fille est une Nepinack (ph.)
Q. I have an uncle who is a Nepinack (ph.) I always think that if you don’t have a Nepinack in your family, you’re not a real Indian!
Quel âge aviez-vous lorsque vous êtes allé à l'école pour la première fois?
A. Cinq.
Q. Cinq. Vous souvenez-vous de ce que c'était que ce premier jour?
R. C'était bien. C'était effrayant, mais c'était une bonne journée.
Q. Pourquoi dites-vous que c'était une bonne journée?
R. Parce que nous n'avons jamais été maltraités ce premier jour.
Q. Pouvez-vous m'en parler?
A. It didn’t start, the abuse didn’t start until around October for me. It was one of the Nuns. We were playing outside and I was by myself. She took me by the hand and she took me to where the Nuns stayed. What I used to see was where they used to kneel in her office, and that’s where she sexually assaulted me. It was every week she was sexually assaulting me.
I went to day school. I couldn’t talk to my mom because my mom couldn’t talk English. I couldn’t tell anybody because the Nun said that nobody would ever believe me. I was a nobody and that nobody would ever love me. Still today nobody does. That’s what I think, anyway, but I still love my kids and my grandchildren.
I’ve been suicidal since I was young.
I didn’t think about this Nun until the signing of the papers I started having my flashbacks and seeing the Nun and having nightmares of her and the flashbacks started coming. I ended up in the hospital because of it, because of the suicidal thoughts. So I started writing things down in my life in the hospital from the age of five where she would rub me and make me rub her, too. She would make these scary noises that I didn’t even know what she was doing. I kept trying to run but she would grab me and have my pants down.
Et puis elle me renvoyait à l'école, dans l'autre classe de l'école. Mais je courais d'abord aux toilettes parce que j'avais mal. J'ai commencé à brûler.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
Q. Prenez une bonne respiration profonde.
A. And then the other Nun caught me coming from the bathroom and she grabbed me, she grabbed my hair and she pulled me back in school. And she asked me how come I was out there and I kept telling her I had to poo and she wouldn’t listen.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
She just wouldn’t listen to me so she pushed me on my desk and I kept wanting to go to the bathroom and would put my hand up but she wouldn’t even look at me, the one that assaulted me, so I pissed myself. I felt so dirty. I had to scrub the floor. I wasn’t the only one that had to scrub the floor. There were other kids. I couldn’t tell anybody why I was wet. I had to go home. I put myself in water so my mom wouldn’t know I pissed myself.
People would come over and try and hug me and I would back away. I didn’t want anybody touching me. And we had to trust them!
My mom would always drag me to church. How I got away with it was by fainting and having seizures. So I had a couple of them and she never took me to church again for a long time. Then she asked me, “Come with me to church”, and I did it again.
Q. Why didn’t you want to go?
A. Because she was there, because I didn’t want to see her, or any Nun. I didn’t want to see anybody from the church. Because we were nothing to them. We were garbage. That’s the way I felt. And that nobody loved us. She said that we can send your mom to the devil and you can go with her, and everything.
Q. Julia, avez-vous déjà dit à votre mère ce qui s'était passé?
A. I couldn’t tell her because she never spoke English?
Q. Même jusqu'à son départ ou est-elle toujours avec nous?
R. Non.
Q. Elle vit toujours et vous l'avez emporté toute seule?
A. Yup. That’s why I said, I hold everything in. I don’t tell anybody nothing. And I still hold all my pain. I hold my pain for my kids, all of it.
I started sniffing and drinking at the age of eleven. Then I was raped at thirteen. Then my mom put me away in a home because I didn’t tell nobody. But I went to school drunk. I passed out.
She said I would always be trouble and nobody would ever want me. That’s what she always told me. And that’s the way I felt growing up. I pushed everybody away in my life, even my kids.
Q. Combien d'enfants avez-vous?
R. J'en ai quatre et j'ai huit petits-enfants actuellement.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
I have abused my children. I beat them. They feel the same pain I went through. They are struggling today. I had my son at the age of fifteen. I started prostituting at the age of sixteen because I wasn’t wanted by anybody. Because I was getting beaten up by my boyfriend I figured I didn’t deserve nothing, like she says.
— A Short Pause
Q. Today do you think you’re a cultural person, like a traditional person? Do you try to get help from them?
R. Oui.
Q. Parlez-moi de cela.
A. I tried to smudge. I try and live by our Creator. I don’t like going to church, but I will pray. Because they stopped me talking my language I can understand it but I cannot talk it. I listen. I can understand Cree, any kind of Cree, just by listening. But I can’t talk it. I just listen. That’s why I said that I’m a good listener. I listen to what people say and that’s what hurts. There were a lot of hurtful words.
Q. Avez-vous parlé à vos enfants aujourd'hui de ce qui vous est arrivé à l'école?
A. I try, but they don’t want to hear it because it’s too emotional. If they see me cry when I talk, they see me as a child, they don’t see me as a whole person. They think I’m crazy sometimes because I talk to myself and they’re sitting there. But I just want them to hear. They don’t understand what I’m going through. They don’t know the hardship I’m dealing with. I’m trying to apologize for what I did to them and yet they are still angry with me.
I’m trying to change my ways by being there for them. They are old enough to be on their own, but they still come to me when they need me.
But I’m not whole. I’m only half because I was never whole. She took that away from me. I’ll never be whole. I’ll never amount to anything, like she said. And I’m nothing.
Q. You’re a grandmother, you’re a mother. You’re here telling your story. That’s courageous.
A. I’m still —
I don’t feel I’m whole. I’m not whole. She took something. She took a lot out of my life. I can’t love myself. I can’t respect me. I’m ashamed of me. I’m everything she took away and that money is not going to do it. Money is not going to make me whole.
Q. Quel est votre espoir, Julia, pour vous-même?
A. I want closure. I want her to pay for what she did, if she’s still alive.
Q. Que lui diriez-vous?
A. Why? Why did you hurt me? Why did you do this? I didn’t do anything? Why did you tell me nobody would love me?
She hurt a lot of people, I think. It wasn’t just me that she hurt.
Q. D'autres filles aussi?
A. Yeah. But I never watched for that. It was always me that I was watching for. I would always try to hide but she would always find me. I knew she would come every week but it was always different days and you can’t always hide.
Q. Où habitait-elle? Savez-vous?
R. Elle habitait juste à côté de l'école.
Q. Oh.
A. And my sisters couldn’t do nothing because they were in the high school, right next to ours, so they couldn’t be with us. That was the hardest part. They couldn’t protect me because I’m the youngest of thirteen.
Q. Si vous deviez vous asseoir avec vos enfants, que leur diriez-vous?
A. They know. I told them the story of what I’ve been through. They think I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, but sometimes they tell me, “Mom, you’re too emotional because you’re always crying.” I’m isolating myself in my own home, in my room.
Since this all started happening I don’t eat. I wasn’t eating there for a while and I’m a diabetic. Finally I just had to put myself in. I couldn’t take any more. My family threw me away. I also did a suicide four years ago, over four years ago. I attempted suicide. I have nothing to live for. My children don’t —
Because my kids —
Ils me traversent émotionnellement et physiquement.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
That’s why I say I can’t live like this any more. I’m fighting for my life.
C'est Lorraine qui m'aide.
Q. Qui est Lorraine?
A. Lorraine Stone. I told her she was my hero. She directed me to a lawyer and to a psychiatrist, I mean to a therapist. I see Lynne every week because I’ve got so much hurt. But I need closure. So I figured if I do this, maybe it will be closer if I spoke it out and get it out in the open, what they did.
Q. Quel âge aviez-vous lorsque vous avez quitté cette école?
A. Nine. And then I started having my kids, but the abuse didn’t stop there. The sexual abuse still kept on, with his brothers, until I left. That was when my daughter was six years old when I left. And then we moved to Winnipeg and my kids were sexually assaulted there, too. And more trauma.
Nous avons déménagé de là et nous sommes retournés dans notre autre maison et ils ont été de nouveau abusés sexuellement là-bas, par des membres de leur famille. Ensuite, nous sommes retournés dans ma ville natale et ma fille a été agressée sexuellement par deux d'entre eux; de nouveau.
My kids were struggling. My girl is an alcoholic. One of them is a drug addict. They are both fighting for their lives. They don’t know where to go. They don’t who they can depend on. My daughter is promiscuous. She would rather choose her boyfriends over her kids. That’s an awful feeling. But when I look at her I look at myself, the way I was, and I hate it. I thought everything would be okay if they went to counseling but it didn’t change nothing.
Q. Cela prend plus de temps.
A. I’ve been seeing the doctor and telling him I’m suicidal and he wouldn’t listen to me either. “Do you have a plan?” I said, “No, I don’t.” I said that if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it. It’s not going to be planned out. I’m just going to do it. And he kept giving me pills. So finally I just took them. My son found me. I was drinking, I was gambling and I went to drugs, crack cocaine. Then they took my little girl away. Then I went to the suicide. That’s when I couldn’t take no more.
Q. And now you’re in therapy you’re all right?
A. Ouais.
Q. Counseling, and you’re going to see a Traditionalist, too?
A. Ouais.
Q. You’re doing everything that you’re supposed to do.
A. I’ve got supports from all over. I’m fighting for myself, trying to find me. I’m trying to get the kids to see I am different. I’m not the same person I was. I keep my anger in. It doesn’t come out.
Q. Vous le contrôlez?
A. No. I want my anger to come out so I can scream it out, but I can’t because I hold everything in. I wish I could get it out just for once, just to let it out, not to yell at my kids or my grandchildren, or anybody, just me. That’s what I want is to get these Nuns out of my life and this Catholic church.
Q. Well, you know what, when you first came in here, this is how I know they’re not winning, because when you first sat down you wouldn’t look at me but now you’re looking at me. That means that talking about it works.
A. It does. But there’s still a lot of pain.
Q. I don’t blame you.
A. But I’m writing things down and I’m letting it go. But there’s still a lot of work that I have to do with my kids and for me.
Q. Y a-t-il autre chose que vous aimeriez ajouter avant de conclure?
A. No. I’m kind of glad I did this.
Q. Vous sentez-vous mieux?
A. Ouais.
Q. Comment vous sentez-vous?
A. Tired. Drained. I feel like something has lifted. But I’m happy.
Q. I’m really proud of you. This is hardest thing to ask people to do and it means so much to me that you can leave it here with us. I’ll do the best I can to put it away from you.
A. Ouais. Je me sens beaucoup mieux.
Q. I think a lot of women can learn from your story, a lot of children, especially young mothers. They need to know that they’re not to blame. Right? That’s what I learned from you today.
A. I know there’s a lot of shame and a lot of guilt that I live with. But I’m not going to let it beat me.
Q. Non. Merci, Julia.
Take a nice deep breath. Have some water. You did a really good job. Your interview was perfect. Your voice came across really nice and you look great on camera. You look good. I’ll remember this for a long time. You can keep that.
Voulez-vous nettoyer avant de revenir?
R. Non.
Q. You’re all right?
A. Ouais.
Q. D'accord.
— End of Interview