AS TOLD TO ELAINE COBURN...
Growing up, I lived in Milwaukee, where I was part of the Native community. My late mother, Mary Siisip Geniusz, was a medicine woman and she told me, very early, “You are my apprentice.” It wasn’t a question of choice, it was just something that I did as part of my life. Among the community members, there were a number of Ojibwe language learners, and I was the kid in the group. My strong interest in learning Ojibwe was part of growing up in my community. This interest has shaped my whole life.
My late mother, Mary Siisip Geniusz was a medicine woman and she told me, very early, “You are my apprentice.”
As I was finishing my Bachelor’s degree, I found out that I could continue to learn Ojibwe at the University of Minnesota. I enrolled in the PhD in American Studies because PhD graduate studies were funded, but MA graduate studies were not. So my PhD paid for my Ojibwe language studies.
Photo of Professor Wendy Geniusz
The language program at the University of Minnesota went on seasonal field trips to Ontario where students were immersed in culture and some language. We went wild ricing, attended winter storytelling sessions, and went trapping. The connections I made with the elders and knowledge keepers on these trips helped me as I began doing interviews for my dissertation. I also made connections while working on Ojibwe l language projects in my future husband’s community.
My dissertation was very much a family and community affair. Even before I finished my PhD, my mother decided that she would write a book, too. She actually said, “Oh good, I’ll write one too.” She finished before me!
My dissertation and later my book, Our Knowledge is Not Primitive: Decolonizing Botanical Anishinaabe Teachings, published in 2009, filled holes in people’s knowledge. To me, it is a “background” book, explaining basic principles, like interconnectedness and why we have responsibilities to all living beings. My mother’s book, Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have to Do Is Ask: Anishinaabe Botanical Teachings (2015) was not immediately published. Ironically, once I had my PhD, I could be listed as the editor and my university credentials meant that my mother’s words were suddenly credible.
[M]y book, Our Knowledge is Not Primitive: Decolonizing Botanical Anishinaabe Teachings filled holes in people’s knowledge…it is a “background” book, explaining basic principles, like interconnectedness and why we have responsibilities to all living beings.
Part of editing my mother’s book meant learning more Ojibwe plant names. I went back and forth between written sources and first language Ojibwe speakers throughout the Great Lakes Region. I spoke with people I knew from various Ojibwe language projects I was working on, and I would verify the written sources against the authority of the oral knowledge keepers…and go back and forth, like that. Often, in written sources, names were misused and so it meant correcting mistakes. There were also plant names that were not recorded in any written source, but which the elders knew.
Chi-mewinzha: Ojibwe Stories from Leech Lake, which I co-edited with Brendan Fairbanks (now Kishketon), came about because Dorothy Whipple, an elder and first language Ojibwe speaker, and I were on language learning projects. After she lost her hearing, she wanted to write her stories down.
Before finishing my PhD, I signed a contract to become a tenure track assistant professor at Minnesota State-University. I finished my PhD about a month before my contract started. It is not easy to be a professor in the United States because there professors are, usually, only paid nine months of the year. Some professors leave signs on their doors addressed to anyone looking for them in the summer : “I am only on a 9 month contract, and not paid during the summer.” There were many faculty I worked with who had to do odd jobs, or temporarily move for work in the summer. It took a lot of effort to survive over the summer, when I was not on the payroll. Sometimes I would move in with my mom, because I could not afford to live where I was and I always racked up a lot of credit card debt -- and that was how I made it until I came to York University.
Like everyone else [in American academia], I was only paid nine months in my previous job. It was a lot of effort to survive over the summer, when I was not on the payroll.
The position advertised here was for a “Professor of Decolonization, Indigeneity and Sociology” -- and I knew the first two parts! I knew some of the people who were working here at York, for instance, Professors Deborah MacGregor and Alan Corbière. My goal in coming was to work with them.
I had never taught a graduate class before coming here. I really enjoy teaching graduate students at York. It’s nice to engage in intellectual conversations and you can talk more -- and more in depth -- with graduate students about the approaches to the readings, what makes sense, what should be challenged, and what they think about it all. There is more diversity at York than I had previously experienced.
There is more diversity at York than I had previously experienced. At York, it’s cool to talk to people, faculty and students, with varied experiences. There are more Indigenous students here…. I can write and teach, and it’s nice to be able to go back and forth on ideas in contemporary Indigenous theory.
It’s great to get paid for the whole year. Now I feel like I have a fellowship every summer! I was teaching four days a week, that was not even a teaching stream appointment – this is how we teach languages. There was not a lot of time to do other things. Now I can talk to other scholars about Indigenous theory and methodologies. I can write and teach, and it’s nice to be able to go back and forth on ideas in contemporary Indigenous theory.
There is not a lot of separation between my life and my scholarship. When I was very young, my mother already had her BA and we were going to continuing education classes together and working independently with Ojibwe elders. It made sense to me that I would get a PhD and be part of revitalizing Indigenous languages and cultures. I have always lived my research, my family has always joined me in this, and I can’t really imagine it any other way.