Best Of: Julian Brave NoiseCat / Laufey
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Sam Brigger. Today, Julian Brave Noisecat. He co-directed an Oscar-nominated documentary of personal and historical import. It's about the Canadian missionary boarding schools that Indigenous children, including members of his family, were required to go to get assimilated.
What is the main topic of Julian Brave NoiseCat's documentary Sugarcane?
many children were physically and sexually abused. While making the film and writing his new memoir, We Survived the Night, Noisecat learned why, minutes after his father was born, he was abandoned in a boarding school trash incinerator room. Also, Grammy-winning Icelandic musician Leve plays guitar and sings some songs for us.
All I did was wonder how Your arms would be And it happened to me That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend.
This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Sam Brigger. Terry has our first interview today. Here she is.
What traumatic experiences did Indigenous children face in boarding schools?
Minutes after being born, Ed Archie Noisecat was thrown away, literally. The infant was discovered with the garbage ready to be burned at St. Joseph's Mission School for Indigenous Canadians. He was rescued from incineration by the night watchman. St. Joseph's was one of the 139 missionary boarding schools that Indigenous children were required to attend as mandated by the Canadian government in 1894 to help solve the, quote, Indian problem through assimilation. There were 100 such schools in the U.S. The last one closed in 1997. An investigation that was opened in 2021 in Canada revealed that rape and infanticide were not uncommon in these schools. My guest is Noiscat's son, Julian Brave Noiscat.
Julian's father is from a reservation in British Columbia.
How did Julian Brave NoiseCat learn about his father's origins?
He left the reservation and moved to the U.S. and married a white woman. Julian is their son, and he grew up in Oakland. His parents divorced when he was six, but his mother was determined to find ways to connect Julian with Native culture. She succeeded. She made sure he spent a lot of time on his paternal family's reservation and with a Native group in California. He became a champion powwow dancer, a journalist covering indigenous-related issues, and an activist. Last year, he co-directed a documentary called Sugarcane about the investigation into the mission schools, their often brutal treatment of children, and the infanticide. Julian and his father are among the people who appear in the film. The documentary also explores Julian's relationship with his father.
Sugarcane is the name of a reservation near St. Joseph's. The documentary won the directing award at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, won Best Documentary from the National Board of Review, and was nominated for a Peabody and an Oscar. Now Julian Brave Noisecat has written a new book called We Survived the Night. It's part memoir, part indigenous history, and part coyote stories. Coyote is the shape-shifting trickster who was regarded by many Native tribes as the ancestor sent by the creator to finish creating the indigenous world. Julian Brave Noisecat, welcome to Fresh Air. I enjoyed the book, and I also learned a lot, which I appreciate.
Thank you so much. It's an honor to be on Fresh Air. This is honestly a dream come true for me, Terry.
I really am honored to hear you say that. So the investigation into St. Joseph's Mission found that infanticide was common there. Students were sometimes raped by the priests or other staff, and when a student was pregnant, the baby was often aborted or disposed of. But rape wasn't your father's backstory. Tell us, to the best of your knowledge, what his story is.
So my father was discovered in the trash incinerator at St. Joseph's Mission on the night of August 16, 1959. The night watchman, Tony Stoop, described his cries for life as sounding like the noise of a cat, which I only bring up because my last name is Noisecat, which is kind of unbelievable to me because it only became Noisecat, my last name, after it was written down wrong by those same missionaries who came to our land to turn us into Catholics.
And it was written down long before your father was born. So they didn't know his backstory.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:21
2
What is the main topic of Julian Brave NoiseCat's documentary Sugarcane?
0:21–1:06
3
What traumatic experiences did Indigenous children face in boarding schools?
1:06–2:01
4
How did Julian Brave NoiseCat learn about his father's origins?
2:01–15:50
5
What themes are explored in Julian's memoir We Survived the Night?
15:50–16:30
6
How does Julian's relationship with his father impact his work?
16:30–21:09
7
What insights does Julian Brave NoiseCat share about colonization and family history?
21:09–47:44
Speakers
7 identifiedMore from Fresh Air
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