Should Indigenous storytellers be limited to telling Indigenous stories? Métis author says no

Tasha Hilderman is proudly Métis whether or not her children’s picture books are about her Métis culture.

“With Lights at Night I can be Métis, but not everything I do has to be about being Métis,” said Hilderman, who is of Métis descent through her mother’s side.

Lights at Night, vibrantly illustrated by Maggie Zeng, depicts an East Asian Canadian family taking part in marshmallow roasts, cheering at football games, trick-or-treating on Halloween, and disembarking from the school bus right next to combines in the autumn field. There is also a family of foxes that make their way throughout the pages of the book.

Lights at Night, which will be released Aug. 5, is Hilderman’s follow-up to her first children’s picture book, Métis Like Me, and is a “very different book,” she said.

Métis Like Me, illustrated by Risa Hugo, is Hilderman’s exploration of the Métis culture. The book showcases beading, making bannock, picking saskatoon berries, fiddling and jigging, and storytelling. Hilderman also tells children that even if they didn’t grow up with their Métis culture, it doesn’t mean they can’t learn it and can’t own it.

While Hilderman heard “whispers” of being Métis when she was growing up, she never had a strong connection to her culture. Her maternal grandfather was an only child and his mother emphasized their French roots, not wanting to identify as Métis, a denial that was common during that time.

“I think there's a fear that a lot of people have when they've grown up separated from their culture and their tradition that it doesn't belong. It's not theirs. You're not Métis enough or you didn't grow up embedded in the culture so it's not yours to claim,” said Hilderman. “I wanted to make sure that anybody who was Métis knew that they have a right to their history and you have a right to your culture and you belong. And it's yours and you can claim it, and you can own it and you can experience it and you don't have to be afraid of that.”

When Hilderman had her own children, it was important for her to connect them to their Métis heritage and culture.

Hilderman ends Métis Like Me with the battle cry: “We are strong! We are resilient! We are still here!” Those lines are something she has the students repeat loudly when she does school readings.

“When I share with kids that the Métis flag is older than the Canadian flag, we've been here a long time and we're still here and we're strong and we're resilient, I think that's important for all of us. It’s an important message to share,” she said.

Métis Like Me has been shortlisted in the Picture Books category for a Chocolate Lily Book award. The annual Children's Reader Choice Award celebrates the creative work of children's authors and illustrators living in British Columbia. 

Lights at Night does not draw on Hilderman’s Métis culture although she points out that “the images do represent the prairies, which is the homeland of the Métis. The art in both books is based on the region that I'm from, so the Midwest.” Hilderman calls Lloydminster, Alberta, home.

“In Métis Like Me I wanted to showcase…things that all Métis people could connect with…you could recognize yourself there. But we're also just part of the general community. Not everything is so culturally specific. You can be Métis and you don't have to be wearing a sash when you're experiencing summer nights or something,” said Hilderman. “You have this connection to your culture but you also just exist as a human in the world and have your own identity that is not explicitly tied to that cultural heritage.”

It's this general connection that comes through in Lights at Night.

Just because she’s an Indigenous storyteller, asks Hilderman, is it assumed her stories have to be Indigenous? 

Hilderman has three more picture books that will be released in the next two years. None of them are Indigenous based. She also has goals of writing novels, which she anticipates as having “broader (subjects), but with elements of Métis history or Indigenous references in them. I think there's a way to include that without it being the subject of the book.”

Hilderman worries about limiting Indigenous storytellers to writing only about Indigenous journeys.

“It's important that Indigenous writers, any BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Colour), that you're able to tell the story you want to tell. We've been limited in so many ways...So if there's somebody that has an incredible story to tell, is it enough that the story comes from an Indigenous person? I think that's the most valuable part. Let’s hear these voices in the way they want to be heard,” said Hilderman.

Lights at Night and Métis Like Me are published by Tundra, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada. Both books can be ordered online at penguinrandomhouse.ca.