“For it is a wound to my people’s heart and soul and insult our pride And we deserve much better, especially from you.” ( Chief Laforme) The indigenous community has always had everything taken away from them: land, jobs, culture, beliefs,and their kids. Chief Laforme and his poem I love this land express a main message on how even after helping the country that stole their land fight a battle they get nothing in return, not even the same amount of respect as a white man gets. Even though the media told the people that all soldiers were remembered and thanked equally, Chief Laforme expressed his opinion in I love this land differently: “we still stood shoulder to shoulder in the parades, but the government thought that your life was more valuable than mine” (Chief Laforme). This quotation really shows how the government would have rather had another white man return rather than have him return. He was there because he came back alive not because the country was happy he returned alive. In the third stanza Chief Laforme refers to being treated as if he was “inconsequential” (Chief Laforme), this word percussively captures the disrespect towards the indigenous soldiers. The government would have never called a white man inconsequential let alone a white soldier. Furthermore, instead of getting equal respect for their brave actions the indigenous community seemed to still have nothing: no land, kids sent to residential schools, and nothing they can be thankful to have been given after putting their lives at risk “Do I feel good having to ask you for what should have been long ago, no?” (Chief Laforme) This terribly sad rhetorical question is left to allow the reader to understand how ridiculous it is that the white soldiers were given houses, prizes, land, but the indigenous soldiers don’t even get back what was always theirs. Moreover, the final stanza expresses how he may not be looking at the present wrong with the unequal rights but realizes he’s pulling his past pain along while returning to ‘his country’. “This may seem and old wound to you but it is a wound that never heals” (Chief Laforme). Chief Laforme uses a metaphor in this quotation to allow the reader to understand the emotional pain he is enduring not getting equal treatment to these white men he fought to protect. Chief Laforme used many calmas throughout his poem I love this land to slow down the pace of the poem to represent the slow agonizing emotional pain he and many other indigenous soldiers endured. Perhaps Chief Laforme didn’t just feel he wasn’t treated equally or wasn't respected the same but he may have felt ashamed to think he was jealous of another soldier that fought just like he did. What Chief Laforme truly wanted wasn’t to get more than the white soldier or take away from them but to be equal with them.
Work Cited
“Home.” YouTube, https://www.cbc.ca/radio-content/assets/images/TSE-ChiefStacey-ILoveThisLand-eng.jpeg. Accessed 13 September 2022.
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