For more information about this sculpture: https://www.gallea.ca/fr/artistes/lucien-carol-proulx-1/oeuvre/100960

Trump making his mark in the field of Indigenous visions

At the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, I made this sculpture with Johanne Beaulieu entitled An Exclusive Frame. I sculpted the frame and Johanne painted the canvas. For us, this work means that from the moment we are born, each of us builds, unconsciously or not, a filter of perceptions. We thus perceive reality according to our own references, inherited from our environment or self-elaborated by our deductions.

At that time, I dared to put Donald Trump as one of the references because his omnipresence in the media was (and still is) imposed in our field of perception. This mini-Trump in this context referred to the casino owner who had distinguished himself during the 1990s by his ferocious trade war against Native casinos because they overshadowed his empire, questioning the very indigenous roots of the Mashantuck and Pequot Native Americans before a congressional committee in 1993. (1)

What about Trump's 2025 relationship with Indigenous people? 
As my ancestor Agathe Gagné, known as the Montagnaise, would surely say: "This man has a forked tongue". On the Canadian side, Donald Trump's continued suggestions to annex Canada are causing not only unease in Canadian society but also increasing national unity. "However, behind this rhetoric lies a contemptuous strategy that could have implications for Canada's sovereignty and for Indigenous peoples on both sides of the border. (-) Indigenous nations entered into treaties with the British Crown, not with the United States. These agreements were not simple contracts but sacred pacts, based on commitments of coexistence and mutual respect" (1).

On the U.S. side, the executive orders signed by Donald Trump against irregular migrants are beginning to have repercussions on Indigenous nations in the United States. Some report that their members are being raided by the Immigration Agency, and the administration seems to want to question the birthright of the First Peoples of America. 

According to a statement from the Navajo Nation's Naabik'íyáti' Committee, despite having Indian blood certificates and state-issued identification, several people have been detained and interrogated by immigration officials who do not recognize these documents as proof of citizenship. (2). Moreover, if Trump wants to extend the wall along the border with Mexico. "First you will have to run over my body. Verlon Jose, vice-president of the Tohono O'odham Nation Government, says categorically. The natives of this Arizona reservation, however, do not want it (3).

But it is unlikely that the latter will have the president's ear if Trump's history of relations with the first nations is anything to go by. A file to be followed.

References:
(1)    Robert Falcon, Indigenous Spaces – Radio-Canada, January 10, 2025
(2)    Dominique degré, Indigenous Spaces – Radio-Canada, January 24, 2025
(3)    Elisabeth Vallet, La Devoir, November 267, 2016

 


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