What happens when culture is taken away

You cannot build something that celebrates the world's cultures without understanding what happens when culture is deliberately destroyed. I did not fully grasp that until I drove to Ohsweken.

I had been in Toronto for a conference. Afterwards, I put my three children in the car and drove an hour southwest. We were heading to Six Nations of the Grand River, the largest First Nations reserve in Canada. More than 12,000 people live there, part of a community of around 29,000 registered members. It is not a historical site. It is a living community.

I knew very little before we arrived. I had done some reading on the drive, which was not nearly enough. By the time we left, I knew how much I still did not know. That felt like the right starting point.

A governance system older than any I had learned about in school

Six Nations is the only place in the world where all six nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy still live together: Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca, and Tuscarora. The Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace is one of the oldest systems of representative governance on earth, established centuries before European colonists arrived.

In 1988, the United States Congress passed a resolution acknowledging the contribution of the Iroquois Confederacy to the development of the US Constitution. Historians still debate how direct that influence was. But the acknowledgement itself is real, and it somehow never made it into any history lesson I had as a child.

I found that absence strange, and a little uncomfortable. Here was a sophisticated, living political tradition, centuries old, and I had arrived knowing almost nothing about it. That is the thing about gaps in knowledge. You do not notice the gap until you are standing in it.

What were residential schools, and why does this matter for my children?

Minutes from where we stayed, the Mohawk Institute had operated as a residential boarding school from 1831 to 1970. According to Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, it was one of 139 residential schools that operated across the country. In the United States, a 2022 federal investigation identified more than 400 such schools.

According to the same commission, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their families and placed in these schools. They were stripped of their language, their traditions, and their sense of who they were. Often in conditions that were abusive and cruel. The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996. Not 1896. 1996.

The Woodland Cultural Centre now stands next to the Mohawk Institute. We visited. I did not take my children inside the building itself. There was a ten-minute film, and I watched a few minutes of it alone first. It was a little too much for their young minds at that age, and I made a call. Some things you process as a parent before you know how to share them. That is not shielding children from the world. It is choosing the moment carefully.

We stood outside. We talked about what the building was. We talked about what it meant to be taken from your family. My eldest asked whether the children had cried. I said I thought they probably did. We were quiet for a while.

The lesson I had not prepared for

The whole reason Unomundi exists is to help children discover and value the world's cultures. Every story, every lesson, every conversation with Una is built on the idea that the world is richer because it contains so many different ways of being human.

But standing at the Woodland Cultural Centre, I understood something I had not thought hard enough about before. If you are going to teach the value of culture, you have to understand what it costs when it is taken away. The joy of discovery has a shadow side. Cultural erasure is that shadow. You do not get to skip it.

When language is destroyed, the stories that only exist in that language go with it. When children are removed from their communities before they can learn the dances, the ceremonies, the way to read a sky or a river, that knowledge does not just sleep. It risks being gone. Some of it can be recovered. Some cannot.

That is the other side of the story we tell. It is the reason the work feels serious, and not just fun.

What I want my children to carry from that day

My children are young. They will not remember every detail of that visit. But I think they will remember standing in front of a building and understanding it had once been a place of loss. Children hold those moments differently to adults. They do not rationalise them away.

I am not trying to raise children who feel guilty about history they did not make. That is not useful, and it is not honest either. What I want is something different. I want them to grow up understanding that cultures are not decorative. They are not flags or foods or costumes. They are entire systems of knowing, and they are fragile, and they matter.

A child who understands that is a different kind of adult. One who does not dismiss what is unfamiliar, because they have learned that unfamiliar things carry weight.

Unomundi is a cultural-discovery app where children aged 6 to 12 explore countries and cultures through stories, games, and conversations with Una, a warm AI guide. We are not trying to teach children that the world is simple or safe. We are trying to give them the curiosity and the steadiness to look at it clearly.

That afternoon in Ohsweken was part of my own looking clearly. I came to learn. I left knowing how much I still do not know. That is the right starting point. I do not think there is another kind.

If that is the kind of world you want your child to grow into, come and explore it with us.

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FAQs

What is Six Nations of the Grand River?

Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario, Canada, is the largest First Nations reserve in Canada, home to more than 12,000 residents and around 29,000 registered members. It is the only community where all six nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy still live together.

What were residential schools in Canada?

Residential schools were government-backed boarding schools where over 150,000 Indigenous children were separated from their families and stripped of their language and culture. Canada's first was the Mohawk Institute, which opened in 1831. The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996.

How do you talk to young children about difficult history?

Age and readiness matter. Some things are better processed by a parent first, before being shared. You can acknowledge loss and be honest without graphic detail. A simple, honest conversation outside a meaningful place can be more lasting than any lesson.