Transcript: Alanis Obomsawin Accepts the Edward MacDowell Medal on July 23, 2023 with a brief yet touching statement
[applause]
Thank you. You make me feel so welcome. As if you are all my friends. Thank you so much for this great, great honor. I didn’t know that in my lifetime I would be recognized like this.
Wabanaki, People from Where the Sun Rises. Our people’s land was all of New England. In Canada, a very large part of it was Wabanaki country: The southern part of Quebec and New Brunswick. It is proven that in Vermont, in Maine, in Quebec, our people were there for more than 11,000 years.
There were wars for 300 years with our people, and they lost the land, and at the end of it, some people, some leaders got together and tried to get all the Wabanki people who were left to be present and they said we’re going to have to separate on our territory far away from one to another. Each one of you, individually, try to keep and remember something of your language, or your tradition, your culture, because in several generations from now the descendants will meet again, make a circle with the memories that they saved, and our people will be one again. And I think – I’m an old lady, I’m 90 years old and I have lived long enough to see this – I want to tell all our people who have passed, how dignified and how beautiful they were and still are.
And thank you so much for being here. I just didn’t know I could feel so much love. Thank you.
[standing ovation, and she shows the medal to the crowd]
He’s handsome, eh? I wish he was here. This is such an honor. Thank you.
Read author and Fellow Nell Painter's welcome to visitors under the Medal Day tent
Read Board President Christine Fisher's words to the gathered arts lovers on Medal Day
Read new Executive Director Chiwoniso Kaitano's first address to the 2023 Medal Day crowd
Read Resident Director David Macy's tribute to Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman
