Racism Experiences of Urban Indigenous Women in Ontario, Canada: “We All Have That Story That Will Break Your Heart”

Abstract

The objective of our mixed-methods research study was to present the discourse on racism experiences of Indigenous women living in two urban Canadian cities. A failure to recognize the impacts of racism on Indigenous women in Canada has emerged from the literature. Sharing circles, interviews, and a questionnaire including validated scales were used to collect data. The findings demonstrated that urban Indigenous women experience a number of racism events that span individual, collective and institutional, and cultural racism. The diversity of racist events was better captured in the questionnaire, whereas the roots of racism were understood more clearly in the qualitative findings to be an extension of historical colonial events to current day manifestations.