Territorial & Water Acknowledgement

Our inaugural volume focuses on the Korean diaspora residing in Canada. 

We acknowledge that this territory is the subject of the One Dish, One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and the Confederacy of the Ojibwe and allied nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. 

Many of us gather as guests on the sacred territorial land of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, while some of us gather as guests on the sacred territorial land of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and the Musqueam Nations, and the sacred territorial land of the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation.

We honour and respect the ancestral caretakers of the lands and water.

We invited womxn of the Korean diaspora in particular to share their relationships with water in its diverse forms of existence in our daily lives. 

In this work, we recognize that Indigenous communities are disproportionately affected by environmental burdens, including a lack of access to clean, safe drinking water, from Nova Scotia to British Columbia. According to the Council of Canadians, there are more than a hundred water advisories in First Nations across Canada, from boil water to do not consume, and do not use. This is one example of the ongoing colonial theft of resources on their land and water. As settlers on this land, regardless of when or why we arrived, we have benefitted and continue to benefit from this colonial and systemic violence. 

We strive to uphold our responsibilities to the equitable sharing of resources to ensure the safety, well-being, and thriving of the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities we share this land with.