WATCH | Rebecca Thomas performs 'A Toast to the Mixes'
Halifax's poet laureate Rebecca Thomas talks about how she came to understand what it means to be Mi'kmaq.
Rebecca Thomas' poem A Toast to the Mixes is an homage to Indigenous people with mixed ancestry — "the halves" and "the mixes." Thomas says she wrote it after an upsetting experience with a community member who "language shamed" her in front of a group of people.
Thomas is currently the poet laureate of Halifax — the first Indigenous person to hold that title. She is Mi'kmaw from Lennox Island First Nation in Prince Edward Island.
You can listen to Rebecca's full interview about defining your sense of nationhood when you have mixed ancestry by clicking the 'listen' button above.