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Title details for Highway of Tears by Jessica McDiarmid - Available

Highway of Tears

A True Story of Racism, Indifference and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

by Jessica McDiarmid
Emily Nixon
Audiobook (Includes supplementary content)
3 of 3 copies available
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3 of 3 copies available
A searing and revelatory account of the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls of Highway 16, and an indictment of the society that failed them.
 
For decades, Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been found murdered along an isolated stretch of highway in northwestern British Columbia. The highway is known as the Highway of Tears, and it has come to symbolize a national crisis.
 
Journalist Jessica McDiarmid investigates the devastating effect these tragedies have had on the families of the victims and their communities, and how systemic racism and indifference have created a climate where Indigenous women and girls are over-policed, yet under-protected. Through interviews with those closest to the victims—mothers and fathers, siblings and friends—McDiarmid offers an intimate, first-hand account of their loss and relentless fight for justice. Examining the historically fraught social and cultural tensions between settlers and Indigenous peoples in the region, McDiarmid links these cases to others across Canada—now estimated to number up to 4,000—contextualizing them within a broader examination of the undervaluing of Indigenous lives in this country.
 
Highway of Tears is a powerful story about our ongoing failure to provide justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and a testament to their families and communities' unwavering determination to find it.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 24, 2019

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780385694551
      • File size: 286637 KB
      • Duration: 09:57:09

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 30, 2019
      Canadian journalist McDiarmid debuts with a heart-wrenching account of the more than 1,200 indigenous women and girls who have gone missing or were found murdered along Highway 16 (aka the Highway of Tears), which runs across the middle of British Columbia into Alberta. The deaths and disappearances went unaddressed for decades, the author notes, and only garnered massive police and media attention when a white woman went missing while hitchhiking the highway in 2002. McDiarmid uses family photos and interviews to tell the stories of 16-year-old Ramona Wilson, whom McDiarmid first saw on a missing persons poster in 1994 when she was 10, and many others who went missing, putting faces on the victims and their families. Finally, a symposia and a walk down the 725 kilometers of highway in British Columbia by the victims’ families in 2006 brought international attention to the crimes. National inquiries in 2016 and 2017 have brought more resources to the investigation, but indigenous women and girls continue to disappear today. This moving, well-sourced book is essential reading for anyone who cares about social injustice. Agent: Chris Bucci, McDermid Agency.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This thorough account of dozens of missing and murdered Indigenous girls and women on Highway 16 in northwestern Canada will leave listeners overcome with anger and sadness. Narrator Emily Nixon wears her heart on her sleeve, breaking away from a conversational tone to suffuse her voice with fury at systemic child abuse and loving warmth at the sweet personality quirks of the victims. Author Jessica McDiarmid's efforts to speak to everyone who carries the burden of the missing with them, often decades later, is perfectly matched by Nixon's emotional rendering of their words. The author reveals the deep roots of the crisis, drawing a clear line from twentieth-century governmental mistreatment of Indigenous people to recent failures in policy and investigations. S.T.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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