I have a friend named Jon. Jon is a Métis, "of mixed blood," and belongs to the Musqueam tribe. He identifies more strongly to his mother's side, of First Nations descent. I once questioned why this is so, and he told me that that half of his roots is slowly dying off. The language, he told me, is virtually extinct-very few, if any, can speak the language fluently and most cannot even comprehend simple words. Fortunately, some hope to revive the few remnants of Native tradition, such as their art of carving and basket weaving through community classes workshops.

Loss of First Nations culture was primarily due to assimilation to European customs. In John Jervis's Exploring the Modern, he explains modernity in terms of project, by which the "civilized" and "enlightened" control the natural and social environment by first understanding it, then transforming it. The idea of project was to bring betterment of citizens through political and educational reform. This can be furthered into the idea of project in which those enlightened have a mission to enlighten others, resulting in the intolerance of otherness. A real example of this is of Jon's mother attending residential schooling as a child, an institutionalized form of racism. Religion was forced upon aboriginal children at the schools, and punishment to reinforce discipline to those who deviated from "the norm."

Zygmunt Bauman adds evidence to this claim in Modernity and Ambivalence  that to divide, classify, and allocate are actions of those who dominate. To put into context, white settlers saw Natives as "inferior," thus practiced their power and reterritorialized their land. In Bauman's sense, modernity allowed white missionaries the ability to influence, and ultimately, transform and "civilize" aboriginal life.