My Mother’s Daughter: A Memoir of Struggle and Triumphis a debut memoir about one mother’s love for her children by author Perdita Felicien.
Felicien is a retired Canadian hurdler and the 2003 World Champion in the 100 metre hurdle. Felicien still holds the Canadian record with her 12.46 second 100 metre hurdle run in 2004.
Before high school, Felicien quit track and field altogether. It was through her mother’s encouragement that she picked up the sport again in high school. She went on to compete in two Olympic Games. During her career, Felicien would become the first Canadian woman to win gold at the track and field World Championships. With 10 national titles to her name, she has also been sponsored by Nike and the Canadian bank RBC.
“Not bad for a girl from Pickering who grew up with a single mother in co-op housing, eh?” -Perdita Felicien-
Over the course of her life, Felicien and her mother both overcame obstacles both on and off the field.
Her mother Catherine immigrated to Canada from St. Lucia while pregnant with Felicien. Back home, Catherine struggled to provide for her family. Everything changed when she met a wealthy white Canadian family on vacation in St. Lucia. She came to Canada to work as a nanny for them, but would go on to face struggles such as domestic abuse and homelessness.
Felician’s family faced racism from the various families that employed her mother throughout her life as she grew up east of Toronto in Pickering, Ontario. When Catherine was in labour for Perdita, the family she was nannying for delayed taking Catherine to the hospital. Instead, she was asked her to make tuna sandwiches for them as she was having contractions. The day after giving birth to Perdita, Catherine was back in the kitchen working for her employers.
Catherine credits The Denise House, a women’s shelter in Oshawa, Ontario as the place that opened doors to a better life for her and her children in Canada in 1987. She was able to escape an abusive relationship with all of her children and start the process of raising her five children in her own home. Perdita is still a supporter of The Denise House to this day.
“I saw my mother cry a lot of times and as you’re five and six years old, you don’t know why Mom’s crying. But you just know she’s crying and you want to make it better,” Felicien says.
While her mother motivated her to succeed professionally, she was also an important part of Felicien’s support system. At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, Felicien fell over the first hurdle at the women’s 100 metre hurdle race. Immediately after the race, her team called her mother who was home in Canada. To console her daughter Catherin said, “You are the gold.”
