Bryony-Rose Heathwood's English 470 Blog

2] In this lesson I say that it should be clear that the discourse on nationalism is also about ethnicity and ideologies of “race.” If you trace the historical overview of nationalism in Canada in the CanLit guide, you will find many examples of state legislation and policies that excluded and discriminated against certain peoples based on ideas about racial inferiority and capacities to assimilate. – and in turn, state legislation and policies that worked to try to rectify early policies of exclusion and racial discrimination. As the guide points out, the nation is an imagined community, whereas the state is a “governed group of people.” For this blog assignment, I would like you to research and summarize one of the state or governing activities, such as The Royal Proclamation 1763, the Indian Act 1876, Immigration Act 1910, or the Multiculturalism Act 1989 – you choose the legislation or policy or commission you find most interesting. Write a blog about your findings and in your conclusion comment on whether or not your findings support Coleman’s argument about the project of white civility.

As I have said in a previous blog, I moved to Canada in 2008 from England with my mother. My mother’s parents were Irish/English born and decided to move to Canada for a few years, in that time they had my mother, making her an official Canadian citizen although they later returned to the UK. This then made my four sisters and I very lucky as though we were all born in England, we now automatically had Canadian citizenship’s too making it very easy for my mother and I to move to Canada. I wanted to add this little bit of information because I am an immigrant who has moved across the world to a new land but during this move I did not think anything of it. I did not think of the rules and regulations that I was able to bypass because of being a Canadian/British Citizen. The same rules and regulations that hundreds of thousands of people unfortunately must face when moving countries. It is this reason that I wanted to look into Canada’s Immigration Act of 1910 to see what exactly it constituted of.

The Immigration Act of 1910 “further enhanced the discretionary powers of government to regulate the flow of immigrants into Canada, reinforcing and expanding the exclusionary provisions outlined in the Immigration Act of 1906″ (act). It took the provisions outlined in the 1906 Immigration Act and reinforced as well as expanded them. Within this new Immigration Act came a new list of prohibited immigrants, as well as giving more authority to the Federal Cabinet to choose who can enter the country and who shall be deported.  How immigrants were refused entry or later deported was based on the fact that they were “unsuited to the climate and requirements of Canada” (act).  This raises the question of what is defined as unsuitable or undesirable? This list includes: prostitutes, pimps, vagrants, inmates of jail, etc. Others that were included in the excluded list were those coming through a charitable organization. This condition was prompted by the immense amount of impoverish British immigrants that came in 1902 through the assistance of their charitable organization.

The Act also introduced permanent residency which was obtained after three years of living in Canada. However before this was introduced it meant that at any time one could be deported for being undesirable; one of those in the list above. The Federal Cabinet also easily deported those who wanted to overthrow the government or create public disorder, and even barred Judges and courts from reviewing the decisions made by the ministry in connection to deportation.

Finally I shall discuss the one rule that I found completely discriminating, racist and shocking. Orders-in-council passed the discriminating policy that anyone of Asiatic origin could only enter Canada if they had $200 in their possession, anyone else, either male or female only needed $25 in their possession.

This last rule intertwines with Daniel Coleman’s argument about the project of white civility. Daniel states that “whiteness has been naturalized as the norm for English Canadian cultural identity” and of course this is to be implemented if the country is creating easier access immigration for those of non-Asiatic origin, thus mostly the Caucasian population. Coleman also discusses the four fictive ethnicity literary personifications that are repeated through Canadian literary that ultimately “mediated and gradually reified the privileged, normative status of British whiteness in English Canada” (6-7). If we are not allowing other races but our own to enter Canada with as much as ease as anyone else then of course these fictive literary personifications will remain the same and will continue to enhance this sense of superiority that white civility holds.

Coleman also argues that “those denied familiarity with liberal democratic politics… cannot understand the meaning of liberty… they have an intense hatred for the law… ‘we’ must be patient…and translate such people in good, intelligent citizens” (12). This perspective held by the government is dehumanizing, degrading and patronizing. The use of ‘we’ angers me as it looks like the government is talking for the entire country which I completely disagree with. It is degrading as it states that we shall teach them our ways, and make them into good and intelligent people, as if they cannot in their own countries. It is offensive and racist to have this view and for a country that states it is multicultural, it is giving out a false sense of this. The Immigration Act supports Coleman’s research as ‘white civility’ is supported through solely serving the white population and forcing ‘others’ to climb over obstacles to gain this sense of civility, and push past the undesirable stage.

Works Cited

“A Hundred Years of Immigration to Canada 1900 – 1999.” Canadian Council for Refugees. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2016.

Canadian Museum of Immigration. Immigration Act, 1910. n.d. <http://www.pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/immigration-act-1910>. Web.

Cangiano, By Antonio Cangiano 81. “How to Get Your Canadian Citizenship.” Antonio Cangianos Blog. N.p., 2012. Web. 26 Oct. 2016.

CanLit Guides. “Reading and Writing in Canada, A Classroom Guide to Nationalism.” Canadian Literature. Web.

Coleman, Daniel. White Civility : The Literary Project of English Canada. Toronto, CA: University of Toronto Press, 2014. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 26 October 2016.

Question 3

 In order to address this question you will need to refer to Sparke’s article, “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” You can easily find this article online. Read the section titled: “Contrapuntal Cartographies” (468 – 470). Write a blog that explains Sparke’s analysis of what Judge McEachern might have meant by this statement: “We’ll call this the map that roared.”

Before reading Sparke’s article, and having read the lesson’s reading from Erika, the term ‘colonized mind’ jumped up off the screen when I read what Erika had to say about Judge McEachern’s statement: “We’ll call this the map that roared” concerning the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en map. What Erika said was “he was not able to see that this map charts territorial boundaries and land uses that existed previous to European re-mapping of those lands: he could not see what he did not believe existed”. This statement made by Erika displays the bias, close-minded way of thinking the Settlers have. The line “my way or the highway’ works to describe the feelings of the Settlers and most importantly Judge McEachern. The idea that there is anything out there other than what he knows is ridiculous to him, and that anything other than what he knows should be dismissed as irrelevant.

I bring up the idea of dismissal because this is how Spark explains the reaction of McEachern. McEachern dismissed the claims of the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en and their map,  through a colonized mind focusing on colonized claims that the rights of the Aboriginal people were extinguished and thus not reliable or relevant. The ‘roared’ statement as Spark explains through Don Monet’s statement led to an evoked resistance in the First Nations. The map was a symbol for the roaring that the First Nations were physically doing to get themselves heard, resisting against the strict guidelines put in place by the colonizers; placed on their culture, their language, and even their maps. This map was a hard symbol of the refusal of the First Nations regarding the: “orientation systems, the trap lines, the property lines, the electricity lines, the pipelines, the logging roads, the clear-cuts, and all the other accouterments of Canadian colonialism on native land” (468).This last quote really emphasizes the importance that the land holds in the First Nations heart. What they are fighting against are the trap lines, the property lines, the electricity lines etc., which are all man made things, things that were not there before the moving in of the settlers. The map of the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en shows the land, the sources that the land provides and the beauty of the land that they call home.

I also want to discuss the word ‘roared’ and the image it creates. When we think of something roaring we for the most part connect that to the lion or tiger, the top predator in the animal kingdom and I find this quite the oxymoron. McEachern has used this descriptive term which we connect to the king of the animals to describe a group of people who he sees as inferior to his people- so what does that make him ?

Works Cited

Sparke, Matthew. “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 88, no. 3, 1998, pp. 468-470.

Write a short story (600 – 1000 words) that describes your sense of home; write about the values and the stories that you use to connect yourself to, and to identify your sense of home.

March 22nd 2008 was the day that my concept of home physically changed. This was the day that my mother and I moved from the south coast of England, to Peachland a small town in beautiful British Columbia. This was the biggest day of my life so far, and at 12 years old for most kids, it would have been the worst day; I was taken away from what I knew, who I knew: my friends and my family. But it was not the worst day of my life. The first 12 years of my life were filled with ups and downs and I realized that this day would be a new up for me, this was the day that I could change everything, no one knew me in Canada and that meant at 12 years old, I could be anyone I wanted to be. Home therefore at this time in my life was the physical, the bungalow I last lived in with my mother and sister, and the country that molded my beliefs, my education, my view on the world and even my accent but now I was entering a new home: a bigger house in an even bigger country.

I had never really thought of home as anything more than the house I lived in as I grew up, but in the first few months of living in Canada, I realized that home was so much more than I ever knew. When we moved to Canada, we left behind my four older sisters and my nieces and nephews, this was the hardest part of the move and the feeling of missing them brought me to the concept of home as a feeling. Although I had my mother by my side to protect me and look after me in this big new country, I realized that it did not feel like home because my sisters were not with me. My sisters are my home. Going day after day without annoying the heck out of them, or getting them into trouble or going to them when someone was mean to me, left me feeling lonely, unsafe and lost. I knew I could turn to my mother but the relationship I had with my sisters, especially the second oldest was unable to be recreated between my mother and I.

These feelings I had did not prevent me from making friends at my new school, or stopped me from enjoying this new country but it did create this silence that surrounded me on the days where I sat and stopped to think a while. Knowing I could not go round the corner and stay at my sisters house or call them when ever I wanted (time zones really screw that up) made it clear that life was different, this home would not be like the home that I grew up knowing. I also at this time realized that my sisters were growing up ( there is a large age gap between my sisters and I) and did not have time to concern their life around their baby sister in another country. Though this was hard to accept it also showed me that I too am growing up and life changes.

Now in this present day, after thinking about my family, my great move and where I am today, I have come to the conclusion of what ‘home’ now means to me. It is a feeling of completeness. Home is what you make it. I went from thinking that I knew exactly what ‘home’ is: my sisters, and being with them in England, but that is not it. ‘Home’ is a feeling you get when YOU choose who you surround yourself with; home is a place of security and happiness, so choose those who bring both of these to you. It is inevitable for life not to change, and home is a part of that, home changes as we grow, and sitting here on September 28th 2016 in Kelowna, Canada, my friends, my mother, my sisters and now my amazing boyfriend are my home. As cheesy as it sounds, they complete me.

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I also really recommend reading Billie Letts’ book Where the Heart is. This book will leave your heart full and feeling good, as it follows a young girl on her lonely journey of pregnancy where she finds a new family and a new home. The story connects with my views on surrounding yourself with the right people in order to feel like you are home. Or you can watch it on Netflix too.

Your task is to take the story about how evil comes into the world, the story King tells about the Witches’ convention in Chapter One of The Truth about Stories, and change it any way you want, except the ending. You can change to place, the people, the time – anything you want. But, your story must have the same moral – it must tell us how evil came into the world and how once a story is told, it cannot be taken back.

I have a great story to tell you. Great not in the form of laughter and love but in the form of a warning.

Rachel slowly opened her eyes and tried to take in the world before her. Everything was blurry. Red, blue, and yellow dots replaced what usually would have been her living room: filled with the couch she falls asleep on at night as she watches TV; the coffee table covered by a puzzle that was only half way done because her daughter’s bedtime always arrived before completion; and the book case filled with children books, self-help books but most importantly pictures of her late husband, cuddling the children, but never cuddling her. Slowly the dots began to fade and the eerie silence that had been there since she woke was now all she could hear. Something was wrong. She looked all around her and realized that what she believed was the soft touch of her couch – her second bed – was in fact the soft curls of the living room rug. Her left hand was stuck grasped around an empty bottle of whiskey.  The bottle’s lid was across the room and as Rachel looked at the contents; only one drop was left, and as she moved the one drop fell from the bottle and landed with a great thud on the rug. The silence was so grand that the drop of liquid was echoing.

Thudding, pounding and buzzing then took over the silence. These deafening sounds were happening within her head but now the screams and laughter of the neighbourhood children walking to school grew louder and louder. She quietly prayed that her daughter, Molly had not entered the living room as she left for school. Usually Molly would stomp from her room, making sure every step on the stairs was heard by her mother, slam the kitchen door as she left with a piece of toast in her hand. However, the power of the whiskey was stronger than the force of Molly’s temper. Rachel slowly rose from the ground and was struck by a flash of memory. An image in her head appeared: all she could see was darkness but at the end of the darkness was a light, the light was moving. The light was moving quickly away from her, as if in fear. The closer Rachel would get to the light a cry would eject from the light, the closer she got the more the cry sounded like a scream. Rachel could not understand this image, where had it come from and why did it leave her feeling scared. Scared to move and scared to accept why she was feeling the way she did. As the image passed, Rachel’s vision was now focused on the two empty whiskey bottles that laid on the kitchen counter. She was hungover. She felt sick at the amount she had drank and the state she was in. Fear over powered her and she was scared to look any further to see what else lays within the house that could remind her of her behaviour from the previous night.

Rachel promised Molly she would no longer drink. That she was off the substance that Molly deemed as evil. Rachel lied. She began to walk in circles trying her hardest to remember what she had done the night before. The awful feeling she felt began to build and build, she must have done something. Her body was aching but it was not the same kind of ache she usually felt after a night of drinking. Something was different. Did this have something to do with the image she just had? She remembered that Jack the local dealer had offered up his place to stay if she wanted to get drunk. She rejected the offer but had not rejected the bottles of whiskey she bought. Jack was the reason the evil came into Rachel’s world last night but he was not the reason it first came into her world.

Finally Rachel pulled herself upstairs to the bathroom so she could freshen up. On her way to the bathroom she passed Molly’s room, and as she did she stopped at the door. Molly’s bed was perfectly made which made Rachel question what she was seeing. Molly never made her bed so Rachel knew in that moment that Molly had not slept in it last night. So where did Molly sleep? Rachel assumed her daughter was acting out again, like she always did, so she let it go and continued on to the bathroom. As she went to open the bathroom door her entry was blocked as the door hit something. Rachel pushed the door hard to make enough room for her to squeeze in and as she slipped through the gap between the door and its frame, Rachel stopped and screamed. There on the bathroom floor laid her baby. Molly was passed out, covered in blood, bruises and cuts. The first thing Rachel saw was the cut across Molly’s cheek which was so deep you could see the bone. Rachel began to cry out as she held Molly, praying she was alive, she leaned in and heard a shallow breath and knew she had to get help. Quickly Rachel got up to run to the phone but caught her reflection in the mirror. She froze and feared what she saw. In the mirror Rachel saw herself, saw an evil she had never seen before that she knew was created by a greater evil. Rachel’s clothes were covered in blood, her left hand was bruised but most importantly Rachel could not stop staring at the scar that sat on her own cheek. The scar she could never forget, and most importantly never forget who gave it to her, but now lay upon the face of her daughter. In this moment Rachel came to the realization that Molly was the light and she was the darkness. The malevolence that created Rachel’s scar now had taken power of Rachel and continued its journey. Rachel knew she could never take back what had happened, what happened to her was now not only her past but now her daughter’s future. Her story had now propelled forward instead of ending.

I have never created a story and then told it to others so this was a new experience for me. My boyfriend was the first to listen and he soon asked me where I got this idea from; so I want to make it clear that I am not a child of an abusive or alcohol family, this was merely a creation. Although that is not to take away from the many families that unfortunately experience this. As I retold my story what was made apparent to me was that the story overall did not change, but the smaller details altered every time I told it. Understanding that I the creator of the story, could not keep every component of the story the same which then made me question all the stories we have been told and how many of these are actually close to the original story. Storytelling only works as the story is passed from generation to generation, and through this passing no one know how many times the story is retold. So in fact no one actually knows the original story exactly. It is important to understand then that storytelling includes the act of trust and accepting that stories can change; however, never taken back.

At the beginning of this lesson I pointed to the idea that technological advances in communication tools have been part of the impetus to rethink the divisive and hierarchical categorizing of literature and orality, and suggested that this is happening for a number of reasons.  I’d like you to consider two aspects of digital literature: 1) social media tools that enable widespread publication, without publishers, and 2) Hypertext, which is the name for the text that lies beyond the text you are reading, until you click. How do you think these capabilities might be impacting literature and story?

In a generation of kids glued to social media and their phones it is no surprise that technology has overwhelmed our society and edged its way into the realm of literature and stories. Unfortunately research found by the National Center for Education Statistics proves that “71  percent of the U.S population age 3 and over used the internet” , this statistic demonstrates how early technology is being used in children’s’ lives. However; though this is a young age, for the older kids in school and adults everywhere,  the use of social media and hypertext works creatively but also subtly to open our eyes up to stories we are unable to discover on our own.

Firstly as I previously said, the use of technology is extremely powerful in our society today as it is right at our fingertips and therefore is used in every day life, through computers, laptops, cell phones, e-readers and so much more. Ultimately technology through the various social media platforms allows us readers and listeners to access literature easier than ever before; expanding the resources and opportunities to find and learn new stories as one moves from one website to another.

The endless amount of information that can be found on the internet is broadcast across the internet realm in many different ways, through social media such as Facebook, important news websites and even blogs like this one. The different forms allow for different views and different interpretations of stories that are written depending on the type of platform it is shown on, for example; a story on a news website may be taken more seriously than a story created on one’s blog. However; as Erika explained, as a reader, you can apply independent thinking, and as a listener you have the chance to change the story and this is important as I believe that when reading literature on the internet you are part listener and reader. This concept of being both reader and listener demonstrates the impact that social media tools have upon literature as it is taking the idea of readers and listeners as separate beings to then becoming one. In addition, an important aspect of these stories online is the agency it gives the storyteller as it allows the storyteller the chance to express their story in any form they like without the hassle of going through a publisher who may change their story.

“American legislator wants Canadians banned from driving USA” an article located on the Cbc news website explaining a radio interview is an example of how the storyteller can express their story and how the reader/listener can interpret it. The article explains and grants viewers the opportunity to listen to the interview itself which is between Cbc and American legislator John Grumpart discussing Grumpart’s (ridiculous) views of Canadian drivers and why they should be banned. What this story shows is how fast the social media movement is and that anything written can spread like wildfire in minutes. Most of the viewers believe this story to be true, however; in small writing it can be seen that the story is a satirical one and to not be taken seriously. Overall it demonstrates not only how quickly a story can go viral but also that it is the readers choice on how they interpret it, and in this case it can be shown that not all readers are taking in every detail.

Another way that social media and technology is having an impact on literature is the new various ways that literature can be expressed; not only through written words but also through pictures, songs and videos. I believe that stories can be expressed incredibly through these different forms and thus these possibilities allows us readers/listeners to open our mind to learning stories in a different way that grant us a new details that words cannot perfectly convey.

I use this idea of moving from one website to another with the idea and metaphor of intersections that Erika introduced us to in this lesson, in mind. Intersections in the literal driving sense allows roads to cross one another and allow the driver to change direction and this is exactly what the internet through social media tools allows its users to do. When one is on a website such as Facebook, although they may stay on this website for hours, there are so many distracting ads and links that catch our attention we then end up hopping from one website to another. The moment where we change from one website to another is the intersection, that works only through the use of hypertext. Hypertext are the digital intersections of literature. This chance to find new websites provides us the access to unlimited sources of literature and the possibility of reading stories from all across the world. This impacts literature as it allows us readers to expand our knowledge of literature found around the world and from cultures that we may never knew existed. The possibilities are endless.

Works Cited

“American Legislator Wants Canadians Banned from Driving in USA – Home | This Is That with Pat Kelly and Peter Oldring | CBC Radio.” CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, 2016.

A-Z, By Subject Index. “Fast Facts.” Fast Facts. N.p., n.d.

Hi, my name is Bryony-Rose Heathwood and as I write this I am wondering how many of you are sick of hearing “Hello, It’s Me” jokes or just Adele in general, but honestly I don’t care. She is Queen and now is a part of my blog!

Other than being an Adele fan, I am a travel loving, British immigrant who has lived in Canada for over eight years now and I am currently a student at the University of British Columbia-Okanagan and am entering my fourth year. I was lucky to call the University of Victoria home for a couple years then decided to pack up and head home to the Okanagan and finish my degree off with the support of my family and friends.  I am  majoring in English and will hopefully obtain my degree by the end of next summer (I already said yesterday was my last official first day of school, so fingers crossed that stays true), however that will not be the end of my educational journey.

For the last few years I have also studied American Sign Language and have completely fallen in love with the language, and the Deaf community and culture. If you have never seen a Deaf person wrapped up in their language and culture than you really are missing out. The Deaf community is one of the most open-minded, welcoming communities I have ever been a part of and they love to see anyone attempt to communicate with them! and because of this excitement around the culture I plan to be a part of it full time as I work towards obtaining a diploma in becoming a Deaf Interpreter. I was welcomed into Canada’s Deaf community and here lies more information that welcomes you to the community too. However, don’t be an idiot and follow these rules to avoid being shunned from the Deaf community.

The reason I have gone into detail about this, is because it is what I am passionate about but it also links to this course. How? Well American Sign Language is strongly tied to its culture, its origins and story telling. Story telling is a major source for how the language has progressed over the years and spread around the world. The importance of ones own stories and origins will forever be connected and continue to move through time with additional stories constantly being created. This then works for this course too as I believe that during this course we shall as a group look into the stories of Canada and those that have past through centuries before us and will continue to grow as we grow with them. To be Canadian, as a British Immigrant having moved here eight years ago, has proven to be based on pride and showing that. However, through the lens of literature the pride seems to be failing as the focus of Canadian Literature is absent in most courses. I have completed three years of post secondary education and this year I will be taking my first Canadian Lit course…. that doesn’t seem right. I lived in England for 12 years and during this time I learnt a mass amount about England as a country, its origin, its stories and what made it “The Motherland”. Our history was greatly influential in our school curriculum and through classes such as English and History it was our country that we focused on, not Canada nor the United States- so how come in Canada, we are not looking at ourselves primarily. With this being said, it shows how surprised I was moving to a new country to learn that the literature I would be studying would not focus on the country I was in but rather the country I had just left.

I hope by the end of this course as we focus on Canadian Literature through the lens of the Indigenous people and the many influential Canadians I have yet to learn about, I along with the rest of you will have the opportunity to close that gap of unknown Canadian literature knowledge as we take a microscope to the many stories we have missed out on and also question the ones that are purposely withheld from us. This course will force us to question, how? when? and what? and most importantly why these Canadian stories are so important for our education but also our Canadian identity. And having moved from across the pond, I am ready to learn about my new ‘home’ through a form I love most: reading.

Works Cited

“13 Things to Never Say to a Deaf Person.” Rochelle Barlow. N.p., 2016. Web. 08 Sept. 2016.

“WFD | World Federation of the Deaf – World Federation of the Deaf, WFD, Human Rights, Deaf, Deaf People.” WFD World Federation of the Deaf. N.p., n.d. Web.                     08 Sept. 2016.