Throughout my time in my ASTU class at UBC, I’ve been exposed to numerous forms of poetry. Some short and impactful, some long and seeming to never end. Yet, regardless of my like or dislike of the poem I read, I believe the meaning and detail behind it remains the most important. For example, we can look at  Juliana Spahr’s first poem in This Connection of Everyone with Lungs. Written directly after September 11th in while Spahr was in Brooklyn, the poem left me in a lulled state, struggling to stay alert and engaged with the reading. Yet, while I did not enjoy the style, the meaning behind this poem and the reason for its creation leaves a haunting impact upon my mind. This is the power poetry has. The artful composition and form builds together a story, one that in the traditional style cannot be conveyed.

This view of poetry can be compared to how we have previously analyzed graphic narratives in class. Similar to how Marjane Satrapi of Persepolis discussed how she could not depict the violence and destruction she witnessed in her childhood, Wislawa Szymborska states in her poem “Photograph from September 11”,

As I walked into UBC’s Museum of Anthropology (MOA) to visit the Amazonia exhibit on display, I assumed it would be similar to other exhibitions I’ve seen in museums. There would be some type of artifact with a blurb describing it, telling the visitor the basics of where it was found, what its purpose was, how the museum acquired it and so forth. Yet, in my opinion, the most striking artifacts at the museum were those with no history and knowledge at all. Displayed in a glass case were some type of feathers held together and mimicked the plume of a bird. However, these beautiful creations had no explanation or knowledge behind them, with their blurb explaining the mystery behind where they came from, who made them, and what their purpose was. The blurb also emphasized the affects of colonialism that have ultimately led to this artifact’s lack of information. Artifacts such as these ought to provide information of other groups of people and their lives, yet, we are once again presented with an example of how cultures have been decimated by colonialism.

Sadly, the eradication of culture is seen also in Canada’s history with its treatment of First Nations’ cultures. Prior to attending UBC, I visited the Royal BC Museum and the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre, where I learned for the first time of the residential schools in Canada and their lasting effects to this day. Similar to the artifact at the Museum of Anthropology, many cultural aspects of First Nations groups have been forgotten forcibly due to these residential schools. As we have been learning in Geography, the effects of colonialism are devastating, with the lives of a group of people being forever changed and their way of life decimated. And while not traditional colonialism, the implementation of residential schools is a direct result of the interactions between First Nations and the Canadian government, with the Canadian government looking to incorporate Indigenous Communities without consent.

Both the artifact in the Museum of Anthropology and the past use of residential schools are sobering reminders of the lasting effects of colonialism. While we may be tempted to say colonialism is a thing of the past, there are lingering reminders such as an unknown artifact being displayed in a museum or the urgency to bring back almost extinct languages of the First Nations peoples. The Amazonia exhibit with its artifacts brought from thousands of miles away remains a harsh reality of the post-colonialism similarities in our own surroundings and the everlasting repercussions of colonialism. Therefore, it is up to us to remember the lost and retrace what we can to recognize the people who have been wronged and their culture that has been almost fully destroyed.

Last week, my Arts Studies class (ASTU) at the University of British Columbia (UBC) visited the Rare Books and Special Collections library where we studied artifacts and documents from the time of the Japanese internment. As we poured through fliers and letters, what to us was merely an artifact was astonishingly a piece of paper that forever changed peoples’ lives. And it was this thought that struck me as the most harrowing.

As humans, we are not perfect. We can see this in our thoughts and actions that let racism and paranoia engulf society during World War II. However, we are also not perfect at remembering. While it may be natural to attempt to forget painful memories, there is a importance, a duty we have that emerges from said memories to remember and confront. We cannot change the past, but we can remember for the future.

And as we’ve seen through Kogawa’s novel Obasan, as well as the Rare Books and Special Collections library, there are many genres that allows us to remember. Novels and memoirs let us see into an individuals journey, a raw and in depth encounter, while documents show us the timeframe and the words that affected thousands. Our learning of history is often through an analytical eye, a 20/20 vision of what happened. Yet, sometimes we fail to think of the ramifications or what others have endured. This is where remembrance and the telling of experiences becomes absolutely essential in our national memory. As ugly or painful as they may be, we cannot forget in order to never forget. 

These genres of storytelling and documenting are instrumental not only in telling history of the Japanese internment, but anyone who has struggled. On the other hand, the famous film Grave of the Fireflies directed by Isao Takahata and animated by Studio Ghibli (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grave_of_the_Fireflies), serves as a media genre where it shows a brother and a sister in Japan struggling to survive during World War II. Originally based upon a short story by the same name, the author Akiyuki Nosaka utilizes this genre to remember and memorialize his experience trying to survive with his baby sister during World War II. Similar to Kogawa’s Obasan and the Rare Books and Special Collections artifacts we examined, Grave of the Fireflies uses a type of genre to retell the past in order to not forget, allowing for the memories to live on infinitely in a different form.

Currently in our Arts Studies class (ASTU) at the University of British Columbia (UBC), we have begun reading Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Told through Satrapi’s character Marji, her younger self, we see how the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the 1970s  and 80s have impacted the lives of her and her family. While this is not my first time hearing about the Islamic Revolution, the perspective Satrapi shows has opened my eyes to the Iranian point of view, something that I was not shown when learning about the revolution.

I can clearly remember my first encounter learning about the Islamic Revolution.

In 2012, the American film Argo with Ben Affleck won three Academy Awards including Best Picture. And it was this movie that first introduced to me the Islamic Revolution. Yet, while Argo told a gripping tale of the Iran hostage crisis and the exhaustive efforts of the United States and Canada to rescue them, it failed to properly address the Islamic Revolution. This film told from an American perspective focused on the plight of the hostages, failing to address the complexities of the Islamic Revolution and the role the West played in the Shah’s rise to power. Except for a few statements detailing the background information needed to understand the film’s premise, Argo does not delve into the Iranian point of view opting to focus on the Americans trapped.

Ironically, it was this film that first sparked my interest in international affairs and influenced my desire to study international relations, leading me to join the Coordinated Arts Program (CAP) for Global Citizens at UBC. And as part of my CAP classes at UBC, ASTU has shown me the importance of objectivity and perspective, as well as memory and narrative. Argo, while dramatized, is not wrong but rather stems from an American perspective. Satrapi’s Persepolis paints another portrayal, detailing the internal conflict in Iran and the lives of the people through Marji’s family’s story.

Both accounts are integral in understanding history in different contexts, as well as understanding the entire issue from both sides. There is no inherit truth, nor any so-called “right” or “wrong”, only different experiences. And in order to truly call ourselves global citizens, we must learn and understand these different perspectives.

Here’s to a new school year, a new university, and a new blog!

Last Friday instead of the typical Sociology or Political Science lecture, my class sat down to watch a documentary on the Japanese students at the University of British Columbia during World War II. Now being half-Chinese, half-Japanese myself, I gained many cultural aspects of both in my upbringing. I still remember my Father introducing my sister and I to Japanese foods and tastes, while also proudly showing us the photos of the Japanese Asahi baseball team from Vancouver my great-grandfather played on (and which was mentioned in the documentary). These moments, from fawning over the Japanese porcelain dolls in my Grandmother’s cabinet to childhood stories of Momotaro the little peach boy, have left an everlasting impact on my memory to this day.

Yet, after viewing this documentary I found myself thinking about of what it means to be Japanese now and what it was for the Japanese students back then. Even in context with my Grandmother who was interned in a camp at Lemon Creek in British Columbia, she must continue with those memories while I am privileged to have grown up in a later time. As we have discussed in my Arts Studies class, the concept of memory and history are intertwined, and we often come to question who “owns” history and if there is an obligation for future generations to carry on the pains of the past. This also begs the question, who has the right to tell these stories and memories?

As a UBC student, we are accustomed to this way of thinking. With every residence meeting and assembly comes the land acknowledgement of the Musqueam people, an acknowledgment of the painful history of land acquisition this university resides upon. While traumatic experiences such as the taking of the Musqueam peoples land and the Japanese internment are shared by a specific population, it is something that can be acknowledged by all. These groups own these memories unwillingly, a scar that will mark their history, yet to heal and reconcile we all must tell these stories.

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