After thinking about the difficulties that many women and children face obtaining Aboriginal status according to Dr. Lynn Gehl, I began thinking about other segments of the Aboriginal population in Canada that experienced discrimination by the government. I recalled watching a documentary last year called Cedar and Bamboo, which examined the challenges faced by the children of mixed Chinese/Aboriginal parentage. The 2009 film, by Kamala Todd and Diana Leung, can be viewed in its entirety here, or if you’d simply like a sample, check out the trailer here. The Chinese Canadian Stories Project also has some resources on this topic, the most useful being an interview with Larry Grant, who like those featured in Cedar and Bamboo, shares his stories about growing up in mid-century British Columbia amidst the racial prejudices that both branches of his ethnicity had to endure.

Looking beyond the systemic racism these individuals faced (children with Chinese fathers were not allowed to claim First Nations status, nor could they go to school on the Reserve with their Aboriginal cousins and friends, and they were often shunned by both Aboriginal and Chinese communities), the issue that seemed to be the underlying theme of these stories concerned identity. Most of those interviewed in these films convey the sense that at one point or another in their lives, they felt torn between two, sometimes three worlds – none of which truly gave them a strong sense of belonging. As Larry Grant recounts, once he was school age, he and his brother were boarded with a Chinese family off the reserve to attend public school. Because of his Aboriginal background, he was treated as an inferior member of the household and of the Chinese community. This disconnect between individual, place and family seems to be echoed in the larger narrative of First Nations in Canada and an important feature in the formation of Aboriginal identity. In that sense, these stories of cultural displacement are worth examining.