Tag Archives: racism

Module 1 – Post 1: Residential Schools

Reading the Hare article pinched a nerve for me. It reminded me of a made for TV Canadian movie called Where the Spirit Lives (click to view in new window) which came out in 1989.  I remember my impression of the movie as a young boy coming to know the dark yet true past of Canadian Heritage.  As a Canadian born Chinese, who’s great great grandfather helped build the railroad, I think it made me somewhat more sensitive to this “painful legacy” that Canadians share.

Having watched the movie again in adulthood and learning about Indigenous Knowledge in Education, I think the film does a remarkable job in depicting what these schools were like, for students and teachers.  I’m sure much worse things happened that could not be presented in the movie, but it fits in with what Hare describes as “the denigration of indigenous knowledge that was embedded within traditional cultural practices, values, ways of living, and languages…and the inter-generational trauma it (residential schools) left for individuals, families, and communities.” (p. 98 & 101)

With my Christian background, it also saddens me how deceptive and powerful religious lies can be, and the danger of misguided zeal in many ‘missionary’ work – past and present. Well, I don’t have an answer for how we can learn from past mistakes, but as Lee Brown and Hare point out, there needs to be some kind of “nurturing of emotional, social, cognitive, and spiritual development” that promotes, rather than destroys community. And we are starting to really learn that the old industrial-age education model is outdated and needs serious reform.

 

Module #1: Post #2 – Chinese-Aboriginal Identity

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.