It’s Jaqi’s ASTU Blog!

Our introduction to conceptual poetry in ASTU 100 was Injun by Abel Jordan. In this book of poetry he took sentences from 91 classic Western novels in the public domain that contained the word injun, and reorganized the text for his own purposes. The first section reads as “normal” poetry, if a little hard to decipher meaning from. Later parts of the first section start to have gaps until whole pages are jumbles of letters and partial words, some upside down. Then the words come back into legible lines, but completely upside down. The next section, notes, groups sentences containing other words like “land”, “bloody”, and “faith”, but cuts them off, not allowing the full sentences to be seen. The final section is all the source sentences, but blank where the word injun originally would have been.

Something interesting to me about Injun that we haven’t talked about in class is that it takes the form of written English at all. Most Indigenous languages in the Americas, like Nisga’a, the language of the Nisga’a nation that Abel belongs to, didn’t have a written form prior to contact with Europeans. We’ve spoken about this in Linguistics 101 as we study the consonant structure of Halkomelem (or rather Hunquminum), the Musqueam nation’s language, that was and is spoken on the land UBC is currently situated on. We have discussed the different writing systems used for different local Indigenous languages, which differ quite a bit as they were put together quite recently. But Abel’s book is not about providing visibility for reality of Indigenous language and culture that was misinterpreted and discriminated against in such offensive ways in these Western novels. Instead he is taking back space in the traditionally European sphere of writing and publishing, warping others’ words and traditions of the English language, similar to how Indigenous ways of knowing were warped during colonization.

I find it relevant that Abel uses these English books because in some situations, this type of text that he uses as a source was all that was left to represent the rich and diverse Indigenous peoples of the Americas. In some ways these texts were basically all he had to work with to be able to confront the master narrative of the “Indian”, considering how many Indigenous languages were wiped out or are now severely endangered, how colonizers tried to erase entire cultures. I am reminded of the lyric “every word that I’ve got is foreign to me” from the song “Foreigner’s God”. There is some acknowledgement and perhaps anger comes through in Injun, that English is needed to reach the masses with Abel’s message. More than that, as well, Abel decides not to give away knowledge of more realistic representations to the  space (literature) where these peoples were so disrespected. Instead he dives into what the harmful stereotypes really do in these texts.

Writing this analysis, I do not want to overstep and make too many assumptions in my reading as a settler, but I think considering and discussing the very language of the poem is relevant in this situation. These are merely some of my musings on its significance, but I do not know exactly the intentions of Jordan Abel beyond the concept of reclaiming that he discusses at the end of the book.

As someone who thought they would dislike Geography as a university class, I have been quite pleasantly surprised by the content of GEOG 122: Geography, Modernity, and Globalization. In our program stream of Globalization, Power, and Society, I am always amazed by the seemingly endless angles, areas of study, and approaches that can be used to discuss what appears to be one issue (and usually turns out to be a series of interconnected ones). Geography has been an unexpected (for me, at least) mix of history, economics, politics, viewed through a lens rather similar to the sociological imagination that we learned to employ last semester in SOCI 102. Of course, these are used in the course to examine and explain how geography—both space and place—has influenced the process of globalization and the resulting reality of modern life.

What has hit me most is how the story of globalization is, in so many different ways, the story of overlapping counternarratives; the story of purposeful development of cultural memory and cultural forgetting. The greatest counternarrative idea that we have focussed in on is “defetishizing the commodity”, or in other words, trying to constantly think about the commodity chain of whatever it is that we interact with, and all the people it took to get that thing to us. Our personal dominant narrative is what we see around us: yet there are thousands in every instance that have other stories to tell about how we got here. Using the Irish to create buffer social control stratum against black slaves in the invention of a racial worldview to encourage the Irish to forget all they had in common with slaves is a clear example of cultural memory and forgetting.The list goes on and on. There is no one version of it all, the way we view history did not happen by accident. It has been created, and there is so much to dive into, and if, like me, you can’t access that from a classic historical approach, literary techniques and mindset can get you there.

I have always found fiction (or narrative nonfiction) the most accessible way to learn history, as do many others. Having read and loved, both in classes and on my own, many historical novels, as I get older I am able to appreciate and empathize more with generally learning history, as well as current events, just through knowing that regardless, equivalents of those powerful stories do exist, out in the real world. I believe humans naturally have a hard time with large scale empathy, but having it proven and forced upon us through story makes people better.

While here in ASTU we examine big issues by looking at and picking apart individual narratives and connecting them to each other, never straying far from literature and relying on story, Geography is coming to be the opposite. We have a huge bigger picture we are explicitly trying to understand, and getting vignettes of counternarratives helps us do that. Even brief, mostly implied stories really demonstrate the complexity of the world of trade and pursuit of capital that we live in. ASTU’s insistence on connections has changed how I look at this GEOG 122 compared to how I would have if I’d taken it in September.

One of the first places I ever felt welcome in Vancouver was the Vancouver Public Library (VPL) in Kitsilano. My grandma would take me there when I was in town, for child reading groups, taking out books for my short stays, and scanning our hands in the photocopier. It made me think, this is what living in a big city is like.

Image from VPL website.

I went back to the same library when I moved to Vancouver, and was sad to find I couldn’t get a card, as I am living on campus, which isn’t in the municipality of Vancouver. At first I was disappointed, but after a few weeks at UBC, I realized how much the school library itself offered me. The Irving K Barber Learning Centre, when filled with hushed or murmuring students, feels alive. There are people who can answer the specific questions I have as a new student. As I enjoyed it, I wondered about the limits of the lack of Vancouver Public Library cards; the endowment lands hold more than just students. UBC has what I need, but what about all the other things a public library provides? As it turns out, if you live in UBC family housing or certain neighborhoods on the endowment lands, you can get one with a community centre card from those areas.

I got this information after talking to a welcoming librarian at the VPL, who explained the basics to me. He was curious how the system worked, too. I was out of the cold in the library on a rainy evening, feeling somewhat out of place and nervous to ask my question, yet nonetheless calmed by the hush of the library. But that’s what these locations can be for: figuring out how the city’s systems work and where you can get support. The librarian wanted to help, and directed me to a blog post by a UBC librarian with details of how someone on campus can get access—  specifically those living in places where they are very likely to have kids, and therefore benefit most from a public space for learning. Multiple people were doing their best to make sure the information was as easy to access as it could be.

In my search I learned about the University Neighborhoods Association community centre, who provides their own support and community events, along with connecting people to the city. The VPL website’s front page advertises kids storytimes, classes to learn the Canadian legal system, writing classes, and tutoring for teenagers. It can feel intimidating to be in a new place, but if you reach for it, there is a whole chain of support that can help you.

To start off second semester in my ASTU 100 class, we read The Best We Could Do, the graphic memoir by Thi Bui, which details the author’s family’s experience as refugees of the Vietnam War, and moving to America. On page 128 are two stark, vertical panels that take up the entire page, mirroring each other.

The first shows Thi Bui’s father, who she calls Bố, as a child, in a new city after escaping a dangerous invasion of his village. The second shows Thi herself in her childhood, watching her grown-up father smoking.

These two children, though many decades apart in time, are both fearful, in unfamiliar places with family members they do not fully trust as their only companions and protectors. By situating and displaying the two as so similar in these frames, Bui shows that from a young person’s perspective, they are not so different.

Both children are the same size, portrayed as equals. Yet with their dark hair (and in Bố’s case, clothes as well) they almost disappear into the dark ground—the eye is not first drawn to the children but rather their surroundings, the other characters in the scenes. They were not the center of the stories they were parts of at these times in their lives.Their similar stances are both timid in body language, though in different ways.

As well, the text on the page contributes to this feeling that these timelines are impossible simultaneously. The start of the second panel, “And in the dark apartment in San Diego,” evokes an unwritten “meanwhile” between the two panels. Bui even directly mentions that “the terrified boy who became [her] father” was there with her as a child, more than the adult he should have been in the situation.

The similarities between the children are much more visible than the ones between Thi and her father in the second panel. They could almost be companions, yet this is a connection that Bui shows she only felt later in life upon reflection. Even as they are so physically close and similar on the page, the children are facing away from each other, with no knowledge of each other. In childhood, Thi Bui could not find comfort in her father.

Recently in my Sociology 102 class, we have been discussing the third world debt crisis, its effects, and the economic side of globalization. I have never been great at following economic concepts, but through the lens of sociology I can get a good sense of the big picture in this situation. At the same time, in my ASTU 100 class, we are talking about Judith Butler’s concept of “frames of recognizability”. I find the connection between the two fascinating; how little we see those who suffer for our consumer goods as recognizable as people. 

A key part of Butler’s theory is that because we are undeniably and unchangeably vulnerable to other people, we often will see certain people or certain groups as primarily a threat. When someone is perceived as a threat to one’s own life, one stops seeing that person as alive, with a grievable life.

To me, there are other situations where we don’t consider others as having lives.

Several of our recent readings in Sociology have been about this: the chapter “Love and Gold” by Arlie R. Hochschild in her book Global Women, and Sarah Maslin Nir’s New York Times article “Perfect Nails, Poisoned Workers”. Both address how migrant workers suffer so that the upper class in Western countries can have fairly luxurious goods and services—professional manicures and live-in nannies. We also watched the documentary Life and Debt, which takes a different approach but to me still applies to the idea of seeing people who are too different from us as non-people, even when they are no threat. The film explores the high number of key industries in Jamaica—the majority of which were agricultural—that were overtaken and destroyed by international competition after the World Bank and International Monetary Fund intervened.

When we are getting goods like nice nails or hard-working childcare providers, we don’t worry about the consequences and sinister reasons we are able to access such luxuries. But we should. We prefer to turn a blind eye, but it is not a mystery, not hidden from the public—anyone can learn how serious the situation is if they care to look. I think the reason we remain willfully ignorant is related to Judith Butler’s frames of recognizability. I also think that the government has a large role to play in shaping those frames. If they are not protecting nail technicians from hazardous chemicals, or mandating vacation times for migrant nannies to see their own children and families, the general public is less inclined to care at all. However, the burden of changing people’s minds should not solely be on the government. The public has the ability to invoke pressure and change these situations.

In general, though, these connected topics have me curious about who any large governing body (or corporation) sees as a human with a valuable, mournable life. In most situations, I believe that group includes only citizens, or even a narrower view: only those with influence, enough to support the government’s power. Certainly, the World Bank does not see Jamaican workers as alive, or they would not have interfered the way they did. More likely than not, upper-class families hiring nanny don’t see that nanny’s kids, in a far-off country without their mother, as real and alive.

Really, frames of recognition can be applied to countless fields, including sociology, politics, and economics here, along with innumerable others. It comes down to empathy—how we teach it to ourselves and each other. I wonder how much the people in the highest positions of power see the world around them as full of complex lives, and I fear that answer. That fear, I think, is common, and is probably why so many people in today’s world are turning to the ideas of socialism, communism, and welfare states, because they find hope and comfort in the concept of a government that sees and treats you like a real, alive, human being.

Communications scholar Marita Sturken states in the introduction of her book, Tangled Memories:

 “I think it important to take note of those moments when people perceive themselves to be participants in the nation. One of the ways in which this happens is through the media. When Americans watch events of “national” importance— the Persian Gulf War, the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings, the explosion of the Challenger— on television, they perceive themselves to be part of a national audience regardless of their individual political views or cultural background. Citizenship can thus be enacted through live television.” (pp. 13-14)

I am reminded of Émile Durkheim’s ideas from Religion and Ritual, which we studied in my Sociology 102 class. In it, he describes the function religions and nations have in common, of bringing together a conscience collective in their members, a feeling of community and common goals. He says rituals and assemblies bind people, reaffirm interests and meaning for the group, and through heightened emotions, renew group commitment. I am curious if Sturken was at all influenced by studying Durkheim directly, as he is known as a founder of modern social science and father of sociology, which often overlaps with a discipline such as communications. I always thought of his ideas of ritual and assembly as positive events, but the connection with Sturken’s examples of traumatic events watched collectively, makes me reconsider the issue in terms of sociological framework combined with narrative.

I have been confused yet fascinated ever since I was a little kid by the idea of the Olympics as a source of national pride for the average citizen. Okay, so this one stranger who grew up across the country from me is the best swimmer this year—of the few who were deemed worthy to compete, that is—and somehow that should give me personally a sense of superiority over members of other nations? I am supposed to connect with all the other Canadians watching this race, and see us reflected in it, even though it truly has nothing to do with us. That is just one athlete who is extremely talented and dedicated, who knows very few of the people who are extremely invested in their performance.

And though I didn’t (and still really don’t) understand or agree with the notion of the importance for the country, I still felt it, to some degree, and in some situations, I still do. I was raised to believe that nationalism is, in the overwhelming number of situations, a bad thing. It causes wars, discrimination, and lessens empathy. It gets in the way of us remembering that we are all human, more similar than different. Yet in a sport I care about, I want a Canadian to win. 

This is extremely similar to the experience Sturken describes, as we acutely feel in those moments, that we are intrinsically members of a nation, not necessarily due to connection with the event itself, but because of connection with the entire audience. The situation may have the feeling of nationwide anticipation in common, but not such feelings of fear or potentially devastating stakes.

I still don’t understand why certain events become symbols of nationalism, when they don’t have to be, and when others don’t. What really brought the issue of nationalism in sports competitions forward for me recently was watching the absurd obstacle course TV show Ultimate Beastmaster on Netflix, where athletes from nine countries compete on an extreme parkour-like obstacle course dubbed “The Beast”. It is a fun show demonstrating extreme athleticism, which is why I watch it. But it is presented as a battle of nations, with athletes representing the overall strength and might of their home country. This aspect baffles me. Why do we continue to create new situations to feed into what to me is an unhelpful display and force of nationalism when it could easily not have that element at all. Do we actually crave the elation of that connection that comes from nationalism and these rituals? Or is it simply so ingrained in the culture that it has become second nature to look at everything through the lensof national superiority? I feel like the constant barrage of it is furthering someone’s goals, but not those of the citizens who get so swept up in it all.

However, I do have some perspective in this situation: there were no Canadians in Beastmaster, so I felt it was ridiculous to see these different nations drawing lines of teams and enemies when they could all be supporting each other. All the different nation’s presenters and athletes, however, seemed to be having lots of fun with all the competition.

The Olympics I understand more, but not much, probably because it is such a traditional event that I feel the stakes of more. It just doesn’t seem very helpful, or innocent. Sturken’s idea of national participation in a less competitive and comparative sense I can get behind as having a clear function of building community. When it comes to putting high emotions behind a competition whose sole purpose is to pit the world’s people against each other, though, I get a more sinister feeling, despite the relative inconsequentiality of it all.

From my point of view, these days the world (or at least North America) is changing its master narrative of 9/11 and the War on Terror. More and more stories are being told about those who suffered from US counterattacks, and mounting prejudice against anyone who looked like they might be Muslim or Middle-Eastern.

The focus of the events of September 11, 2001 is diminishing as it becomes clear that those are not what has had the most direct impact on so many lives today. This is why I find it so interesting that the fairly recent 2017 Tony Award winning musical Come From Away is, at its core, a 9/11 story being told 16 years later.

Come From Away is, in its own way, a new narrative. It is a rarely-told Canadian story of something adjacent to the terrorist attacks themselves—38 planes that landed in Gander, Newfoundland, when the US airspace was closed. There were as many “plane people” as there were Gander residents, and they were welcomed with open arms by the community. It asks a different question than usual about 9/11: what was it like to be on a plane that landed safely that day? But then again, is it so different when many people’s go-to when the subject is discussed is indeed, Where was I that day?

The show does bring up more of the contemporary focuses such as Islamophobia and racism, and the immediate change in attitude of white people towards Middle-Eastern people. There are scenes where a Muslim man is confronted while praying by a group of white men, who apparently believe he should give up his religion because other people have done bad things because of it. At the end of the show, a Middle Eastern man says, “On the way to my restaurant I drop my daughter at school, but she won’t go in. She says she’s scared. What do I tell her?” These are still current issues, 20 years later. But it is not the focus of the show. If anything, they mostly serve to contrast how kind and accepting the people of Gander were. It is serving to boost a Canadian image, and though the kindness of Gander’s community was real and important, it leaves a sour taste in my mouth that these moments sometimes come off as a means to an end.

Come From Away is a story of community and coming together, showing the light amid such dark times. But I sometimes wonder if it is appropriate. I am of the opinion that all stories should be told, and this is truly a beautifully told one. But the nature of Broadway amplifies it to a huge audience, when once it was a small news story. Is this a story that is important to tell now, after so many years? Three weeks ago, for the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, a professionally-shot video of the musical started streaming on Apple TV. There are so many other important current issues directly stemming from the War on Terror that could use that publicity for awareness. Is this a story that would have felt more appropriate ten years ago? Or would our comfort with it only be due to a more unaware general culture?

Asking these questions makes me uncomfortable. Come From Away is one of my favourite musicals, and I was lucky enough to see it on Broadway in 2018. The music and lyrics, the characters and individual stories, are all both heart-warming and heart-wrenching. It is a beautiful piece of art. It makes me proud of my country and gives me hope and faith in humanity. As someone born in 2003, it gives me insight into the experience of that day and the following week, which is fascinating. This once-unanimous cultural experience is fading, but through this musical I get to experience it. However, maybe we should be letting it fade away, not digging it up over and over again. There are other stories, such as those of refugees, I could be learning instead. To me, Come From Away is an amazing story of its type. But maybe it’s best if it could be the last story of its type. It did great things to bring awareness to a different side of a famous event. What society and literature need right now is to take a step back and look at all the stories surrounding such events and examine how they play out alongside them. Even this beloved musical telling a “new” story in a surprising medium may not be doing enough.

In the end, Come From Away is a majority white story. It’s a true one. But when I think of who has lived through the most fallout after 9/11, the majority are not white people. It’s the millions of refugees, and the Muslims in the West having their religion attacked. Those are the stories I want to seek out in the future, and I hope everyone else who has heard countless 9/11 stories seeks them out too.