Working in the field site, one of the first things I realized was that everyone has a migration story. Some of these stories of the participants and volunteers are recent, for example parents or grandparents that came to Vancouver from distant places, or students that traveled from neighbouring cities to study at the local university. But the fact is that in some part of our family’s history, a migration took place. I don’t know if our heritage as former hunter-gatherers is still present, but migration is always present as one of the strategies to respond to social and environmental pressures that push to change our identity (Adger 2006). In my experience at the UBC Farm, I learned about stories of migration shaped by strong social pressures, like war. Cases like this make it impossible to keep a way of life, and force people to move in order to find new places that could accommodate their identity – this is what happened with some of the participants from the Maya in Exile Garden, and why they came to live in Vancouver. But adapting to a new place wasn’t easy for them. Language and food were big barriers in their process of adaptation to Canada. Especially, food was so different that they considered the idea of returning to Guatemala. The people of the ‘Maya Garden’ struggled to feel comfortable in this new land until they could grow their own food. Once the corn, beans and squash grew, they felt ‘alive’ again. Actually, they told me that the corn follows them wherever they go. The Maya gardeners traveled a long way followed by the corn and seeds they used to plant in Guatemala. The roots they grew there could walk all the way to Canada. In this travel, all the places that the people and the corn visited changed a little bit their identity. As well, these places kept the seeds and influence from the visitors, representing a reciprocal influence and modification between the migrants and the places.

Talking with the participants and volunteers from my field site, I knew stories of migration that illustrate why the idea of ‘original roots’ is inadequate. Everything and everyone suffers changes caused by interaction of people and places, and these changes are constant through history. As Lisa Malkki said (1992), migrations shape people’s identity, so reducing identity to the idea of roots as an original starting point is denying people’s experiences and history. I imagine this phenomenon as roots that walk over the world, leaving their seeds everywhere they go; and the new roots that grow from these seeds make their own travel, determined by the history of its previous generations. This metaphor illustrates some aspect of immigration and helps to understand what the UBC Farm means for the Maya gardeners and their adaptation to Vancouver. This metaphor also talks about what happens with the future generations of the people currently working at the Farm and how identity transforms through time.

The conclusion is that everyone’s identity changes over time, shaped by the places visited. But this influence is reciprocal, because immigrants also influence the places where they arrive. A proof of this are the plants that still grow on UBC Farm from seeds planted by previous groups of immigrants that no longer work there. These plants represent the influence that immigrants from different parts of the world left on this land long time ago.

References

Adger, W. Neil
2006 Vulnerability. Global Environmental Change 16(3): 268–281.

Malkki, Liisa
1992     National Geographic: The Rooting of Peoples and the Territorialization of National Identity Among Scholars and Refugees. Cultural Anthropology 7(1): 24–44.

Image taken from: http://themainlander.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/seq5.jpeg

“Activism” is not a word shared by everyone in describing the activities and programs at the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House. I have always felt that the title “activist” was a badge earned, something you couldn’t just call yourself but something that had to be demonstrated in your actions and beliefs, sort of like “artist” or “superhero.” However, the word evokes a specific kind of social involvement for a lot of people at the Neighbourhood House, one that they try to distance themselves from by substituting in other words to describe their activities and involvement. In particular, “education,” both as a replacement term for the kinds of activities I have described as “activism” as well as a process in and of itself, has played an important role in setting the Neighbourhood House apart from other service providers and establishing a unique community in the heart of Vancouver.

Like the Community Transformational Organizing Strategy (CTOS) implemented by Asian Immigrant Women Advocates (AIWA), the DTES Neighbourhood House’s emphasizes education, skill building, and empowerment, although they use no formal terms or model to describe what they do. I first came across peoples’ idea of the Neighbourhood House as a place of education in an interview I conducted with a staff member.  She explained that she was hesitant to include the word “activist” in her job title because she did not feel that her role, or the role of the Neighbourhood House, was to advocate on anyone’s behalf. When I asked what word she would use in place, she mentioned “educator” or “education” in describing the activities at the Neighbourhood House. In another interview I did with another staff member, he explained that the biggest role of the food programs at the Neighbourhood House was to teach people the basic skills they needed to obtain and prepare nutritious foods. Similar to AIWA and the CTOS model, the focus and goals of these programs ends up being placed on self-activity and empowerment rather than any successes in policy change.

Education acts as a process that allows people to assert agency on a more intimate level and the decision to participate in wider political action becomes an informed decision of the individual. Every activity is a discussion, a workshop, a movie screening, or a talk and it is rare to see activities where people organize protests or even pass around petitions. After describing her role as an “educator” at the Neighbourhood House, one of the staff members I interviewed went on to explain that her job was to “inspire and train activists.” This is what separates the Neighbourhood House from other groups and service providers in the area: they do not advocate on behalf of anyone nor do they passively supply people with services without leaving room for discussion and development. A couple of people have explained to me that this is because they want to be as inclusive and active as possible without putting any one person off because of their hesitancy to be involved in more opinionated and aggressive action. Education, and education surrounding the preparation and consumption of food in particular, appeals to almost everybody (“we all have to eat” – echoed by two of my interviewees), is inclusive (we all have to eat and we are also all capable of learning new things), and most importantly, it empowers people to assert agency in their own daily lives.

My first introduction to Neighbourhood Houses came about as a result of signing up for the Immigrant Vancouver Ethnographic Field School (IVEFS). From the South Vancouver Neighbourhood House (SVNH) website, it appeared to me that they provided numerous settlement programs for newcomers to Vancouver and that many of these programs were targeted at skills development. When I read such titles as “leadership” and “diversity programs,” I was sceptical about the actual value of these programs. I have been required to take part in mandatory workshops and classes throughout my various employments and I have found such information to be of limited value and centred on intuitional normative practices – in other words, a waste of time. But, when I actually volunteered for the first time with the Newcomer Leadership Program, my scepticism vanished. I was impressed with the significant benefit that this program was providing for these newcomer youth. My appreciation for the value of the settlement programs continued to grow as I observed the great work that was taking place throughout the various programs I participated in. The youth settlement programs provide youth with social, cultural, symbolic, and human capital, which ultimately allows them to actively participate within Canadian society and thus, gain a sense of belonging.

In the 2008 article, Citizenship and Immigration: Multiculturalism, Assimilation, and Challenges to the Nation-State, Bloemraad, Koerteweg, and Yurdakul define the term citizenship. They define citizenship not only as a legal status with official rights but also as a feeling of belonging whereby participation in society plays an important role. When I examine youth settlement programs offered by SVNH, it is evident that they are supporting immigrant youth to become Canadian citizens by helping them acquire a sense of belonging.

One of the major themes that emerged through my conversations with the program participants is the feeling of isolation experienced by the newly arrived. They do not know anyone and they fear looking stupid when attempting to speak their limited English. This isolation is a huge barrier to youths’ participation in their community and thus, their sense of belonging. Bloemraad and colleagues say learning the host country’s language is important for societal integration. Host-language acquisition enables them to more widely participate within society and thus aides in a sense of belonging.

SVNH is truly the grassroots organization that they claim to be. Through my interviews, I discovered that SVNH listens to what their community says and addresses the needs their community describes. In response to the community, the youth settlement programs focus on creating friendship connections and networks. These connections and networks are important because they combat isolation and create safe environments for youth to improve their English skills.

Another program objective of SVNH, as is evident on their website, is to provide skills such as leadership and personal development. The youth I spoke to confirmed they value the opportunity to develop these skills. They said they participate within the SVNH programs because, most important to them, they help them make friends and learn English. Of secondary importance, they incorporate the skills learned into their everyday lives.

By providing the opportunities for newcomer youth to create connections and friendships, and strengthen their interpersonal skills, SVNH is helping them acquire social, cultural, symbolic, and human capital. SVNH programmers report watching youth evolve and participate within the community as described by ‘B,’ a youth worker:

My supervisor, she has seen these youth as participants in programs, then she’s seen them as volunteers in programs, and then she’s seen them as leading those programs.

As Bloemraad and colleagues say, participation within society is a key factor as to whether one feels accepted as a citizen and this is truly the objective and success of SVNH youth settlement programs.

Owing to my past work experience in the Canadian Consulate in Shanghai, I have had the chance to attend several talks by hyphenated-Canadian writers, including Larissa Lai (Chinese: 黎喜年), Fred Wah (Chinese: 关富烈) and Vincent Lam (Chinese: 林浩聪), at Chinese universities. Because of their Chinese appearance and names, suggesting their Chinese descent, questions about their Chinese and/or Canadian identities were commonly raised by the students in the audiences. To some extent, I suppose, the Chinese students were expecting some natural ties, cultural or linguistic, between these writers and themselves, and I had some of the same expectation as well. It seemed natural to take for granted our shared “roots”. Eventually, it came to our realization that there was nothing beyond their Chinese “look” and names to suggest that we could share more commonalities, such as language, national history and culture, as well as normative behaviors. I was amazed by this observation and wondered how this overturning “identity change” could happen?

Following my curiosity to explore the theme of the formation of Canadian identity among members of “ethnic minorities” in Canada, I took the opportunity of my volunteer experience at the Little Mountain Neighborhood House to interview four non-Caucasian Canadians there, with the expectation to obtain a better understanding of what the anthropologist Liisa Malkki argues is an “always mobile and processual identity”[1].

The interviewees are from different ethnic background, including Middle Eastern, Latin American and Asian, and they differ in language ability and length of time spent living in Canada. Among a few questions to assess the extent to which the interviewees integrate into the mainstream Canadian culture and lifestyle — a key benchmark of the development of Canadian identity from my perspective — one question was designed to test whether and, if so, the extent to which they define themselves as Canadian. The various responses from the four interviewees are representational, and reflect Malkki’s statement that “identity is … partly self-construction, partly categorization by others …”[2]

Interviewee #1:

“I love Canada. I like hockey. Canada is now my homeland. I live in Canada, my life is in Canada, my children are here. It’s a very good country. I like the people here. I like Canada for it’s a multicultural country.”[3]

Interviewee #2:

“I live here in Canada, but I am Mexican. I am not Canadian, I don’t look Canadian. My culture is Mexican. When your thoughts, your heart and your culture are Canadian, you can be Canadian. However, even if you have a citizenship, but your brain, your heart, your culture are different than the Canadians’, you can’t be Canadian. People born here, growing up here — it doesn’t matter if their parents are from other countries — they are Canadians. Maybe my daughter can be Canadian. She’s growing up here.”[4]

 Interviewee #3:

“I wouldn’t say I am fully Canadian. There are some values, things that you kind of carry with you. Even though I haven’t really lived in my country of origin, but still, there’s an aspect for which I identify myself. It’s my root. I am more just a citizen of the world.”[5]

Interviewee #4:

“I am Canadian. I am part of the country. I am contributing my effort, my skills and my knowledge to the society. I am definitely Canadian! But I am originally from another country.”[6]

                                         Google image: Canada Mosaic

 “The immigration process impacts the identity of ethnocultural, racial, religious and linguistic minority Canadians… Although the beginning point is well-defined, the end point may vary with each individual and group”, says Professor Evangelia Tastsoglou of Sociology from Saint Mary’s University, “However, settlement is not synonymous with adaptation, integration, civic engagement, and (social) citizenship with its concomitant identity formation; all of these are processes that may go on for life”[7]. The four interviewees with their respective immigration histories and conditions are placed in different phases of immigration process, and their linguistic and ethnocultural adaptability has an impact on the development of their Canadian identity. As sociologist Dick Hebdige once declared, “the roots themselves are in a constant flux and change. The roots don’t stay in one place. They change shape. They change color. And they grow.”[8] Similarly, the interview findings show the four respondents’ willingness to more or less integrate into mainstream Canadian society; their self-identity has also evolved and will continue to evolve in the process of their immigration, however long it takes.

During my time in MPNH’s computer classes, I have been trying to understand what purpose learning basic computer skills serves for the immigrant women who participate.  After spending five weeks with the women in both classes, I have seen that motivations for learning computer skills vary.   Many participants want to be able to communicate with friends and family living outside Vancouver, some feel they need to ‘keep up’ as the world becomes increasingly dependent on ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies), and others want access to information online such as job postings, world news, or bus schedules.  However, I was unclear as to how these women’s individual motivations to gain skills and subsequent uses of computers connected to the theoretical issues of immigration that we had been discussing in class.

I found the connection I was looking for in our reading of Arjun Appadurai who suggests that cyberspace often serves as a “means of providing a sense of aspiration and hope to…migrant populations” (Pyati & Srinivasan, 2007, p 1734).  This statement holds relevance for my observation and conversations with A, an older South Asian woman who attended computer classes.  A told me that she gets depressed and stressed out, and that she was in the class because her doctor suggested that she try something new (presumably to help with her depression).  A said she was glad that she made an effort to come to class, even though it was hard for her and some days she didn’t want to.  She now feels more confident using computers, and particularly proud of her new ability to use email.  A added that she was excited to email her son a copy of her Power Point presentation that she had done as her final class project.  Thus for A, learning to communicate with others online provided her with a sense of confidence in her abilities to learn new things and helped alleviate some of her anxiety and negative feelings (at least temporarily).

Not only do online ‘worlds’ provide a space of hope and aspiration for immigrants, according to Appadurai, “[all] electronic media provide resources for self-imagining as an everyday social project” (1996, p 4).  I witnessed a form of this ‘self-imagining’ in another participant’s presentation of her Power Point project.  In her slideshow, P showed pictures that she had found online of what she called ‘the house of my dreams.’  P explained how she wants to have a fancy house with big windows that look onto a lush garden.  A particular image showed a smiling family in formal attire standing on the front steps of a grand house, with the mother wearing a white ball gown.  P said she imagines this is her family in front of their house.  When each of her daughters turn fifteen, she dreams of them wearing beautiful dresses like the one in the photo for their quinceaneras (a Mexican coming of age ceremony for girls).  P further described how she wanted to have big fancy parties for each quinceanera, and how her girls would look like princesses and how happy that would make her.

As a recent immigrant from Mexico, with little English skills and 4 young children to care for on her partner’s low-income, P’s life in Canada has been challenging.  Through her use of Power Point and web-sourced images P played with ideas that were at once fantasies but also real, powerful imaginings for her future. She used computer media to articulate her desires for financial security, the wellbeing of her family, and for a better life than the one she left behind in Mexico.

Over the past five weeks, my placement at Kitsilano Neighbourhood House has primarily focused on assisting staff in organizing and facilitating the citizenU program. This program is an Action Research Initiative supported by the City of Vancouver that aims to educate youth between the ages of fifteen and twenty on discrimination, racism and bullying in their schools and neighbourhoods. In essence, it endeavours to raise awareness about inclusivity among young residents and citizens, and intends to debunk undesirable stereotypes.

Collaborative art hanging on wall inside GNH lobby

Taking a course at UBC on the topic of immigration has made me reflect a lot on my own personal story of movement through place. I was born on Vancouver Island. While I have travelled plenty, I now call the city of Vancouver my home. Because the only two places I have ever called home are relatively close together, I had never been able to imagine myself in the shoes of an immigrant. I had only ever conceived of migration as permanent movements across vast distances and international borders. As I spend time in the classroom and at my fieldsite at the West End’s Gordon Neighbourhood House (GNH), conversations and observations have brought my attention away from statistics and maps, and into the human experience of migration. As people leave behind the places that they once called home, they must find new ways to belong in a foreign environment.

I arrived in Vancouver in 2009, knowing close to no one in the city. It was exciting, but it was not immediately “home”. Three years later, Vancouver is now more home to me than Vancouver Island, where I spent the first 18 years of my life. In fact, more so than ever before, I feel as though I comfortably belong to a particular community of people: UBC. Although I have never spoken a word to the vast majority of the tens of thousands of its students and staff, UBC feels like my home. When I arrived at my fieldsite at GNH, I saw a newspaper clipping in which one of the mothers who participates at the Weekend Family Place program described the warm community amongst the members who bring their children there every Saturday evening. Alongside my own experience of community at UBC, this made me ask: What makes a community, and how can that community in turn create home? In thinking about this question, an idea by Arjun Appadurai came to mind.

Appadurai identifies “the work of the imagination as a constitutive feature of modern subjectivity” (3). While Appadurai focuses his analysis on the role of electronic mass media in facilitating shared imagination, I began to see his idea of community formation through collective imagination at work in both my fieldsite and in my personal life. Communities are formed when “a group…begins to imagine and feel things together” (8). As I observed the families and their children at GNH eating dinner, playing with toys, and sharing tips on raising young kids, the sense of community grew increasingly apparent. When I asked one of the mothers what it is that makes the group so close, she explains, “I’ve been coming here for years. We eat dinner together and chat every week”. Nowadays, she says she cannot walk through the West End with her two sons without getting waves and greetings from other kids. She does not know who they are, but her children do. “It’s great!” she laughs. Another mother explains to me, “I cannot imagine this program ending. It has become such a big part of our lives!”

Community is fostered in part through shared experiences. It is not restricted to any particular setting, nor is it dependent upon a certain type of relationship. Through imagination and shared feelings, individuals are brought together. As one of my informants from GNH told me, “Home is a place that you feel loved…[and] where you are safe and secure.” As people move from their birthplaces, home takes on a multitude of meanings for different people, and it is fostered through the connections felt at communities like GNH and UBC.

"Weekend Family Place" set-up at GNH

Works Cited:

Appadurai, Arjun

1996            Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, pp.1-22.

Malkki, Liisa

1992            National Geographic: The Rooting of Peoples and the Territorialization of National Identity among Scholars and Refugees. Cultural Anthropology pp.24-44.

The LMNH Vietnamese Dancers treat the Volunteer Connections workshop to a performance at the end of a busy day – photo by Christine Park

At Little Mountain Neighbourhood House I have been working with a group called Volunteer Connections since the start of my placement.  An ambitious, lively leadership group of mostly immigrant women, Volunteer Connections has most recently been making bird’s nest pendants out of wire for a fundraising project.  Each meeting has a chock-full schedule: an open listening circle to start off, discussions of marketing and profit for necklace sales, making the necklaces, and often the meeting ends with some musical performances by the talented members of the group.  Working with this incredibly vibrant and diverse group has been an excellent place to explore the concept of how community building occurs and creates a sense of unity between members of different cultures.  At Volunteer Connections, this is done through art and creative expression.

The members of Volunteer Connections come from all over the world: China, Vietnam, Latin America, Europe and North America.  With so many different cultural backgrounds working together, the main thing Volunteer Connections has done to become a cohesive group is to find some common ground.  According to one of the program facilitators, Jennifer, this has been done through art: “It’s a different language… I mean, we all speak how many different languages?  So many in this room!  But the language of art is something we have in common… it’s something we can do together, and we don’t always have to speak words but we can just be with each other and create.” (Jennifer Wesman, personal communication)  I’ve seen this principle in action when working with the Volunteer Connections group – some of the most tender and inspiring moments have been when members of the group have planned mini performances of art from their own cultures to share with the group.  For example, when one member and her father performed a traditional Argentinean song, very few people in the room could understand the Spanish lyrics.  But everyone was supportive, and the feelings of connection were clearly visible between the performers and the audience.

The social enterprise project, the bird’s nest pendants, is an artistic endeavour unto itself.  What is most remarkable about this particular choice of jewellery design is that it also acts as a very apparent and frequently referenced metaphor for the purpose of the group.  Frequently I hear the group discuss togetherness and how the Volunteer Connections group has been a place for them to be nurtured, much like a nest.  One of the participants told me that without groups like Volunteer Connections she would feel isolated and lonely in Canada, because she wouldn’t have limited opportunities to connect with others.  This sentiment recalls for me what Lauer and Yan point out in their article on Neighbourhood House programs: ““Involvement in associations… allows for the intermingling of people and the creation of ties that bridge social cleavages of class, gender, race, and ethnicity.” (2007: 12)  Because of the open structure LMNH has provided with a workshop like Volunteer Connections, participants are able to connect with each other across language and cultural barriers and bond over the experience of creating art together.

Citations

Lauer, S.R. and Yan, M.C.

2007    Neighbourhood Houses and Social Ties. Centre of Excellence for research on Immigration and Diversity: Working Paper Series.

Wesman, Jennifer

                2012       Personal Communication, at Little Mountain Neighbourhood House June 9

Assumptions have been made, challenges have been met and plans have been altered. As I begin to wrap up my timeline project, I cannot help but reflect on all that I have learned and produced in these mere 6 weeks, and what I hope to leave behind for years to come. In both social work and ethnography, one’s work and image is on the line for others to digest – for good and for bad.

As James Clifford notes on page 7 of Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, “the maker… of ethnographic texts cannot avoid expressive tropes, figures, and allegories that select and impose meaning as they translate it. In this view… all constructed truths are made possible by powerful “lies” of exclusion and rhetoric.” In other words, there is a paradox with the ethnographer. Their objective is not to lie, but they do not necessarily tell the entire truth. An ethnographer must be selective, because it is not possible to capture every aspect of a given study.

Similarly, I have been troubled with how to represent a holistic history of the West End. If I do not mention a particular event or group of people, is it because I do not agree with its message? Or simply do not find it relevant? If an account is not found in these binders, did it not happen?

 Vancouver Public Library Historical Archives

Obviously the Vancouver Archives (both through the City of Vancouver, and the public library) would acknowledge that they exist only through the donations and participation of archivists, journalists and citizens. However, what was deemed important when archives were collected may be inapplicable by today’s standards. Or, a piece of information that was discarded in the past could be an essential piece to understanding the present.

Another crucial point that Clifford makes on page 10 of his introduction, is that ‘“Cultures” do not hold still for their portraits,” indicating that it is very difficult to makes claims that do justice to the past, and that will hold true into the future. The West End as we see it today has a completely different landscape and demographic than 50 years prior, and I would imagine, would be the same case for 50 years from now. To articulate how a space “feels” in the present is difficult enough, let alone describing how the West End “felt” or “will feel”.

With all of these feelings and concerns bellowing up, I have need to remind myself that the most crucial element of this project is to fulfill the need of the Gordon Neighbourhood House, and to make sure that they will be satisfied. After some discussion and debate, we have decided to include the histories that were going to be left out due to their potentiality as “controversial” subjects. While I would consider this a victory for the course of the project, there are inevitably some “truths” that will still be left out.

References:

Clifford, James.

1986   Writing culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkeley. University of California press.