Home, according to Chamberlin, is not a physical place but a conceptual one. As Professor Patterson notes in the lecture, home is imaginary while land is real. This means that where one lives is not necessarily one’s home. To illustrate this point, Chamberlin discusses the way Indigenous peoples were displaced from their land, thus complicating the notion of home because their ‘home’ no longer belongs to them. Home, as a result, is something of the imagination for many. People can be homeless in their homeland or call a place home that isn’t theirs. He argues that home “may be the place we came from, five or fifty or five hundred years ago, or the place we are going to when our time is done” (Chamberlin 87). To apply these complicated ideas to figuring out Canada, the place we call home, is to uncover various histories of those Indigenous peoples who were and are still being displaced, the immigrants of color who were brought in from around the world for cheap labour, and the slaves who were dislocated from their homelands to build the land. Chamberlin argues that there are similarities across various examples of groups of people being displaced or dislocated from land whether that be through colonialism, anti-semitism, or slavery. While it is highly problematic to assume these experiences are the same, especially considering the way they are deeply racialized and continue to have very different impacts on the lives of people, Chamberlin wants to point out that they all have in common the “history of dismissing a different belief or different behaviour as unbelief or misbehaviour, and of discrediting those who believe or behave differently as infidels or savages” (78). 

Chamberlin offers “the sad fact” of the “history of settlement around the word” so that we recognize these histories when figuring out what home means (78). For example, to question and critique colonial myths such as the ‘discovery’ of Canada by settlers that erase Indigenous history. This myth not only relies on the notion that the land of Canada was empty but represents Indigenous peoples as savages who either needed to disappear or assimilate. Today, the nation asks that we be patriotic and celebrate national holidays such as Canada Day and thanksgiving. These holidays, however, perpetuate colonial myths that celebrate Canada rather than expose the racial and cultural violence that the nation is built on. This article, for example, critiques Canada day and the way it excludes Indigenous peoples and their history. 

A few years ago I visited Israel for a few weeks. I traveled with a group of other Jewish young adults. Throughout this trip, we often learned about the horrors of the Holocaust and how Israel was established as a safe space for Jewish people after the war. We were told that Israel is our home, the land our ancestors dreamed we would eventually walk on. What we did not talk about were the horrific and violent ways in which Israel displaces Palestinians in order to maintain Israel as a Zionist nation. While I cannot fully go into the Israel Palestine conflict, it reflects the complicated ways in which a nation tries to sell itself as ‘home’ to particular communities while displacing the original inhabitants and erasing history. If you’re interested in learning more about Israel, check out this video that discusses how the declaration of Israel as a Jewish homeland to some is a victory, while to most is considered cruel.

With all of this said, the most important thing I have learned from Chamberlin is to be extremely critical of what Canada as a home means and to recognize the various processes of colonialism, slavery, and imperialism that have created the nation today.

Works Cited

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? Vintage Canada, 2004.

Neylan, Susan. “Canada’s Dark Side: Indigenous Peoples and Canadian Heritage.” Origins, June 2018, origins.osu.edu/article/canada-s-dark-side-indigenous-peoples-and-canada-s-150th-celebration.

“‘This Is Our Country. This Is Our Language’: Controversial Law Deems Israel Homeland of the Jewish People.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 19 July 2018, www.pbs.org/newshour/show/this-is-our-country-this-is-our-language-controversial-law-deems-israel-homeland-of-the-jewish-people.