In order to address this question you will need to refer to Sparke’s article, “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” You can easily find this article online. Read the section titled: “Contrapuntal Cartographies” (468 – 470). Write a blog that explains Sparke’s analysis of what Judge McEachern might have meant by this statement: “We’ll call this the map that roared.”

When Chief Justice Allan MacEachern was unfolding the map of Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en territory, he declared: “We’ll call it the map that roared” (Sparke, 468). Sparke initially mentions other interpretations that branch the meaning of MacEachern’s words to “a derisory scripting of the plaintiffs as a ramshackled, anachronistic nation” (468). One notion he suggests that MacEachern refers to is the paper tiger, “in the immediate context of trying to open up a huge paper reproduction of the First Nations’ map” (468). The paper tiger is a Chinese idiom that is similar to the English meaning of ‘how its bark is bigger than its bite’. In this sense, a roaring map rather belittles the position of the Aboriginal peoples and devalues the Aboriginal title to their land. MacEachern is assuming that even from going into the Supreme Court, his side will be victorious because he ignores and calls the efforts of Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en as futile.

As is mentioned here (which also gives a nice overview of the case history), from previous cases, the Supreme Court had acknowledged that there was an Aboriginal title, but was still deciding on whether or not such still exists. This was definitely a major pinpoint in history, where instead of using the traditions of oral storytelling, those who fought for the Aboriginal title used a map that represented the land as they know it. A land that ignored “the orientation systems, the trap lines, the property lines, the electricity lines, the pipelines, the logging roads, the clear-cuts, and all the other accoutrements of Canadian colonialism on native land” (468). This map was a statement for decolonizing as well as a means of uniting the reality of both colonizers and the colonized. The case was bringing these aspects together, so perhaps it was natural for MacEachern to retaliate in that manner.

The act of roaring itself can re-establish the concept of noble savage, or the Vanishing Indian, who MacEachern realizes from trials of erasure, has come back not as a ghost (what the American invaders would have wanted) but as a collective effort of rebuilding and reclaiming what is theirs. However, he fails to understand and ultimately dismisses all claims from Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en because from the way he sees it, Canadian life began at the “establishment of the colony” (470). MacEachern assumes this is a war that, for him, has already been won. His improper, demeaning manner speaks of his ignorance as a colonizer in court, and makes a poor example of the role he takes as Chief Justice.

Grant, who was lead counsel for the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en (he describes Delgamuukw’s legacy) refers to Justice Vickers, who mentions that “courts must undergo their own process of de-colonization.” When MacEachern declares the map as one that roars, he is clearly refusing to adjust his eyes to another perspective. At the same time, MacEachern could be acknowledging the potential power of the map and the possibilities it can initiate, if possessed in the right minds and hands. His comment was not only a sign of disapproval, but a reaction from his own discomfort as it suggested a reality where he felt displaced.

Works Cited

Grant, Peter. “The Anniversary of Delgamuukw v The Queen: Two Legacies.” TheCourt.Ca, Osgoode Hall Law School, 10 Dec. 2007, http://www.thecourt.ca/2007/12/the-anniversary-of-delgamuukw-v-the-queen-two-legacies/.

Hanson, Erin. “Aboriginal Title.” indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca, First Nations and Indigenous Studies, accessed 17 Oct. 2016, http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/land-rights/aboriginal-title.html

Sparke, Matthew. “A Map That Roared And An Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and The Narration Of Nation.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 88.3 (1998): 463-495. Web.

Wabiskaoskenzhio. “The Vanishing Indian.” Wabiskaoskenzhio’s Blog, WordPress.com, 17 Oct. 2016, https://wabiskaoskenzhio.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/the-vanishing-indian/.

“If Europeans were not from the land of the dead, or the sky, alternative explanations which were consistent with indigenous cosmologies quickly developed” (“First Contact,” 43). Robinson gives us one of those alternative explanations in his stories about how Coyote’s twin brother stole the “written document” and when he denied stealing the paper, he was “banished to a distant land across a large body of water” (9). We are going to return to this story, but for now – what is your first response to this story? In context with our course theme of investigating intersections where story and literature meet, what do you make of this stolen piece of paper? This is an open-ended question and you should feel free to explore your first thoughts.

What fascinated me about the story of Coyote and the Paper was how it was introduced in different magnitudes of Robinson telling many versions and twists of other stories as well. Wickwire talked about how Robinson “wanted to show the cultural importance of maintaining a full range of stories” (29). And while there are storytellers, there are those who did not represent their stories well because they filtered a certain theme. Robinson included stories involving contemporary political issues as well, stories that showed that “Harry’s forebears were not strictly ‘mythtellers’ locked in their prehistorical past” (25). The story places the ancestor of the colonizers as the trickster who steals the paper, and of Coyote as the obedient twin. This paper would represent how the ‘evil’ twin’s descendants, “true to their original character” (10), would take advantage of their God-given blessing and law in colonizing and claiming the land as theirs.  

“And its message would be clear to all: that whites were a banished people who colonized this country through fraudulence associated with an assigned form of power and knowledge who had been literally alienated from its original inhabitants” (30). While I can understand the purpose of this story in depicting a different narrative for decolonizing the settlers, the lacking characterization in both ancestors of these opposing races were rather concerning. Black, versus white, good versus evil. There is no gray area, nor this contact zone that represents a place for hope, nor any misunderstood communication. It’s clear that one side was mistreated. Wouldn’t portraying this be a misrepresentation that is equally incorrect as to how settlers assumed this Adam and Eve aspect of the native people? If we were able to forget our own cultural preconceptions before understanding another culture, how much of their stories should we believe, and yet still be suspicious of? Is it a matter of what the story tells, or what the story has also assumed?

From this obvious depiction of two black and white characters, how are we able to move beyond these set perspectives of each other? I find it ironic that it is assumed our natures must oppose one another, and that even the descendants can be seen as failing to set things right, even in the power of law. This depiction makes this assumption about innate nature, and such assumptions can imply irreversible issues.

I’m particularly curious about how art serves as this outlet in expressing and paving a movement for certain paths, and how there may also be drawbacks when it comes to a mutual understanding, a reconciliation of sorts. While art can provoke questions and start movements, “when metaphor invades decolonization, it kills the very possibility of decolonization; it recenters whiteness, it resettles theory, it extends innocence to the settler, it entertains a settler future” (Tuck, 3). While Robinson’s metaphor does not entertain any certain future, are there dangers to character implications, and does this do more hurting than helping the situation at hand? Tuck claims that an “easy adoption of decolonization as a metaphor…is a premature attempt at reconciliation” (9). I wonder how much walking on eggshells needs to be properly done to establish similar goals and an equal perspective, without being misleading of details, assumptions, or biases. I think I can understand how metaphors themselves cannot serve as part of the bigger picture, but can only point to specific points. For instance, Robinson’s story overall, points to the establishment of the colonizers as unfair.

Overall, is it our own nature that manipulates and corrupts law to our own purposes? If there was no existence of the written document or no symbol of law, would both sides have been able to live peacefully, and come to a collective conclusion about how to live together? Hypothetical questions, but I think they are worth wondering about especially when it comes to this intersection of myth and historical storytelling, of reality and imagination intertwined.

Works Cited

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver, Talon Books, 2005.

Taylor, Steve. “The Real Meaning of ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’.” Psychology Today, 26 Aug. 2013, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/out-the-darkness/201308/the-real-meaning-good-and-evil.

TEDx Talks. “Be suspicious of stories | Tyler Cowen | TEDxMidAtlantic.” YouTube, presentation by Cowen Tyler, 8 Nov. 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoEEDKwzNBw.

Tuck, Eve. Yang, K. “Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society.” Decolonization is not a metaphor, Vol. 1, 1 Nov. 2016, 40, Decolonization, http://decolonization.org/index.php/des/article/view/18630/15554.

“Black and White Game Match Chess.” PEXELS, 16 Feb. 2016, https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-and-white-game-match-chess-2902/ .

Read at least 3 students’ blog short stories about ‘home’ and make a list of the common shared assumptions, values and stories that you find. Post this list on your blog with some commentary about what you discovered.

A couple of years ago, I was writing about this feeling of being foreign in your own skin’s country. I didn’t address this issue directly in my story about my home, but it’s still there, like an empty gap. I am aware of it but in a sense it’s a part of my identity that feels replaced, almost, but not to the extent of a forced assimilation. But when I speak English back to a cashier who spoke Chinese, sometimes, I feel a little ashamed.

My image, from Nayyirah Waheed’s poetry book ‘salt.’

Imagine the rest of your family tree, scattered in another place across the ocean. Imagine sending an email to your maternal grandfather, using Google Translate and the audio button as some sort of way to understand what you are writing. English was my second language as a child, but where I am now, I guess I’m just really bad with cultural integration. Enough about my story, though.

Here were two excerpts I enjoyed and was inspired by from reading others’ blogs:

“The concept of cultural values and a geographical home are just things that I have learned to lose now.  I feel that it is something I will develop in the future, after I have learned my life lessons, and settled into a home I will call my own.  For now, I am happy to be roaming.  I cannot relate to those who have had something they’ve known their whole lives – land, lifestyle, and family – and have it taken away from them by a people they have never seen before.  I can only try my best to empathize and understand.  In all honesty, however, I have nothing to explain how I value a home I never had, or a culture that I am learning.” – Jessica Lee.

“Yet, I then start to wonder if my conception of home in this sense is contributing to the displacement of others, to the myth of terra nullius, and to the ongoing colonialism that underlies much of society. I wonder if I can ever truly belong to a place that my ancestors didn’t belong to, and if my own stories contribute to the erasure of the story and home of others.” – Kaylie Higgs.

A few similarities I’ve found in browsing others’ blogs was that the metaphor “Home is where the Heart is” is mentioned a few times. I suppose it describes how a general shared assumption or learned value is that when it comes to the complex concept of our homes, there aren’t any physical boundaries. What makes us different is how we connect to the places that 1) we’ve lived in for quite a while or 2) our cultural identities make such more complex, and may have us challenge our values quite often in terms of where home is. (In my case and a few others, the struggle is similar in which we are unsure how we can compensate; I can live in my parents’ house, speak Chinglish, but I would not feel at home in China). And sometimes we find solace in another person or significant other, and I would say that the idea of a future with them is like its own sort of home.

On that note, I think it transitions well to add this scene as an opening to my next point. When we think about it, memory serves as a constant re-acknowledgment and re-evaluation of who we are now, based on our current experiences, and how we perceive through them. In the 500 Days of Summer cut-scenes, albeit more extreme, it is Tom’s current relations that change his perspective on Summer. She was initially a woman he idealizes to someone he cannot stand because his expectations didn’t fit the reality of things.

Our memory changes a lot depending on our perspective, which also affects how we think of our home. We are constantly transforming and making our mark on our own stories with each milestone we encounter. Consider Robinson’s book title: “Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory.” Even in Robinson’s stories, there were incorporations within all themes that Wickwire found, even those that weren’t recorded (mainly because the recorders weren’t interested in detailing them). “Knowing about large birds that could carry humans, lake creatures that could swallow horses, and grizzly bears that could shelter travelers in distress would show people that the world around them consisted of many different forms and layers of life” (Robinson, 29). Likewise, we are always retelling the narrative of our own identity from discovering future values or from digging in the past. We are always learning, but this learning comes from beginning with a question.

Hall argues that “the very process of identification, through which we project ourselves into our cultural identities, has become more open-ended, variable, and problematic” (277). On a side-note, this last page describes an interesting example of which complicates the politics of cultural identities. Yet, is Canada, as a country that identifies itself as multicultural, serving its people well, and are there any displacements or erasures that have affected some cultures? Have we appreciated culturally diverse customs without our own preconceptions largely disabling us from doing so? In what way can/do we identify as Canadians? Is Canada an open doored home to everyone?

I think about a history bleached and rewritten ‘firmly’ with the universally dominant, ultimate colonized language: English. I think about Coyote meeting the King of England. The ‘Black and White.’ The process of decolonization. Do I despise English? No. I am thankful that I can express myself in words, and that I have others who will listen to what I have to say. I can only say in truth, that I have the intention of relearning my own family’s language, so that I can order confidently in Asian restaurants, for my own good.

Emilang. “500 Days of Summer – I Love the Way She..” Youtube. Youtube, August 7, 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOrfYQPZF6k.

Hall, Stuart et al. “Chapter 1: Introduction: Identity in Question.” The Question of Cultural Identity, Sage Publications, 1996, pp. 274–280.

Higgs, Kaylie. “Is This Home?” Creating Connections, 27 September 2016, https://blogs.ubc.ca/kaylieandautumn2016/2016/09/27/is-this-home/.

Lee, Jessica. “Assignment 2:2 – My Story.” Blog Lee, 28 September 2016, https://blogs.ubc.ca/bloglee/2016/09/28/assignment-22-my-story/.

Lu, Jenny. “Nayyirah’s Immigrant Poem.” 2016. JPEG file.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver, Talon Books, 2005.

I can still remember the layout of my childhood home–a safe, fantasy-like castle for my wandering imagination.

A picture of my childhood dining room.

I have a lot of fond memories about this place, some still actually vivid, as if I could re-visit my old house and re-imagine these stories. Here is a typical story of seven year old me with many cavities: When my father started owning some vending machines, I would sneak into the basement where the goods were stored, and inconspicuously run upstairs with my favorite chocolates as I turned off the light. Here are snippets of other stories: pulling on baby buttercup flowers thinking they are weeds, watching my grandfather make cong you bing (step-by-step picture recipe), waiting for Tuesdays to watch Teen Titans, singing made-up songs to my baby sister, reading Goosebumps at night only to end up sleeping in my parents’ bed, etc.

They say that home is where the heart is. I thought that once that was established in my childhood, it would be my home forever. I remember feeling pretty devastated after I moved from Canada to California. I felt like I stood out as the new girl, in the last year of elementary school, where everyone already knew each other. People commented on how my r’s and w’s sounded the same (and I also apparently had a slight British accent). The whole fourth grade class were my friends, back home, but here I was, in a new environment, where they already memorized the 50 states and knew how to use fractions and decimals. I also remember hating the name ‘California.’ It didn’t sound right on my tongue.

Of course, like all growing pains, I managed to adjust with the move by making new friends. I didn’t think too much of who I was in middle school (Grade 6-8), but for a long while, I was unhappy with a lot of things. Aside from family issues and with my father once again moving far away to work at another job, I felt like I was going through so many changes by myself. The home I knew as a naive kid was gone. Yet I held onto these memories and wrote in consideration of my past selves, where I would have self-mottos like “expect the unexpected (childhood),” and “stay a kid at heart”–inspired from the many considerate acts I had done when I was small. After the friends who were negatively influencing me moved away, I was able to start writing again, and reflect a lot on about who I was and what I felt connected to. A never-failing connection to ‘my home’ is through my writing. I loved writing stories about fairy-tales as a kid (when I was practicing ESL in my diary), and I can never forget how many times I have saved myself through it.

I feel that at times more than once, this post I wrote on my personal blog still means a lot to me. “My heart travels too much. And I have no right to stop that.” A lot of it just encompasses the anticipations I had for the future, and how I learned in high school that you can’t grow in your own comfort zone. Home can be anywhere, the moments you feel that you belong, just like my favorite scene in the French film, Amélie. When I first saw the movie, I saw this introverted character coming to terms with herself, what she resolved to be as a person, and finally reaching for that moment: being free.  

Despite the disappointment of a broken promise (I had my parents promise to visit Ottawa to see my friends again, which never happened), and the rebellious stages I had from denying parts of my identity (choosing French over Chinese, and the general aspect of pretending to be someone else–kids, I don’t recommend doing this ever), I still chose to write about the creative warmth of a multicultural environment in one of my French immersion classes as a kid, on one of my college application essays. And, I still ended up choosing Canada, over America.

Throughout the years, my values of home have evolved. Home is not the place I walked back to as a kid. Home is wherever I want it to be, however I make it. Home to me is ultimately being authentic and open to all my hopes and fears in the moment, yet still going in for the ‘kill’. Home is a constant re-acquaintance with who I am: like watching my toddler videos where I lived with my grandparents in China for the first time, a summer ago. It is an adventure I am willing to seek, a discovery of future truths.

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” – Kurt Vonnegut.

Works Cited

Lu, Jenny. “Kitchen.” 2008. JPEG file.

Lu, Jenny. “Thick-skinned Chameleon.” Tumblr. Web, Dec. 13, 2013, Sept. 28, 2016, http://pulledheartstring.tumblr.com/post/69862628960/with-an-ever-looming-finals-week-that-sporadically.

Mika. “Green Onion Pancake (Chinese Fried Scallion Pancakes a.k.a. Cong You Bing).” The 350 Degree Oven, March 4, 2013, http://www.the350degreeoven.com/2013/03/chinese-taiwanese/green-onion-pancake-chinese-fried-scallion-pancakes-a-k-a-cong-you-bing/.

Movieclips. “Amélie (2/12) Movie Clip – Helping a Blind Man (2001) HD.” YouTube. YouTube, Oct. 1, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wuntz3KDIAk.