2] In this lesson I say that it should be clear that the discourse on nationalism is also about ethnicity and ideologies of “race.” If you trace the historical overview of nationalism in Canada in the CanLit guide, you will find many examples of state legislation and policies that excluded and discriminated against certain peoples based on ideas about racial inferiority and capacities to assimilate. – and in turn, state legislation and policies that worked to try to rectify early policies of exclusion and racial discrimination. As the guide points out, the nation is an imagined community, whereas the state is a “governed group of people.” For this blog assignment, I would like you to research and summarize one of the state or governing activities, such as The Royal Proclamation 1763, the Indian Act 1876, Immigration Act 1910, or the Multiculturalism Act 1989 – you choose the legislation or policy or commission you find most interesting. Write a blog about your findings and in your conclusion comment on whether or not your findings support Coleman’s argument about the project of white civility.

The Immigration Act of 1910 was an act that the Canadian government established to control the intake of immigrants that were allowed to enter Canada. This act reinforced and expanded upon The Immigration Act of 1906. If we were to go a little off topic to understand the comparison of The Immigration Act of 1910 and The Immigration Act of 1906, we could compare it to our modern day Education Act, which the BC Liberals found to please society by taking an act that was rebelled against when released, and fine tuning and changing the words of their document, but not the meaning. We can compare a similar standpoint of The Immigration Acts, because the Canadian government did not change the meaning of their actions to cater to society, they took four years and reinforced more “white man power”.

Although the new act did allow for immigrants to obtain “permanent resident status” if they have been a residing within Canada for more than three years, the act was still discriminatory. The immigration board was given the authority to pick and choose whom they thought were fit for residency and not allow any person who resembled negative characteristics such as pimping or prostitution. To add to the negative side of The Immigration Act of 1910, Asian immigrants needed to have a specific amount of money in their possession before they were allowed to enter the country, 200 dollars to be exact. This was necessary before they could receive permanent entry, or even be considered.

Not only did The Immigration Act discriminate based on equity, it gave Orders in Council the ability to turn away immigrants who did not fit the mold that they were looking for. By mold, I’m referring to the clean looking race that looks presentable, has money, and will not harm there environment of there image. The overall act was made by the typical “white man”, who wanted to make a profit out of people moving to Canada, yet still maintain an image of high-status and “peace”.

I believe The Immigration Act of 1910 does follow the project of white civility because The Immigration Act of 1910 still encompasses an ideal image of what the nation of Canada should look like. The Act attempted to create multiculturalism in a reverse manor by hand picking that could or couldn’t enter the country. The Immigration Act of 1910 falls short of any expectations I had for Canada. While studying and reading up on the act, I found myself furious at former Canada leaders, and even more furious and our Canada government now than ever before (I just did a project on the recent teacher’s strike). I know the comparison is a little off, however I think it shows a true example about how people in power are not at eye level of what is current in society and how the need for an ideal image and reflect horribly on people in power.

-Jessica

Works Cited

Government of Canada. Immigration & Citizenship. 2015. Web. 24 Feb 2015.

“Immigration Act, 1910″. Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. Canada. Government of Canada. 1910. Web. 26 Feb. 2015.

Sánchez-Alonso, Blanca. Making sense of immigration policy. The Economic history review. 2013. Web. 24 Feb 2015.

1] In his article, “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial,” King discusses Robinson’s collection of stories. King explains that while the stories are written in English, “the patterns, metaphors, structures as well as the themes and characters come primarily from oral literature.” More than this, Robinson, he says “develops what we might want to call an oral syntax that defeats reader’s efforts to read the stories silently to themselves, a syntax that encourages readers to read aloud” and in so doing, “recreating at once the storyteller and the performance” (186). Read “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England”, in Living by Stories. Read it silently, read it out loud, read it to a friend, and have a friend read it to you. See if you can discover how this oral syntax works to shape meaning for the story by shaping your reading and listening of the story. Write a blog about this reading/listening experience that provides references to the story.

Let me tell you, after reading and rereading “Coyote Makes A Deal with King of England” my mind was blown. I was significantly surprised how I didn’t take note of the way the story was written the first time around when I was skimming the story. After noticing that there was a blog question about Robinson’s story, I had a closer look at the story and I was significantly surprised how much the oral syntax made a difference in the way I interpreted the story. A few questions came to mind while I was doing a close reading. Firstly, who is telling us this story? Is it a child? Is it someone who is learning English as a second language? Secondly, why are there so many spelling mistakes in a professionally published book? Lastly, why is the story formatted the way it is?

At first, when I read the story aloud, I found myself going back to a line I thought I skipped because the line that followed, didn’t make sense. I found myself constantly rereading and correcting what I had said before to make the story make sense. However, when I read the story allowed to myself, I didn’t correct myself as much as I did when I was just reading the story, in my head, to myself. The oral syntax of the story seemed to provoke my thought process when I was reading the story aloud. So as an experiment, I tried to reread the story to myself, quietly without speaking aloud to myself. It didn’t work. I was so inclined to speak out loud when something didn’t read right in my head, that my voice projected itself without me even thinking I wanted to speak aloud. It was as if I trying to keep quiet but something in the story wasn’t letting me.

I think Robinson was clever while writing this because the whole story plays with oral syntax. It is a story that needs to be read aloud and makes sense read aloud. When read aloud, the grammar errors, spelling mistakes, and the tone are all corrected, and make sense in the way that it’s told. Regardless if we read aloud a line such as “And he eat right there”(Robinson 64), it makes sense when said aloud. Grammatically our minds are telling us this is wrong because of what we had learned in school, but our voice as storytellers is telling us that we are correct.

My mom read the story aloud to me and she shook her head a few times and some of the sentences, but they still made sense. However, I was confused as to who the speaker was supposed to be. At first, I thought it was a child telling a story they had heard from one of their parents but then it made sense that this was someone who was a non-native speaker of the English language. That’s the way I read it because of the grammatical issues within the story. However, are these grammatical issues strategically placed for us to recognize the power of oral syntax?

I had a few thoughts regarding how the story was interpreted whether it was read to yourself by yourself aloud or to yourself by someone else aloud. What was more powerful? Were they both interpreted the same? The power of story telling, whether it is perfectly prepared, or put together with simple academic mistakes, somehow it all seems to make perfect sense.

Here’s a really cool TED Talk I found regarding how stories are told and the power of just one story. If you have time, it’s really worth it.

-Jessica

Works Cited
“Chimamanda: The Danger of a Simple Story”. Youtube. 2010. Web. 11 Feb 2015.

McDonnell Harris, Mary. Oral and Written Syntax Attainment of Second Graders. National Council of Teachers of English. 1997. Web. 11 Feb 2015.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005. Print.

Questions 1)
So, why does King create dichotomies for us to examine these two creation stories? Why does he emphasize the believability of one story over the other — as he says, he purposefully tells us the “Genesis” story with an authoritative voice, and “The Earth Diver” story with a storyteller’s voice. Why does King give us this analysis that depends on pairing up oppositions into a tidy row of dichotomies? What is he trying to show us?

As a reader and a listener we have two choices, first we have the choice to read compliantly by believing in what the author or the speaker is telling us. Secondly, we as a reader and a listener have the right to refute what is being told to us and disagree with it’s content entirely. Luckily, we have a choice as to what we will and want to believe from a storyteller or an author. We can agree with King’s narrative story ‘The Earth Diver”, about how the world came to be through the process of narration. This version, I believe would target very open minded people who are willing to listen to a story in it’s entirely and perhaps have certain questions answered or have the willingness to accept a story that doesn’t essentially follow a hierarchical pattern. On the other hand, we can believe in King’s version of creation through the “Genesis”, which tells us how the world was created and does not leave room for question. King’s two versions of how the world came to be were created to target two different types of people, the followers, who like some sort of higher power and follow hierarchies. The second type, are those who follow based on creative stories. These types of people have a historical tie to some sort of idea of a religious regime, but also have the ability to take in “out of the ordinary ideas” and give them a chance. I may be going out on a large limb here by stating that these two stories only target two types of people, however I promise I will explain.

King is trying to show us that we can either think two ways as a human being within the world. One, we can think in the box, being told how things work and why they work because that makes the most sense to us. Or, we can get creative and step outside of the standard norms that society has created and think openly for ourselves.

The “Genesis” story follows biblical examples. King states that he “tried to maintain a sense of rhetorical distance and decorum while organizing the story for a knowledgeable gathering”(King 22). I believe he told this story to cater to religious backgrounds because like mentioned, many of world creation stories follow the Adam and Eve phenomenon and incorporate “the tree of knowledge of good and evil”(21). This story is told so that the knowledge is out there that many do believe in a hierarchy of God and his followers. The story can’t be ignored, it’s out there and many of us have heard it. I would be confident betting that more people have heard the “Genesis” story compared to “The Earth Digger” because it is standard, to the point and considered normal within many religions.

By telling readers and listeners “The Earth Digger” story, we are able to gain a different perspective in an engaging way by taking out any sense of leadership. Instead of a hierarchy, the native story deals with the issue of “balance”(24) between all, not just one man in charge of the world. This story is completely amazing. It’s creative and told in a really well thought out way. I believe that King’s message here was not to contradict how the world came to be, based on “Genesis”, but to get readers and listeners to second guess themselves and the way they want to see the world. Just because we as children, or adults, were told that the world was created one certain way does not mean that we need to adapt our way of thinking to believe the story we were once told. We are allowed to have our own opinions and make our own assumptions about the world based on the way we want to see it.

By allowing us to hear two different stories of creation, King gives us options. He doesn’t hide the version of “Genesis” but he does not promote it. He tells it to the point, short and brief and in the tone of an authoritarian. However, “The Earth Digger” is told in an engaging way. This may be because King already knows that most of the readers and listeners understand the “Genesis” story already and he wants to give the native story equal opportunity.

I was raised Christian growing up and although I do not practice as much as I once did, I am proud of what I believe in and what I was taught. However, I also have an open mind and I do not necessarily believe in one way of how the world was created, which I know contradicts my beliefs as well as King’s statement “if we believe one story to be sacred, we must see the other as secular”(25). To me, the outcomes of “The Earth Digger” story are way more powerful because of the way King told it. If is goal was to get me to see a different perspective, he accomplished his goal. The meaning behind Charm is equality and that is something that I am proud to believe in and want to retell.
Did anyone else feel the same reading the two stories from an already somewhat religious background? Did anyone one else have a hard time believing in just one of the versions?

-Jessica

Works Cited

Kelman, Herbert C. “The Processes of Opinion Change”. Public Opinion Quarterly. 1961. Web. 4 Feb 2015. http://scholar.harvard.edu/hckelman/files/ProcessesofOpinion.pdf

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print.

“Stories From The Bible: The Creation”. Youtube. Web. 4 Feb 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLoO3kI_SMg

The blogs about what each of us classify as home are so unique and so individualistic. Although some of us have the same characteristics that define home, they are described in our own unique ways, giving each of our definitions of the word “home” a personal attachment. I found that each time I read someone’s blog a new thought of what home meant to me crowded my head and I felt as if I wanted to go and add to my blog. Something about reading other peoples writing and thoughts triggers my own and helps define some of the things I wanted to say, however I just couldn’t put it into writing.

I found that a lot of the blogs included external and internal characteristics of what home means to each person. I also described my definition of home on the outside as well as intrinsically, so it was nice to compare my thoughts with others as well. Here are some of my findings:

External Characteristics:
• The structure of the house. This includes color, size and anything unique or memorable about the house.
• The location, the neighborhood and the relevance to other close by locations or familiar areas such as Kerrisdale, Richmond, or Downtown Vancouver.
• Any child-like attributes to the location of the house, such as a monkey tree in the front yard, a swing set across the street, a trampoline out back, a pool, or the perfect climbing tree near by.
• The type of people within the neighborhood and their houses.
• Comparing old homes new to home characteristics, pointing out common desires throughout each different house and each different moving event.

The internal characteristics I found to be the most important because a lot of my classmates discussed “making a house a home” based on characteristics that they found to be intrinsic. These characteristics were much more personal to each blogger and while reading, I could sense a strong personal connection to each different characteristic my classmates were writing about. The common defining factor of home was the presence of family. This seemed to be an overall strong point of focus within the blogs, which I also found to be most important within my own description of home.

Internal Characteristics:
• The presence of family, regardless of the location.
• Friends near or far that have created memories with each individual person in that specific location.
• A sense of familiarity with the people around each individual.
• Common faces.
• Comfort and happiness.
• An overall sense of belonging.

Although a lot of us have different definitions of our version of home, from where we grew up, to how many times we’ve moved, and which family members we have lived with, we all seem to have something in common. We all are passionate about our homes and the people that have made our “house a home”. We all seem to be really lucky to have a place we call home.

Happy Monday!

-Jessica

Works Cited

Carter, Susie.”Home Is Wherever I’m With You”. I’m all about those books. UBC Blogs. Web. 2 Feb 2015.

Liu, Jeffery.”Cause I’m Gonna Make This Place My Home”. Canadian Eh? UBC Blogs. Web. 2 Feb 2015.