As examined in my Arts Studies class, mapping the idea of space and place goes hand in hand with narratives. In Diamond Grill by Fred Wah, we are able to visually assess the structure of the Cafe itself physically and further infer meanings such as the swinging doors representing the the hyphen between Fed Wah’s origin that is Chinese-Canadian. So then, what does this tell us about our relationship between people and mapping of places?

After the discussion regarding the “meaning making process” of a narrative and place, I immediately thought of the Park51 controversy that occurred a few years back. It was a controversy regarding the movement to building a mosque 2 blocks north of the site of the 911 World Trade Center attack or commonly referred to as, “Ground Zero”. There was a strong opposition against the movement. It went as far to a point that President Obama publicly supported the rights for the building to be established. Opposition claimed that a significant muslim religious structure should not be instituted on a site where Islamic extremists had previously terrorised. The debate is centered around this intangible meaning of what Ground Zero means to people, whether they be American or a Muslim or both. What I want to point out here is the fact that humans are known to subjectively visualize and make tangible meanings of place and their significance. In this case, for the opposition of the movement after 911, Ground Zero became an almost “Islam-free” zone because of the terrorists close association with Islamic extremist views. As discussed in my human geography class, it is a significant example of “space and place”.

Now going back to the relationship between narratives and place and how they facilitate one another. It seems as though a common characteristic and a repeating pattern in narratives is the idea of exploring personal and collective identity. In order to examine these issues, maps are tools of “mapping out” one’s relationship with the place and people in more than one way. One map, for example, is the family map. A family map aids the individual assess their relationship not only as say, “father-son” but by looking into people associated around the father and son, we are able to see who has a significant influence on another. As I mentioned above, the ability for us humans to naturally infer meaning of places on maps come into play. Thus, it is important to note that this process of meaning making is a form of, a lack of a better term, a quest of justification of one’s identity. He/she is able to make meaning out of a large pool of information spread out in one map. Because of this vast number of visualized information, the connections he/she is able to draw from this map is a unique way of looking at the map.

But is it necessarily bad to be subjective? I do not think so. In this age where social media such as Facebook helps us define ourselves for us, these processes of mapping out and visualizing is an important device in trying to figure out one’s identity personally as well as a group. In other words, we should not be fed the idea of who we are, we should be able to explore them on our own. As individual, we should voluntarily infer our way of seeing ourselves and cultivate our idiosyncratic narrative.