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 is a restrictive immigration legislation that gave the Government of Canada a great deal of power when dealing with Canadian Immigrants. The Act places significant restrictions on a number of citizens, creating artificial boundaries for who is and is not considered worthy of entry into Canada. The Act creates terms for non-citizens, calling them “aliens,” a term we hear often in reference to what some consider Illegal Immigrants (a term many people, including myself, are not comfortable with. See: no one is illegal).

The Act says that an “‘alien’ means a person who is not a British subject”. It goes on to explain the “definition” of a Canadian citizen.

Canadian Citizen means:

1. A person born in Canada who has not become an alien
2. A British subject who has Canadian domicile; or
3. A person naturalized under the laws of Canada who has not subsequently become an alien or lost Canadian domicile

The Act specifies “prohibited classes,” including, “idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons, and persons believed to be insane within five previous years,” or otherwise people who are “mentally defective” (4). It also specifies that people with diseases, those who are “dumb, blind, or otherwise physically defective,” prostitutes, beggars, and “charity immigrants,” meaning those who are able to land in Canada through money donated by a charitable organization, are also prohibited from immigrating (2). As Kevin and Charmaine explain, Immigrants from Asiatic countries, particularly Chinese Immigrants, were governed under even stricter rules than the Act entails, building larger boundaries around who can enter the country.

This Act also states that “the Governer Council may, at any time, order any such persons found by a Board of Inquiry or examining officer to belong to any of the undesirable classes… to leave Canada within a specified period” (16). This is unfortunately not an obsolete law; on April 1st, 2015, Canada saw massive deportations of low-waged migrant workers in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) and the Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP).

The Immigration Act allows the Government of Canada to practice complete control over any person entering the country. Instead of treating people like humans, they are treated as second class citizens, arbitrarily classified by an outdated system.

The Immigration Act of 1910

The jargon used in the Immigration Act on its own is incredibly exclusionary and demonstrates Coleman’s argument about the project of white civility. Coleman says that “beginning with colonials and early nation-builders, there has been a ‘literary endeavor’ to ‘formulate and elaborate a specific form of [Canadian] whiteness based on the British model of civility” (Coleman in Patterson). He goes on to say that we see this “white civility” in “regularly repeated literary personifications for the Canadian Nation” which have “mediated and gradually reified the privileged, normative status of British Whiteness in English Canada”.

This “fictive ethnicity” that Coleman refers to is constantly referenced in the Immigration Act, starting with the definition of an “alien” as someone who is not a British subject. This of course gives Canada a white, civil identity. Instead of honouring the First Nations of Canada, the history is erased and replaced with an image of, as Coleman states, white civility.

The Act also states that a person is a Canadian citizen if they are “naturalized under the laws of Canada.” The CanLit guide tells us that “a nation is a group of people who regard themselves as sharing the same culture.” What the Act is saying then is that in order to become a part of the Canadian nation, one must assimilate with the constructed culture of Canada — that is, a culture of white civility.

As Coleman states, “Canadians need to be reminded of the brutal histories that our fictive ethnicity would disavow” (9). Legislation like the Immigration Act is a tacit demonstration of the Canadian government’s attempt to rewrite its history of violent colonialism. However, as we know, colonialism still continues today. It isn’t history yet.

Works Cited:

CanLit Guides. “Reading and Writing in Canada, A Classroom Guide to Nationalism.” Canadian Literature. Web. April 4^th 2013.

“Immigration Act of 1910.”Pier21.ca, Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier21, N.d. Web. 26 June 2015.

Li, Charmaine. “Race, Nationalism, and a Forgotten Story” Canadian Yarns and Storytelling Threads. 26 June 2015. Web. 26 June 2015.

“No One Is Illegal – Vancouver.” No One Is Illegal Vancouver RSS., N.d. Web. 26 June 2015.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 3:1.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres. University of British Columbia Blogs, 2015. Web. 26 June 2015.

Sun, Kevin. “Politely Taxing the Chinese?” Many Homes, One Earth. 26 June 2015. Web. 26 June 2015.

Syed, Fatima. “Temporary foreign workers face deportation come April 1.” Rabble.ca, 18 Mar. 2015. Web. 26 June 2015.

“To raise the question of ‘authenticity’ is to challenge not only the narrative but also the ‘truth’ behind Salish ways of knowing” (Carlson 59). Explain why this is so according to Carlson, and explain why it is important to recognize this point.

I find that there is a tendency in powerful people (or people with perceived power) to regard facts or stories that diminish or challenge their power as inauthentic. These same people tend to disregard and even discredit stories or cultures that they don’t understand or that they can’t relate to because it’s simpler than working with them or getting to know them (see: Donald Trump’s presidential announcement speech). Carlson, in “Orality about Literacy,” refers to this tendency, saying that “non-Natives have generally not been overly concerned with the historical legitimacy of Aboriginal legends and myths… because they assume them to be fiction” (56). While authenticity is not so much implicit as it is created, the inclination to disregard an entire culture’s stories is not only disrespectful but unwise. As we know, there is a lot to be learned in Indigenous storytelling. It is a powerful, meaningful aspect of Indigenous culture and to question its authenticity does more than just overlook the meaning of the story itself, it also calls into question, as Carlson states, “the ‘truth’ behind Salish ways of knowing”.

Authenticity is a tricky word, especially in the context of what we’ve been reading and discussing so far this term. What really can be deemed authentic? And who is the rightful judge of what is and is not authentic? In a world full of prosthetics — computers that pass as humans, humans aided by technology, technology advancing more rapidly than we could’ve ever imagined — where do we draw the line between what’s genuine and what is created? When we’re talking about stories, what do we define as truth? Is there even such a thing is a universal truth? McLuhan (a controversial scholar to bring into this conversation), says that “language is a metaphor in the sense that it not only stores but translates experience from one mode to another” (5). If we experience things differently, then the language we use to describe the experience must vary too. Where do you find authenticity?

Instead of focusing on the validity of products or stories, the focus is better placed upon the individual. Because credibility is a perceived truth that can easily be disputed, it is more reputable than searching for truth in stories. It’s easy to see the power of credibility in today’s media. For example, journalists like Brian Williams, whose careers are based on storytelling can lose everything by compromising their credibility. Chamberlin says “a story’s subject neither guarantees nor compromises its credibility,” meaning the onus lies not in the bones of a story but instead on the storyteller and their own reputation.

This is why calling into question the authenticity of the Salish peoples’ stories is damaging. Carlson points out the importance of accurate storytelling in Salish culture, saying that “Salish historians have long been sensitive to the need to ‘get the story right’ even if the consequences of bad history are conceived differently”. He says that “for the Salish historian, bad history is considered to have potentially tragic consequences to both the teller and the listening audience” (58). Clearly, the significance of accurate storytelling in Salish history is not only to represent factual events but also to avoid damaging consequences. We can see that calling into question the accuracy of Salish narratives also means calling into question the legitimacy of their history, the validity of their beliefs, and the truth in their culture.

Works Cited:

Carlson, Keith Thor. “Orality and Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History.” Orality & Literacy: Reflectins Across Disciplines. 43-72. Web.

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?: Reimagining Home and Sacred Space. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim, 2004. Kindle ebook.

Donald Trump’s Best Lines During His 2016 Speech. Perf. Donald Trump.YouTube. CNN, 16 June 2015. Web. 19 June 2015.

McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto: U of Toronto, 1962. Print.

Steel, Emily, and Ravi Somaiya. “Brian Williams Suspended From NBC for 6 Months Without Pay.” New York Times. N.p., 10 Feb. 2015. Web. 19 June 2015.

1. First stories tell us how the world was created. In The Truth about Stories, King tells us two creation stories; one about how Charm falls from the sky pregnant with twins and creates the world out of a bit of mud with the help of all the water animals, and another about God creating heaven and earth with his words, and then Adam and Eve and the Garden. King provides us with a neat analysis of how each story reflects a distinct worldview. “The Earth Diver” story reflects a world created through collaboration, the “Genesis” story reflects a world created through a single will and an imposed hierarchical order of things: God, man, animals, plants. The differences all seem to come down to co-operation or competition — a nice clean-cut satisfying dichotomy. However, a choice must be made: you can only believe ONE of the stories is the true story of creation – right? That’s the thing about creation stories; only one can be sacred and the others are just stories. Strangely, this analysis reflects the kind of binary thinking that Chamberlin, and so many others, including King himself, would caution us to stop and examine. 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 this week’s prompt states, King offers us two distinct, dichotomous styles of storytelling in his retellings of “The Earth Diver” and the Genesis story. King’s retelling of “The Earth Diver” is exciting, giving the story life and making it captivating for readers. His retelling of the Genesis story is a stark contrast to The Earth Diver, told simply and matter-of-factly with few adjectives and very little attention to detail. While the Earth Diver felt like a story, the creation story felt like a dull occurrence that happened a long long time ago. He didn’t even try to make us care about it.

The question, of course, is why did he tell the stories this way? The easy answer is that the creation story is a well known one, while Charm’s narrative is unique. Putting effort into retelling a story we already know is boring and tedious. But Charm’s story is a new one, and that’s what makes it interesting. So, because nearly everyone knows the creation story, it didn’t need to be intricate. On the other hand, Charm’s story, because of its novelty and uniqueness, needed to be told. 

I feel that ultimately King is telling the stories in distinct ways to emphasize the way that a story’s believability is based on the way that it’s told. Chamberlain emphasizes the fact that credibility comes from storytelling, saying that “a story’s subject neither guarantees nor compromises its credibility”. Instead, credibility lies in the storyteller, the way the story is told, and the way the listener chooses to interpret it. I believe that this is what King is trying to demonstrate in the drastically different tellings of the two stories. If we’re being pragmatic, we know that neither story is particularly believable. But the way that King chooses to tell the stories allows us to suspend our disbelief, even if just for a moment. Some readers may find that King’s retelling of the creation story in such a mechanic, to-the-point kind of way makes it sound more believable than the highly stylized retelling of Charm’s story. On the other hand, some readers may find Charm’s story to be more believable because the power lies in a tangible hand rather than the hand of an unseen, omnipotent God. Of course, as we discussed in a previous lesson, history plays a huge part in a story’s believability. Religious folks may find Charm’s story entirely unbelievable because the creation story is so engrained in their faith, while agnostic folks may weigh the two equally. To some, the stories don’t matter. To others, the story is the ground on which their world has grown.

As always, it is open to interpretation.

Works cited:

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?: Reimagining Home and Sacred Space. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim, 2004. Kindle ebook.

King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 2005. Kindle ebook.

This week, we opened up about home, a topic that seems straightforward but that evidently carries a lot of weight for many of us. A common insight that was discussed had to do with the dynamic nature of the term “home,” that it can shift shapes to mean different things and is constantly in flux. In the case of Hava Rosenberg, Angela Olivares, and

Hava Rosenberg, in Home is Where I Want to Be, But I Guess I’m Already There, says that “home is less of a physical space than it is a collection of fragments and memories that assemble themselves into a cohesive whole”. This idea that home isn’t any one physical space or a single person, but instead a collection of meaningful, familiar things really resonates with me. Myself and evidently many others agree with Hava in that home isn’t found in a house. Home can be found in memories, in little things that stir something up in you. Hava mentions things like scent, driving down familiar roads, and listening to music from your childhood as being the types of memories that evoke a sense of home. I think that’s really beautiful.

Angela Olivares talks about home being characterized by her entire family gathering for Christmas in the Philippines. She mentions that since moving to Canada and no longer gathering with her big family during the holidays, home isn’t here. She says, “this is where we live, not what we can really call our home.” I found this to be particularly touching, as my mom, who has lived in Canada since I was born, still says she’s “going home” when referring to going on a trip to the Philippines, a place where we no longer have many familial ties. In the same way as Hava’s story, home isn’t a house for Angela. Instead, it’s a vivid memory.

In Home. Yes, We Are Home, Jamie King alludes to home being associated with memories as well. Her emotional recounting of the death of her theatre company’s Technical Director, the vivid descriptions of the events after his death, the sense of community and the retelling of stories — these are all memories that are clearly very close to her heart. She says that “there is a sense of shared experience that creates a space rather than a permanence of location,” and that “there is a sense of home in their hellos”, evoking this sense that home is found in memory.

Home is a complicated thing. Home can mean where you’re from, where you’re going, or who you are. It can be comfort or it can be mourning. Home is always something we carry with us, whether the weight is heavy or light. It lives in our memories.

Works Cited:

King, Jamie. “Home. Yes, We Are Home.” Engl 470A: Oh Canada. 5 June 2015. Web. 8 June 2015.

Olivares, Angela. “Home, Ya Filthy Animals.” Engl 470. UBC Blogs. 6 June 2015. Web. 8 June 2015.

Rosenberg, Hava. “Home is Where I Want to Be, But I Guess I’m Already There.” O Canada? UBC Blogs. 4 June 2015. Web. 8 June 2015.

My earliest memory of home was in 1998. We lived in a modest house in Coquitlam then, two stories, three bedrooms, with different coloured carpet in every room. The backyard was small and overgrown, and on the days that we weren’t busy building cities with lego or running around the block, my brother and I would sit in the grass and watch our neighbour’s sattelite dish swivel slowly back and forth. I was 5 then, too young to really understand the difference between home and not-home, but I know I felt a soreness when I stayed overnight at my aunt’s house, this longing for something that I didn’t understand. I’d cry (as kids do) for my mother. But really, what I was crying for was home.

A year later, my parents split up and we moved from the house I called home. My grandma, my mom, my brother and I moved into an apartment on the other side of Coquitlam. Then two years after that, we moved into a townhouse just down the street from the apartment. Fast forward five years, and we moved into a new house, this time with my Stepdad, a place I felt was home for many years. After that, home was constantly changing for me: a dorm room, a suite with roommates, a subleased studio apartment. Now, home is a comfortable apartment in Vancouver, a place I’ve shared with my partner for almost two years.

Our little home.

After moving as many times as I have, I realize that home was never the house I lived in. I never felt I had enough time to really lay down roots in any specific place. Instead, home has to do with history. The places I feel at home are the places I’ve grown into (neighbourhoods, cities, libraries and coffee shops), the people I’ve grown with. Or, more accurately, home is where I’ve let myself grow. Home is about the rituals I perform, the person I live with, the feeling I get when I walk in the door. Home is comfort, safety, and the knowledge that the place that I am, here and now, is a place where I can be honest and unedited without fear of judgment or scrutiny.

It’s been a challenge letting myself get attached to any one place or person, so really accepting anywhere or anyone as an emblem of “home” is monumental for me. I think this is common with children from less-than-perfect homes. My parents split up when I was very young and then my dad moved to Thailand and disappeared for most of my life. This sounds like a sad thing but really it’s a whatever thing. I was young when it happened and quickly got over it. However, it did make me more practical (read as: hardheaded) when it comes to relationships. As a rule, I tend to assume the worst out of every scenario before I prove myself wrong. So many times I’ve pushed against the idea of making any place or person home because I know of the impermanence and unreliability of these things, but often the idea finds its way into my head. While I always felt like this was a good thing, I realize now (as I’m getting older and letting myself be a little bit more vulnerable in relationships), that being hardened is a really good way to feel isolated and lonely. Malleability and bonding are important. Who would’ve thought?

Laughing with my beautiful Nanay.

I’m lucky to have a large, close-knit family on my mother’s side. Culturally, Filipino families are like that: intimate, absolutely nuts, and full of love. I always had support, even through my dark, don’t-go-near-me days. And while I’ve struggled with my cultural identity (being half-Filipino and half-Dutch), I still feel like eating Pancit and Ginataang Bilo-Bilo with my Nanay has always been home to me.

Works Cited:

Estrella, Serna. “The History of Pancit.” Pepper.ph. N.p., 19 May 2014. Web. 5 June 2015.

Lalaine. “Ginataang Bilo Bilo.” Kawalingpinoy.com. N.p., 17 Feb. 2015. Web. 5 June 2015.