Hello everyone!
My name is Min Hye and I am super excited to join you guys in this course. I am currently in third year ARTS, majoring in German. I was born in the Netherlands, raised in Germany and moved to Canada about eleven years ago with my ethnically South Korean family. Right now, I work as a flight attendant, which allows me to visit and learn more about all the different traditions and lifestyles of the many countries in this world. Because I was exposed to so many diverse cultures, I became instantly interested in this course, as I wanted to learn more about Canada, the only country I call home.
However, as much as I am aware that the first people to officially call this place home were the Indigenous People, I am embarrassed to say how little I know about them and their history. To be honest, Canadian Literature is also a genre that I have been avoiding because it seems so simple, yet it is so complex. Upon reading the syllabus and course outline, countless questions swarmed through my brain. Who am I to call this place a home? Have I been unintentionally or perhaps willingly turning a blind eye to those who build this country? Who exactly made this country what it is right now?
Before coming across this course, I never really thought about the correlation between storytelling and literature. However, the more I think about it, the more it reminds me of the Japanese government, controlling what their history textbooks are allowed to say. Perhaps our country failed to educate everyone, apart from those who sought the truth, leaving most of us just like the Japanese, who were unsuccessful in comprehending the resentment coming from their neighboring countries. As Canadians, we continue to marginalize the culture and lives of Indigenous people by forcing our ways of living onto theirs through media, education, and colonization of land. To what extent our discrimination reaches will we something I wish to explore more thoroughly throughout this course.
As someone, who flies the flag, I hope to become more self-aware of all the sacrifices and stories of those who helped make Canada, the Canada I am proud of. I hope that English 470 will become a course that will leave a lifelong impact on myself, allowing me to broaden my perspective on both my home country and the countries that I saw and will continue to see until the day I am left with no judgment and discrimination to voice.
Works Cited
Oi, Mariko. “What Japanese History Lessons Leave Out.” BBC News, BBC, 14 Mar. 2013, www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21226068.
Pollmann, Mina. “Why Japan’s Textbook Controversy Is Getting Worse.” The Diplomat, The Diplomat, 8 Apr. 2015, thediplomat.com/2015/04/why-japans-textbook-controversy-is-getting-worse/.
Hi Min Hye,
Thank you for sharing! It is fascinating how many diverse cultures you have experienced in your life so far and will continue to experience with your line of work. As someone who was born in China and grew up in Canada, I often feel the same questions surrounding my thoughts from time to time. How did the Canada we know today come to be? What does it mean to be a Canadian? And the question I think about the most- Where can I fit into this narrative? Despite the fact that I’ve been in this country for over a decade, I also feel that my knowledge of Canada is so little, which brings about a fear of ignorance. There are so much history that I have not learned about the peoples who were here before us, along with censored information about the Indigenous Peoples that are just beginning to come to light. As much as Canada today has stories about how it came to be the accepting, multicultural nation we love, the darkness of our past with the Indigenous Peoples also remains to be part of Canada’s identity. Their stories beginning to resist the marginalization of their lives and culture, and I think that your question-to what extent does our discrimination reach-is a good stepping stone to uncovering and understanding the shadowed voices of those who made Canada into the homeland we know today.
Thanks for your comment.
Just like yourself, I am very afraid of accidentally displaying my ignorance through my everyday behaviour. However, due to the over-colonization by different countries, I often find it difficult to find the appropriate borderline between respect and insensitivity, as well as to examine the medium of Canada of the past and the present. The country that the Indigenous People settled into is too different from the country that we’ve known over the past few decades and I am sure that we continue to colonize it every day in our own ways.
I hope that both of us, as immigrants and as people who identify with many cultures, will be able to find answers to these questions throughout this course and get a better grasp of what it means to be truly “Canadian”.
Hi Min Hye! Thank you for sharing your story. I definitely feel the same with you on many points as I am myself ethnically South Korean and also come to this course not knowing much about the history of Indigenous people. I was actually born in Korea but moved to Canada at a very young age and was raised here. It seems like you were never raised in Korea, but you are very well aware and interested in history of Korea as this course right away reminded you about the Japanese government’s control. I remember this was a very sensitive issue for South Korea as they have suffered a lot from the history of Japanese ruling. I was very upset when I heard about the news because they were erasing the part of history that they should be ashamed for and instead recognizing their mistake and apologizing, they tried to hide it. I feel as I’m a little bit more aware about the history of Korea rather than Canada although I’ve been raised in Canada for most of my life. I wonder why that is and if you feel the same. I was actually never taught Korean history where for Canadian history, I was actually taught at school. And yet it seems like I am a little more ignorant on the Canadian history. I wonder if this is because Korea’s current media covers a lot about the issues of history and many people including young generations react to it. Do you think Canada may be less active than Korea in educating people about history through media? Is media coverage what makes people be aware of history?