S Robinson – Queer and Trans Black, Indigenous and People of Colour Vancouver

Orchestral Powwow highlighting Two-Spirit and Indigenous Perspectives in 2017

Cris Derksen and Orchestral Powwow was one of the artist and art forms featured at the Queer Art Festival on June 24, 2017 (The Georgia Straight, March 6, 2017). The theme of the festival “Unsettled” required the presence of Two-Spirit performers like Derksen along with the Orchestral Powwow in order to highlight the absence of Two-Spirit people and art from popular culture (The Georgia Straight, March 6, 2017). Artists like Derksen will expose the issue of historical extermination of Two-Spirit individuals and the lack of alternative Aboriginal sexuality and gender in contemporary western culture/media. In addition, they will exhibit the Two-Spirit movement and future as a part of the reclaiming of Two-Spirit identity and practice (The Georgia Straight, March 6, 2017).

Orchestral Powwow is a creation of Two-Spirit Cree cellist and composter Cris Derksen (The Georgia Straight, June 20, 2017). It is a new genre of music and includes Indigenous artists and performers. This medium is a means of collaboration, empowerment and the reclaiming of gender and identity for Aboriginals including Two-Spirit persons. The artistry is being used as a mode of agency, an expression of queer politics of belonging, a disruption of heteronormativity and the performance of disidentification
The music is the weaving together of traditional powwow beats and classical music and a style that brings Indigenous music to the centre of the European model, as well as to the contemporary western culture/media (Unreserved, 2015). Derksen comments that the music is a representation of the two worlds as much as it is a signifier of her being a Two-Spirit woman in a primarily heterosexual world (The Georgia Straight, June 20, 2017). Furthermore, the association of the traditional powwow beats and the classical music and the affiliation between a Two-Spirit woman in a heterosexual sphere creates tension. This tension speaks to the broader implications regarding how colonization and decolonization impacts Indigenous bodies. Derksen discloses that she uses her identity of mixed heritage and Two-Spirit gender and sexual orientation to create a unique form of music that expresses her agency and indigeneity. This amalgamation can be interpreted as a means of decolonization and the disruption of heteronormativity.

In addition, Derksen declares that Orchestral Powwow is the mode that will create a space for Aboriginals to be heard, seen, and valued, as well as given a leading role. Chavez (2010) affirms Derksen’s notion of queer belonging and being valued as a citizen in the nation-state. Therefore utilising powwow music and the wearing of regalias in the performances of orchestra music is a demonstration of belonging and citizenship. This is also what Munoz (1999) refers to as a performance of disidentification. Performing disidentification is a vital survival strategy for Two-Spirit and Indigenous persons because of settler colonialism. Like Julia Salgado’s art, it is used as a tool of resistance. As such, Derksen and Orchestral Powwow is a declaration that Two-Spirit and Aboriginals through the beats of their ancestors will continue to resist the borders of second-class citizenship in which they are placed. “Being identified as two-spirit often meant carrying unique responsibilities and roles within the community, knowledge keepers being one of the most important” (Georgia Straight, Mar 6, 2017). Adrian Stimson’s (Georgia Straight, March 6, 2017)) expresses the unique role of Two-Spirit individuals as knowledge keepers; while Driskill (2004) states that, they are caretakers. Derksen is a good example of a knowledge keeper and caretaker of the Aboriginal community and culture through Orchestral Powwow.
Derken and Orchestral Powwow is a reminder that Two-Spirit and Indigenous Peoples will continue to celebrate their identity on their terms while transforming the psyche of the nation.

Work Cited:

CBC Radio. Unreserved. Retrieved November 24, 2017 fromhttp://www.cbc.ca/radio/unreserved/remembering-mmiw-iceis-rain-on-two-spirited-success-and-cellist-cris-derksen-s-unique-musical-genre-1.3254088/cellist-cris-derksen-creates-new-genre-with-orchestral-powwow-1.3254566

Chavez, Karma. (2010). Border (In)securities: Normative and Differential Belonging In LGBTQ and Immigrant Rights Discourse. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 7(2): 136-155.

Driskill, Qwo-Li. (2004). Stolen From Our Bodies: First Nations Two-Spirit/Queers and The Journey To A Sovereign Erotic. Studies in American Indian Literature, 16(2): 50-64

Munoz, Jose Esteban. (1999). Performing Disidentifications. In His Disidentification, pp. 1-34

The Georgia Straight. Vancouver’s Queer Arts Festival to highlight two-spirit and indigenous perspectives this year. Retrieved November 7, 2017 from https://www.straight.com/life/877746/vancouvers-queer-arts-festival-highlight-two-spirit-and-indigenous-perspectives-year

The Georgia Straight. Orchestral Powwow blends indigenous and classical forms at Queer Arts Festival. Retrieved November 24, 2017 from https://www.straight.com/arts/926716/orchestral-powwow-blends-indigenous-and-classical-forms-queer-arts-festival

Transnational Space as the Convergence of Queered Intimacies: Neoliberalism and Filipinx Nannies in Vancouver

The Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP) makes available the possibility of Canadian permanent residency to temporary foreign domestic workers. Since the 1980’s a large portion of Live-In Caregivers are Filipina migrant women who enter Canada as temporary workers (Walia 2010, 76). Many of these women work as nannies, raising the children of affluent Canadians, while their immediate family responsibilities remain in the Philippines. Convinced by the promise of opportunity and better futures coveted by nations like Canada, temporary domestic workers find themselves in vulnerable positions, constrained by the policies of the immigrant they are susceptible to the abuse and exploitation their employer and the Canadian State, more generally. According to the Philippines Women’s Centre of BC caregivers endure “unpaid or excessive work hours, additional job responsibilities, an expectation to be on call at all times, forced confiscation of travel documents, gross violations of privacy, and sexual harassments and assault (Walia 2010, 76).

Queering the Family:

My usage of queer, is intended to contest what is typically considered to be normal and remove queer from its usual identificatory function; queer is not simply isolated to the L, G, B, or T. From Cathy Cohen’s expansion of the term queer to “unpack and politicize the very idea of normal” (as cited in Catungal, 2017). Therefore, the Filipinx caregiver is a queer subject as her experience of heterosexuality is not considered to be normative. Her queerness allows us to (re)think the normalcy of family—and their associated intimacies, desires, social lives and forms that are called up and performed when familial categories are invoked (Catungal, 2017)—at a local level while simultaneously situating ourselves in consideration with a broader global context. Prompting us to reflect upon the intersections of the local and global spatiality, and queerness allowing us to locate the fissures within normative categories of family and citizenship in a neoliberal context.

Canadian Complicity in Projects of Neoliberalism:

Since the 1980s, Canada has shown a strong preference for sourcing live-in caregivers particularly from the Philippines (Khan 2009, 29). To be more specific, approximately ninety-two percent of LCP registrants in Vancouver were from the Philippines (Pratt, 2012). Canada has taken advantage of the racialized and gendered patterns of LCP recruitment, and utilizes to its benefit the devastating unemployment and poverty rates and labour-export policy of the Philippines (Khan 2009, 29). In addition, persistent stereotypes within Canada which portray Filipino women as obedient, nurturing and complacent posit them as ideal domestic workers (Khan 2009, 29). Scholar Geraldine Pratt remarks on a recruit which states that “domestic workers leaving their children in the Philippines makes the very best nannies because they miss their children so much that they have no choice but to redirect their affections to Canadian children” (Pratt 1997; 2009). Like other wealthy nations, caregiving is a salient feature of the Canadian neoliberal economy. That is, programs like the LCP might be considered the inverse of the transnational phenomenon of outsourcing (Walia 2010, 77). Asymmetric power relations between the Philippines and Canada work to Canada’s benefit—this process is embodied by Filipinx caregivers. Crucially, Filipinx caregivers and their families are sacrificed to ensure the maintenance of the Canadian nuclear family; in the eyes of the state they come to mean a supply of cheap labour that can address, for example, the domestic labour issues (Walia 2010, 77).

Transnational Family:

Canadian nuclear family necessitates a home, in which the home becomes the localized space of correspondence between its members. It is stationary location, that rarely changes and is adorned with meanings, norms and responsibilities. Filipina caregivers come to exist in these spaces, in an artificial home as “not-yet-but-likely-citizens” and whose acceptance is wholly dependent on their ability to maintain the normative Canadian family (Pratt, 2009). In this framework the maintenance and social reproduction of the Canadian nuclear family is predicated on the help of the caregiver and everything she must give-up. Her presence in Vancouver and eventually, her acceptance within citizen is contingent on her capacity to care for, in an intimate motherly manner, for children that are not her own. It is, the Filipina mothers’ presence within the confines of walls that the maternal rolls of these mothers because queer—where the local swiftly slips into the global which collapses the borders of Canada while still being dependent on them. The transnational dynamic of Filipina caregivers means that they occupy and perform maternal roles and responsibilities at both local and global levels. They are transplanted from their homes, and as outsiders placed into families through artificial maternal role to care for and raise the children of affluent Canadians while biological parentage avoids the domestic duties and may instead be productive citizens of the state. At the same time, caregivers must still financially and emotionally provide for and raise their children but from a distance.

Concluding Thoughts:

With this in consideration, I suggest that the examination of Filipinx caregivers within the local context Vancouver offers a valuable entry point to interrogate neoliberal projects and mechanisms that are sustained by programs such as the LCP, and to consider these projects in relation to citizenship and the construction of the Canadian “family.” Contrary to popular depictions of Canada as a benevolent arbiter of human rights, the state continues to be engaged with abusive immigration policies used to exploit the Global South. Moreover, temporary migrant workers have come to constitute a hidden disposable workforce to the benefit of the Canadian populations (Walia 2010, 71). The Live-In Caregiver Programme (LCP) exemplifies the ways in which foreign domestic caregivers endure excessive exploitation via an exclusionary promise of inclusion and citizenship. Moreover, I posit that the experiences of Filipinx women in Canada queer of the normative heterosexual ‘family’ via transnational means— which ultimately links the local spaces of Vancouver to the spaces outside its borders.

Works Cited:

Catungal, J. (2017). Toward queer(er) futures: proliferating the “sexual” in filipinx canadian sexuality studies. Pre-publication copy.

Pratt, G. (2009). Circulating sadness: Witnessing filipina mothers’ stories of family separation. Gender, Place & Culture, 16(1), 3-22.

Pratt, G. (2012). Enterprising women, failing children: living within the contradictions of neo(liberalism). In Families Apart Migrant Mothers and the Conflicts of Labor and Love (pp. 1-40). University of Minnesota Press.

Khan, S. A. (2009). From labour of love to decent work: Protecting the human rights of migrant caregivers in canada. Canadian Journal of Law and Society, 24(1), 23-45.

Walia, H. (2010). Transient servitude: Migrant labour in canada and the apartheid of citizenship. Race & Class, 52(1), 71-84.

Finding Refuge on Unceded Land

What is the Rainbow Refugee Society?

Rainbow Refugee Society (RRS) is Vancouver based, not-for-profit community group that works to support persons seeking refugee protection in Canada because of persecution based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression of HIV states. In 2011, Rainbow Refugee entered into a partnership Federal government called the Rainbow Refugee Assistance Project (RRAP). Through this national project, Rainbow Refugee has the responsibility of bringing together volunteers, mentors and community organizations across Canada to sponsor LGBT+ asylum seekers. The groups are called Circles of Hope and directly aid refugees to gain entrance into Canada, “[to] settle in a much more accepting and safer country” (Rainbow Refugee, 2017).

Responsibilities of the Circle of Hope in British Columbia:

Before a refugee arrives in Vancouver, the Circle is responsible for: raising funds, completing application forms, creating a settlement plan to support the newcomer for 12 months, communication with the sponsored person and providing encouragement and emotional support. After the refugee arrives in Vancouver, the Circle assist in their transition into life in Canada through the provision of emotional and settlement assistance. They teach asylum seekers about the rights and responsibilities of permanent residents in Canada, and help them to learn English and find employment (Rainbow Refugee, 2017).

Implications of Refuge in a Settler State:

In another post, one of my colleagues discusses in greater length the external consequence of colonialism in constructing the global borders and boundaries of states and citizens, that are implicated in creating the frameworks and conflict that cause queer and non-queer refugees to flee in the first place. It is based on a process that includes some persons and excludes others. The differential inequalities of such a system ensure state power over its citizens, and sustains the global north’s power over the global south.

These inequalities are replicated in the definition and grounds that refugees make their claim are informed by nationalistic thinking. For queer persons to be considered a “legitimate” refugee in Canada (Fobear, 2014) their claims to queerness must fit within the parameters set forth by the state; but even then, the degree of belonging available to refugees is dependent on two things:

Their proximity to the attributes of the ‘proper’ Canadian citizen—cisgender, heterosexual, white, and male.
Their ability to perform the responsibilities of a citizen—or, their ability to assimilate.

Queer asylum seekers of Canada must convincingly and repetitively narratives that assert their proximity to normative notions of gender and sexuality (Shakshari 2014, 103). Subsequently, they must prove the ‘immutability of their character,’ and of their experiences, through essentialist notions required by the state to verify their queer identity. In turn, this forces queer refugees and asylum seekers into singular, timeless and universally homogenous identities that fail to account for varying intersections within experience (Shakshari 2014, 100). Consequently, the narratives of refugees are altered and reduced to the rational and linear definitions sanctioned by the state and reified by diasporic queer organizations that coach queer refugees in ‘homonormativity’(Shakshari, 100)—perhaps, evidenced here through the responsibilities of the Circle of Hope.

What does it mean to be a Refugee on Unceded Land?

It is important to realize that seeking refuge in a “more accepting and safer country” is imbued within a broader framework of violence. Escaping one kind of violence, results in violence of another kind. The desire for inclusion and belonging on the part of refugee person, is part of a project of settler colonialism. Safety and a new home is created on the lands of Indigenous people who continue to be denied nationhood and access to their own lands. However, this is not to say that indigenous communities would disallow refugees from finding refuge on their land, but rather that recognition as refugee is informed by the mechanism of the state—evident in the responsibilities of the Circle of Hope. The relationship between racialized queer subjects and settler colonialism is a complex one. Through political recognition, racialized queer subjects can access colonial power in Canada but remain socially and politically unrecognized as settlers (due to the impossibility of ever being a ‘proper’ citizen)(Jafri, 2013). The result of the settler-desires, belonging to or accessing the benefits of settler societies, does the work of sustaining colonial power (Jafri, 2013) Conclusively, the terms of asylum are decided by the settler state, rather than indigenous communities. As such, the state’s ability to manage the life of certain populations is dependent on “the discipline, control, and ultimately, death and diminishment of the other who stands outside and threatens the interests of the population whose life is worth saving and which may or may not have territorial boundedness” (Shakshari 103). This is to say, that migration to different spaces also posits new considerations to prevent the reiteration of similar violences through the complicity.

Works Cited:

Fobear, K. (2014). Queer settlers: Questioning settler colonialism in LGBT asylum processes in canada. Refuge, 30(1), 47

Jafri, Beenash and Patrick Wolfe. (2013). Desire, settler colonialism and the racialized cowboy. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 37(2): 73-86.

Rainbow Refugee. (n.d.). Retrieved November 9, 2017, from https://www.rainbowrefugee.com/

Shakhsari, Sima. (2014). Killing me softly with your rights: queer death and the politics of rightful killing. In Jin Haritaworn et. al. (eds.), Queer necropolitics, pp. 93-110.