Hello everybody! My name is Rajin Sidhu and I am a fourth-year student at the University of British Columbia pursuing a major in English Literature. This is my first experience with blogging and it has been very difficult to get used to for me so far, so please forgive if I have made any mistakes, I promise I will get better! This is also my first time taking an online course and I am very excited and nervous at the same time.
Is this what it means to be Canadian?
I am a first generation Canadian as both of my parents were born in India and moved to Canada in their adult years before I was born. Even though I was born in Canada, my childhood felt as if I was in India rather than Canada. I grew up in South Vancouver, in a predominantly Indo-Canadian community. I attended a Sikh private school during my early elementary years where we only learned about Sikhism and Indian history. My family would always tell me to remember my roots and where they came from and that India is the “motherland” and Canada is our “home”.
Last year I was fortunate enough to take a course at UBC titled English 405A – Canadian Drama, which was taught by Dr. Jerry Wasserman. I will never forget what he asked us during our first lecture – the first thing that he said to the class during our first lecture – What does it mean to be Canadian? We studied many plays that looked at national identity, and the play that had the most impact on me was “Problem Child” by George F. Walker. It looks at the lives of two troubled characters who are trying to find themselves in a motel room. I can somewhat relate to this story because I too am trying to find out where I belong in this world in terms of my national identity.
I am excited to embark on this journey with my fellow classmates and read stories from others, and learn what it means to be a Canadian. At the end of this course I hope to have gained more appreciation for the first nations history and their influence on Canada. I can’t wait to share my insights and gain more from all of you! Let’s get this party started eh!!
Hi Rajin, thank you for this introduction. George Walker is one of my favourite playwrights. I am looking forward to working with you this semester! Thanks
Hi Dr.Paterson! I am also really excited to work with you during this semester. This is my first time taking an online course as well as creating a blog. I am still having a tough time figuring it out, but I know I will become more confident as the course progresses.
Do you have a favorite George Walker play? I have to say my favorite play of his is “Problem Child” because it makes me think of the world in a different way than I am used to in my everyday life.
Regards,
Rajin.
Zastrozzi, The Master of Discipline !
Hi Rajin,
I am posting on your blog for our assignment 1:2 commenting, also because I found your links you posted very interesting. I felt a sense of relief reading your blog because I too have struggled with blogging. Like you, this is my first time taking an online course and I am excited to expand my technological resources, however I am nervous to miss anything or not know how to do something. The blogging took me a few days to figure out and I hope for the both of us, that this gets easier!
I have a lot of friends who grew up in an Indo-Canadian community and they took did not feel like they were first generation Canadian. I’ve asked them numerous times why they felt the way they did and some answered that they felt like going to a Sikh private school made them feel more like they were from India, rather than Canada. I do not know if that is the way you feel, that is just incite from other friends. I found it really interesting that your parents refer to India as “the motherland” and Canada as “home”. I was wondering what you refer to India as since you were born and raised in Canada? Do refer to India the same way your parents do or do you have another perspective based on your personal opinion and because you were born and raised here and Canada, and you are Canadian?
I look forward to reading more of your posts and I am hopeful that the two of us will be blog-genius’ at the end of this course! Good luck!
-Jessica R
Hi Jessica,
It is wonderful to know that I am not the only one in this course that struggled with blogging, it also took me a pretty long time to figure out how to create my page (and I still do not know how to do many other things, such as post a photo), but i am super confident that we will be blog masters as the course progresses.
Going to a private school did make me feel like I was in India because of the way our days were structured. We would start our mornings by praying at the gurdwara (temple), our uniforms were based on the Sikh religion (our heads had to be covered at all times), we learned about Indian history rather than Canadian history, and the language course we studied was Punjabi rather than French. The only time I felt Canadian in that school was Friday at lunch time because the cafeteria served pizza! Needless to say, when I moved to a public elementary school for my intermediate years, it was a culture shock and it took me a while to get used to.
I don’t necessarily hold the same views of India that my parents do, but that changes on a day to day basis. I know far more about India’s history than Canada’s. and sometimes I do feel more attached to India even though i was not born there. I hope that this class can aid me into figuring out my stance in terms of my national identity, but at this moment if i were to categorize myself as Canadian or Indian, I would say Indian because that is where my cultural roots and ideologies stem from. I hope that kind of answers your question.
Rajin.
Hi Rajin!
I too am posting on your blog for our assignment 1:2 because I felt like I immediately connected with you through your writing and I hope that we could work together in this course!
I was taking a look at one of the links you posted and in it was a quote: “In Canada, the time has come to address a centrally important question. If what we have in common is our diversity, do we really have anything in common at all?” ~ Reginald W. Bibby, sociologist, Mosaic Madness: The Poverty and Potential of
Life in Canada, 1990.
This to me, is the quintessence of what it means to be human. I myself grew up in Singapore and it is such a diverse multicultural society that I don’t know what it means to be Singaporean besides ending our sentences with slang terms like “lah” or “meh”. If one were to ask me what do we eat in Singapore, I would think of a dish which is from Malaysia or China. Then after moving to Canada and realizing that Canada too is having a similar identity crisis makes one think – how do we define ourselves.
I think that national identity is a way of separating people according to their commonalities. People belonging to different organizations from political groups to grassroots organizations have identified the need to build a sense of belonging, in order to increase participation in events/elections etc. But perhaps there is no need to have a national identity. Why do we need a national identity? Does having a national identity encourage us to make our communities a better environment? Does having a national identity make us proud and arrogant? What is the purpose of having a national identity? Perhaps as Reginald W. Bibby suggests, what we have in common is our diversity and it is through this diversity that we grow in compassion and kindness for the people around us and the world that we inhabit. That’s not such a bad thing after all, is it?
Looking forward to reading more of your posts!
Qihui (Kiwi)
Hi Qihui, thank you for commenting on my blog post. You bring up some valid points that i agree with in regards to national identity. “Why do we need a national identity” is a question I am always continually asking myself. I have yet to come up with an answer. I think for the most part for me, a national identity brings a sense of comfort and a place to call “home”. I look at the world as one gigantic neighborhood. There is nothing that brings me more joy than travelling to other neighborhoods and viewing their cultures, but when the street lights go off and it is time to go to bed, which neighborhood do I return to? That is the question that I am struggling to answer. I am glad that you brought up a point about if national identity does make us “proud”. I certainly think it does because whenever I think about Canada or India, I feel a sense of pride and i am so proud to be apart of both nations. On the flip side, maybe it is not a bad thing to have a national identity, but rather have many different national identities? Is that possible? I definitely wonder about that as well.
Rajin.
Hi Rajin!
I got really excited when I read your post because most people don’t know who George F. Walker is (although he is famous in the world of Canadian theatre), but I went to theatre school in Ontario and played Elizabeth in Better Living so I have a deep respect for the incredible work that has come out of that man’s mind! I don’t know if you have read Better Living , but I recommend the whole “East End Plays” series. They are pretty fantastic.
Anyhow! Canadian-ness… a slippery thing, that’s for sure. The question I want to posit in response to your musings about national identity is this: does is matter? Yes, really. Does it… matter? What is a nation? Is it not a social construct, just like the idea of “Canadianness?” Sure, it’s a well-established social construct, but borders are frequently in flux (and were VERY in flux even in North America until recently), and I can’t help but wonder if they matter much at all. What do you think of that possibility? Do you think that humanity would benefit from decreasing our focus on the whole idea of nations?
I want to add as an interesting anecdote that Molson Canadian was bought a few years back by an American company. Ironic, eh? (lol). I feel like that very thing demonstrates the complicated, blurred-line nature of national identity.
Hi Lauren, it is awesome to know that you and Dr.Paterson are George Walker fans too! I haven’t met many people that know of him either. That is so cool that you played Elizabeth’s character in the play, and the East end series is definitely one of my favorite pieces of art!
If I was answering your question in 2009 about whether or not humanity would benefit from decreasing our focus on the idea of nations, I would have said a definite no. In the year 2009, I studied abroad in Italy, and that changed my mindset on the idea of nations. There is still a part of me that thinks the idea of nations is a fundamental part to who I am because i regard it as a home. However, I have become more fluid in that idea of thinking and I beginning to sway on the other side of the fence. I practice meditation and it has taught me that humanity is one big family. Sometimes after meditation I ask myself: “Why can’t we consider the world as one big family?” Why do we have different borders that separate regions and countries and ethnicity from one another?
A major reason why I took this course is because it deals with first nations studies. I am embarassed to say that i hardly know any first nations writers and I have not encountered many pieces of literature from that culture. I am extremely excited to hear their stories and voices and hopefully I will be able to give you an answer to that question at the end of the semester. It is definitely a question I will be thinking throughout this course. What is your opinion about the idea of nations? Do you think it is a good thing for humanity?
Rajin.
Hi Rajin!
Sorry for my late reply! I thought that WordPress would let me know when somebody responded to a comment that I made. Apparently – at this point, anyways – it doesn’t.
I think it’s so awesome that the East End plays are some of your favourite works of art! You are the only person I have met outside of my theatre school class that even knows what they are, so I feel very… validated? in my love for them right now haha. Seriously, that’s great.
Nations… hmm… I wish I could say more definitely whether or not I believe in them. They serve a purpose, but borders seem to be an inherent part of their construction and I’m not sure I believe in borders. My sister is a leader in a non-profit group called “Radical Action with Migrants in Agriculture” (ramaokanagan.org) and one of their core beliefs is in a world without borders. I don’t know nearly as much about political science as my sister does (she’s currently doing her Masters’ in it) and so I haven’t been able to form my own opinion about the idea, but I have a lot of respect for her thoughts and for the idea of the free movement of people who need a better place to live, so I find it hard to think that nations and borders are really doing a lot of good. I also wonder if positive government systems like democracy are really possible on a large scale, like in a country the size of Canada or the US; but I think they are on the level that we would currently call “regional.” I guess I think it would be great if humanity lived in smaller communities again and each small community was self-governing. Maybe that’s a little Utopian, though 😉
Hi Rajin,
Great first post! Your struggle with identity really resonated with me. My parents are Indian but I grew up in Indonesia, before moving to Canada. I find it difficult to fully identify myself as Indian or Indonesian or Canadian – so I resort to hyphens. But there are days and moments, when I feel more strongly towards one identity than the other – for example, I felt more ‘Canadian’ during the Winter Olympics, or more ‘Indonesian’ when I meet someone from there and we get to reminiscing about Jakarta. It’s interesting because it makes me wonder, how much of our national identities are based on factors like memory or our physical surroundings. I wondered if you feel this fluidity in identity as well at certain days/moments?
Hi Tarana,
Thank you for posing this question to me. I do feel a different sense of national identity due to my physical surroundings. I feel more Canadian when i am outside of Canada. Whenever I go to India or anywhere outside of the country for that matter (even to Seattle) I feel that I am Canadian, probably because I am away from my physical home.
On the flip side, when I am in Vancouver (just like I am tonight), my sense of being Canadian is not as strong. I am not too sure why i feel this way on some days, but I think it has to do with my lack of knowledge about this history of our country and indigenous people. In Canada I am surronded by the Indian culture through my family, friends, and everyday life events (such as eating Indian food, going to the sikh temple, and speaking punjabi). The only culture I know in Canada is the culture in which I was raised in, and is a major factor as to why I experience this fluidity in my national identity.
– Rajin Sidhu