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Oh to be Canadian Redux
Aug. 6th, 2005 12:14 pm[Written yesterday]
I'm surrounded by children. Daniel's friend Hugh is over and playing outside with Daniel and Justin, and our little neighbour An (almost 3yrs old) was playing with Justin for a while but has now just decided to come and talk to me instead. Which is not nearly as daunting to deal with as it was a few weeks ago. I swear just in the last month her English has gone from "I waaan" "Jussin" "Danya", and "Hi!" to "Where bathroom? I waan go pee!" and "Where Jussin? Bubble not work!"
::brief crisis break::
Small disaster; An took Justin's My Little Ponies and Justin freaked. Parents got involved, there were talks and interventions and hiding of most Ponies and Justin offered to loan her one of his Ponies as long as she gave back the hairbrush. Mischief managed.
Anyway. So I'm surrounded by children. And yet it's going fairly well. In fact, it's a pretty good day so far.
[Long rambling on culture and citizenship written over the next day or so]
And as kids are flowing around me I'm thinking about the whole Oh to be Canadian post again. Because An is Vietnamese, and Hugh is Korean. And I think one of the things that bothered me the most about Oh to be Canadian is the assumption that "Canadian" is so exclusive. Canadian = English/French, Christian, European background and all the ideals/beliefs that entails. So... Hugh's not really Canadian. Nor is An. Nor is![[livejournal.com profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ninja_kat, for that matter. Nor are many of the people I grew up with. It's an Us v. Them view where White Us is under attack from Non-White Them and oh the horror because They are taking over and we're losing what it means to be truly Canadian.
Chris and I were talking about all of this around the time that I got the original e-mail, and made the post. We both found it ironic that the person who wrote the original e-mail said, "As Canadians, we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle. This culture has been developed over centuries of struggles, trials, and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom. We speak ENGLISH & FRENCH, not Arabic, Chinese, Punjabi, or any other language."
( Let's put this behind a cut link, shall we? )
I'm surrounded by children. Daniel's friend Hugh is over and playing outside with Daniel and Justin, and our little neighbour An (almost 3yrs old) was playing with Justin for a while but has now just decided to come and talk to me instead. Which is not nearly as daunting to deal with as it was a few weeks ago. I swear just in the last month her English has gone from "I waaan" "Jussin" "Danya", and "Hi!" to "Where bathroom? I waan go pee!" and "Where Jussin? Bubble not work!"
::brief crisis break::
Small disaster; An took Justin's My Little Ponies and Justin freaked. Parents got involved, there were talks and interventions and hiding of most Ponies and Justin offered to loan her one of his Ponies as long as she gave back the hairbrush. Mischief managed.
Anyway. So I'm surrounded by children. And yet it's going fairly well. In fact, it's a pretty good day so far.
[Long rambling on culture and citizenship written over the next day or so]
And as kids are flowing around me I'm thinking about the whole Oh to be Canadian post again. Because An is Vietnamese, and Hugh is Korean. And I think one of the things that bothered me the most about Oh to be Canadian is the assumption that "Canadian" is so exclusive. Canadian = English/French, Christian, European background and all the ideals/beliefs that entails. So... Hugh's not really Canadian. Nor is An. Nor is
ninja_kat, for that matter. Nor are many of the people I grew up with. It's an Us v. Them view where White Us is under attack from Non-White Them and oh the horror because They are taking over and we're losing what it means to be truly Canadian.Chris and I were talking about all of this around the time that I got the original e-mail, and made the post. We both found it ironic that the person who wrote the original e-mail said, "As Canadians, we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle. This culture has been developed over centuries of struggles, trials, and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom. We speak ENGLISH & FRENCH, not Arabic, Chinese, Punjabi, or any other language."
( Let's put this behind a cut link, shall we? )
