Oh to be Canadian Redux
Aug. 6th, 2005 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccoj[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]](https://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."
The thing is, yes our culture and lifestyle was developed over centuries of struggles... but who says it's a finished product? No culture is. And it's such a fallacy to look at our culture and say "here it is, just as The Founders intended", because really, The Founders intended no such thing. For one thing I'm quite sure the first Natives in North America didn't think that someday their land would be this wonderful Christian, English & French paradise we've got right now, but I'm not just thinking of them. I'm also fairly sure the first English colonists who came here didn't intend to build a nation that would one day celebrate St. Patrick's Day in an explosion of shamrocks and green beer. Or imagine that some day one of its most prestigious universities, Queen's, would be more steeped in Scottishness than the most unwelcome oatmeal savage that ever crawled up on their shores. But gradually Irishness and Scottishness became part of who we were, something to take pride in, not to shun for its foreigness.
I ended up thinking of all sorts of weird examples of how malleable culture is - North American culture in particular. I was reminded at one point of John Kerry's campaign, and how his Catholicism became a hot topic over the abortion issue only because the Catholic Church made it so. Otherwise, it really wasn't a big deal to anybody. Nobody seriously suggested that by electing a Catholic as President there would be any danger of Kerry blindly following the Pope's directions, instead of good old American ideals, on anything. In fact, one of the most anti-Kerry pieces I read ended with, "In any case, the least likely turn in this continuing story is that Kerry will become a pro-life convert."
Non-issue, right?
Right. Forty-four years after John Kennedy was elected, Catholics were no longer seen as "other" to most Americans. It's hard to even remember that in 1960, Kennedy's Catholicism really was foreign and wrong to so many of his fellow citizens. He was not really "one of us", but one of those "others" whose ancestors had come with odd little customs and a not-quite-American brand of Christianity, and whose Americanness couldn't quite be trusted.
The change from then to now is not just due to the fact that Kennedy was elected and Americans saw that his Catholicism really meant absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of politics. It's also due to the fact that since 1960, there's been a huge growth in the percentage of "real" Americans who are Catholic - in fact, currently they make up almost 25% of the country. And yet they still recite the Pledge of Allegiance, still attend baseball games and eat hot dogs and do all sorts of other real American stuff.
And there's so many other examples like that. Like, it's unreal to us now that during WWII, German and Italian Canadians (and Americans) were treated as 'other': mistrusted, discriminated against, interned, shunned. They were Canadians. They're us. How could they possibly be considered outsiders?
We're even slowly starting to realize that the way we treated Japanese Canadians and Americans was wrong, because even if they didn't look like "us", they really were.
Canada is a country whose outgoing Governor General was born in Hong Kong, and whose incoming Governor General was born in Haiti. These are the women that represent the Queen, honour Canadian sovereignty, etc etc all that fun stuff we studied in grade 7 Canadian history, in a British tradition that goes back to 1861, before Confederation. And it's hard to think of anybody more Canadian; Adrienne Clarkson is fluently bilingual, studied English Literature in university, became a noted journalist and writer and public servant, yadda yadda, and Michaelle Jean speaks five languages fluently, has also been a leading Canadian journalist... it's hard to see how they can be "them".
I remember my Jewish History prof at Queen's teaching about the Holocaust. One of the lessons that struck me mostly deeply was when he spoke about Denmark during the war. So many European nations, not just Germany, turned against their Jewish citizens, and yet the Danes did not. The 7,500 Danish Jews were never forced to wear the Star of David and were not shipped off to concentration camps for years, even though Denmark was German-occupied. And when Germany finally decided to take the Danish Jews, their fellow Danes, from the King to the Christian clergy to the fishermen, worked together to smuggle all but 481 of them into Sweden. And the 481 who were taken still had their government fighting to keep them from the death camps and their fellow citizens sending them food and clothing and vitamins. And when the Jews returned to Denmark after the war, they found their homes and businesses, for the most part, well-cared for by their neighbours and ready for them to return to. Because to their fellow citizens, they were Danes. Jewish Danes. Not "others" at all.
There's a picture I really wish I'd been able to take, from this year's Canada Day, but my camera battery crapped out literally as I started to take it. It was of a group of maybe 8-9 dark-skinned women, probably Somali, some adults but mostly teenagers, jabbering away in some language I couldn't understand mixed in with some English here or there. All wearing red and white hijabs and partying it up in downtown Ottawa, celebrating the birthday of a country that apparently means something to them too.
In many ways, there's no patriot like an immigrant. As Chris put it, he never actually chose this country so for all anybody knows, he could be here just from inertia. But the people who came here, who uprooted themselves and left their homes and families and familiar places behind... they all have a reason to be here. It may not always be a reason we understand or agree with, and what they do here may not always be in what we see as the best interests of our country... but I find it very hard to not think of them as Canadians, no matter their language or skin colour or religion.
It's all in how you look at it, I think.
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."
The thing is, yes our culture and lifestyle was developed over centuries of struggles... but who says it's a finished product? No culture is. And it's such a fallacy to look at our culture and say "here it is, just as The Founders intended", because really, The Founders intended no such thing. For one thing I'm quite sure the first Natives in North America didn't think that someday their land would be this wonderful Christian, English & French paradise we've got right now, but I'm not just thinking of them. I'm also fairly sure the first English colonists who came here didn't intend to build a nation that would one day celebrate St. Patrick's Day in an explosion of shamrocks and green beer. Or imagine that some day one of its most prestigious universities, Queen's, would be more steeped in Scottishness than the most unwelcome oatmeal savage that ever crawled up on their shores. But gradually Irishness and Scottishness became part of who we were, something to take pride in, not to shun for its foreigness.
I ended up thinking of all sorts of weird examples of how malleable culture is - North American culture in particular. I was reminded at one point of John Kerry's campaign, and how his Catholicism became a hot topic over the abortion issue only because the Catholic Church made it so. Otherwise, it really wasn't a big deal to anybody. Nobody seriously suggested that by electing a Catholic as President there would be any danger of Kerry blindly following the Pope's directions, instead of good old American ideals, on anything. In fact, one of the most anti-Kerry pieces I read ended with, "In any case, the least likely turn in this continuing story is that Kerry will become a pro-life convert."
Non-issue, right?
Right. Forty-four years after John Kennedy was elected, Catholics were no longer seen as "other" to most Americans. It's hard to even remember that in 1960, Kennedy's Catholicism really was foreign and wrong to so many of his fellow citizens. He was not really "one of us", but one of those "others" whose ancestors had come with odd little customs and a not-quite-American brand of Christianity, and whose Americanness couldn't quite be trusted.
The change from then to now is not just due to the fact that Kennedy was elected and Americans saw that his Catholicism really meant absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of politics. It's also due to the fact that since 1960, there's been a huge growth in the percentage of "real" Americans who are Catholic - in fact, currently they make up almost 25% of the country. And yet they still recite the Pledge of Allegiance, still attend baseball games and eat hot dogs and do all sorts of other real American stuff.
And there's so many other examples like that. Like, it's unreal to us now that during WWII, German and Italian Canadians (and Americans) were treated as 'other': mistrusted, discriminated against, interned, shunned. They were Canadians. They're us. How could they possibly be considered outsiders?
We're even slowly starting to realize that the way we treated Japanese Canadians and Americans was wrong, because even if they didn't look like "us", they really were.
Canada is a country whose outgoing Governor General was born in Hong Kong, and whose incoming Governor General was born in Haiti. These are the women that represent the Queen, honour Canadian sovereignty, etc etc all that fun stuff we studied in grade 7 Canadian history, in a British tradition that goes back to 1861, before Confederation. And it's hard to think of anybody more Canadian; Adrienne Clarkson is fluently bilingual, studied English Literature in university, became a noted journalist and writer and public servant, yadda yadda, and Michaelle Jean speaks five languages fluently, has also been a leading Canadian journalist... it's hard to see how they can be "them".
I remember my Jewish History prof at Queen's teaching about the Holocaust. One of the lessons that struck me mostly deeply was when he spoke about Denmark during the war. So many European nations, not just Germany, turned against their Jewish citizens, and yet the Danes did not. The 7,500 Danish Jews were never forced to wear the Star of David and were not shipped off to concentration camps for years, even though Denmark was German-occupied. And when Germany finally decided to take the Danish Jews, their fellow Danes, from the King to the Christian clergy to the fishermen, worked together to smuggle all but 481 of them into Sweden. And the 481 who were taken still had their government fighting to keep them from the death camps and their fellow citizens sending them food and clothing and vitamins. And when the Jews returned to Denmark after the war, they found their homes and businesses, for the most part, well-cared for by their neighbours and ready for them to return to. Because to their fellow citizens, they were Danes. Jewish Danes. Not "others" at all.
There's a picture I really wish I'd been able to take, from this year's Canada Day, but my camera battery crapped out literally as I started to take it. It was of a group of maybe 8-9 dark-skinned women, probably Somali, some adults but mostly teenagers, jabbering away in some language I couldn't understand mixed in with some English here or there. All wearing red and white hijabs and partying it up in downtown Ottawa, celebrating the birthday of a country that apparently means something to them too.
In many ways, there's no patriot like an immigrant. As Chris put it, he never actually chose this country so for all anybody knows, he could be here just from inertia. But the people who came here, who uprooted themselves and left their homes and families and familiar places behind... they all have a reason to be here. It may not always be a reason we understand or agree with, and what they do here may not always be in what we see as the best interests of our country... but I find it very hard to not think of them as Canadians, no matter their language or skin colour or religion.
It's all in how you look at it, I think.
