Mixed Race Studies

Faces In Between: Art About Mixed-Race Identity

CBC
Here and Now Toronto
2013-02-01

Throughout history, artists have drawn upon their own experience to fuel their work. Tonight, a new exhibit explores mixed race identity from the point of view of three young women. Rema Tavares is one of the artists. She spoke about “Faces In Between.”

Listen to the episode (00:06:14) here.

Mixed Race Blood, Bone Marrow Donors Needed To Save Gen Y Lives

The Huffington Post-Canada
2013-01-31

Andree Lau

One of Lourdess Sumners’ most vivid memories of her childhood battle with cancer was pining for real food while hooked up to a feeding tube and watching The Food Channel on TV.

“It was horrible. I hated it,” recalls the now 14-year-old from her home in Duncan, B.C. “That would make me even more hungry. And I would draw pictures of sausages and hamburgers, whatever I felt hungry for.”

For her parents, that period was highlighted by the distressing and ultimately futile search for a bone marrow donor for their middle daughter, hampered mainly because she happens to be part of the fastest growing demographic in Canada.

Sumners, whose mother is Filipino and father is Caucasian, is among the more than 340,000 Canadian children growing up in a mixed-race family.

Only about four per cent of Canada’s couples are made up of people from different ethnic backgrounds — but they’re growing five times faster than other unions, according to data from the 2006 census.

Statistics Canada said mixed couples were most common among Canadians aged 25 to 34, followed by those aged 15 to 24 — a cohort that encompasses Generation Y, which generally refers to young adults born after 1980 (also known as millennials).

What hasn’t kept up with the growing population of mixed-race children is the registry of stem cell and marrow donors from blended ethnicities — donors that Sumners needed. She required a bone marrow transplant to fight acute myeloid leukemia, an aggressive cancer of the blood and bone marrow.

“It wasn’t even a consideration in my mind that finding bone marrow would be an issue,” says Orlando Sumners, Lourdess’ father. “There’s such a desperate need for mixed-race people on the registry … [but] most mixed-race adults wouldn’t have a clue what we’re talking about.”…

Read the entire article here.

Canada’s First Nations: Time we stopped meeting like this

The Economist
2013-01-19

Protests by native peoples pose awkward questions for their leaders, and for Stephen Harper’s government

Back in the 18th century British and French settlers in what is now Canada secured peace with the indigenous inhabitants by negotiating treaties under which the locals agreed to share their land in return for promises of support from the newcomers. This practice continued after Canada became self-governing in 1867. These treaty rights were incorporated into the 1982 constitution. The Supreme Court has since said they impose on the federal government “a duty to consult” the First Nations (as the locals’ descendants prefer to be called) before making any changes that impinge on their treaty rights.

The Assembly of First Nations, which represents about 300,000 people living in 615 different reserves, reckons Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has broken the bargain. In protests over the past month they have blocked roads and railways, staged impromptu dances in shopping malls and chanted outside the office of the prime minister. Theresa Spence, a Cree chief from a troubled reserve in northern Ontario, has taken up residence in a tepee near the parliament buildings in Ottawa, and has refused solid food since December 11th…

…Mr Harper got off to a promising start with the First Nations and Canada’s other aboriginal groups, the mixed-race Métis and the Arctic Inuit, when he issued an apology in June 2008 for the treatment their children had suffered in residential schools (they were separated from their families and often abused). The prime minister promised a new relationship based on “collective reconciliation and fundamental changes”…

Read the entire article here.

Faces In Between

Daniels Spectrum
585 Dundas Street East
Toronto, Ontario
Friday, 2013-02-01, 19:00-21:00 EST (Local Time)

A 3MW Collective art Exhibit at Regent Park Arts and Cultural Centre during Black History Month exploring mixed race identity through painting and photography.

Join us to celebrate our first show as a collective!

Cash bar and amazing art!

We are three mixed-race women artists using portraiture in both painting and photography to address ideas of mixed-race identity. The subjects in our work are people who have parents, grandparents, and ancestors from different cultural backgrounds. The faces of our “models” do not conform to society’s outdated notions of human classification. These faces are loaded with issues of colonialism, racism, shadeism, as well as questions of history and identity.

In Canada, although we have a policy of multiculturalism, people are generally not comfortable talking about race. Our work aims to highlight the experiences of mixed people. These are the people whose “race” is not clear and who are often faced with questions such as, “What are you?” or “What is your ethnic background?” These persistent questions clearly reflect our society’s discomfort with an inability to classify people by racialized norms.

For more information, click here.

1.1 But Where are You Really From? Part IV: Oh, really? You were born in Guelph?

Schema Magazine
Schema In-Depth
2009-08-03

Araba Ocran-Caesar, Guest Contributor

Perhaps growing up in Vancouver has changed the way I approach the question, “But where are you really from?” There is no doubt that my geographical position in this country changes the climate in which that question is asked. Since I’ve had the opportunity to live and work in Toronto, I have been able to switch gears and not view this infamous question as such a nagging issue. Some might say that it’s a compliment to be asked because that means people are genuinely interested in me and my origins. Hmm. Not so much.

Because so many Canadians are from immigrant families I rarely thought it was unusual for people to ask about my background. It was only when people started to focus on one aspect of my ancestry that I caught on to some other, deeply rooted motivations. My heritage is European, African and Caribbean; I do not place an emphasis on any one culture over another (but let me tell you, other people do). In my case, all components of my heritage make me who I am, and, yes, over time I have felt offended when people pick apart my African and Caribbean backgrounds. Let me explain further: Once my “blackness” is confirmed, the revelation is followed up with labels and snap judgements. It’s painfully evident that my Welsh heritage is not tackled with the same stereotyping determination. Fortunately, every now and again, the odd person appears with whom I can dialogue and we both walk away learning something about each other…

…Perhaps you are all familiar with the “one drop” philosophy, adopted by American slave owners. Essentially, as long as an individual had even one drop of African blood, that individual was considered Black, regardless of what could sometimes be a very mixed lineage. Well, the “one drop” concept is, in some ways, alive and well today and is the unspoken subtext that spurs someone to ask “What are you,” when I am clearly and visibly something other than white. So possibly the question could more precisely be phrased as “What part of you is black?” Not, “Where are you from?” After all, when I truthfully answer with Guelph, Ontario, no one is never satisfied!…

Read the entire article here.

See Also:

• Intro: But Where are You Really From? by Founding Senior Editor Jen Sookfong Lee
• Part I : Guessing Game by Guest Contributor Mauree Aki Matsuska
• Part II : I Come From A Land Down Under (Or a Song by Men In Hats?) by Guest Contributor Naomi Ward
• Part III: Kinda Chinese by Guest Contributor Cedric Sam
• Part V: Same same, but different by Guest Contributor Julia Lin
• Part VI: Really Not That Simple by Guest Contributor Paul Dhillon

1.1 But Where are You Really From? Intro

Schema Magazine
Schema In-Depth
2009-05-05

Jen Sookfong Lee, Founding Senior Editor

With no easy answer to this often complicated question, author of End of East, Jen Sookfong Lee, begins our inaugural special series, featuring no less than SIX highly unique “But where are you really from?” stories.

A seemingly innocent question, one that many people would never even imagine to contain layers of subtext or carry with it a history of exclusion and authenticity. “But where are you really from?” rarely appears in a conversation all by itself. It’s the sum in a complicated equation that reaches deep into personal identity, diversity and belonging.

 Many of us know that feeling, that combination of anger, resentment, hesitation and confusion that bubbles up from your gut whenever someone asks you the question, “Where are you from?” Yes, it’s a simple question, and, yes, you know that the answer can be simple as well, but that’s not the problem. Before you even open your mouth to respond, a very familiar thought runs circles inside your head, “No matter what I say, this person will not understand.”

Canada is a great country. I love living here. I love that I was born and educated here. I’m attached to cold winters and ice hockey and the very particular delights of poutine and the polar bear swim (not that I’ve ever participated in the polar bear swim, but I appreciate the urge that propels half-naked people to run screaming into frigid bodies of water on New Year’s Day, the urge, that is, to flout the cold and thumb my nose at my fellow Canadians who run away to Arizona every holiday season to play golf in short pants). I love that we’re a country built on immigration, a country where indigenous peoples and newcomers have the opportunity to live together and constantly renew the pains and processes of diversity, which is the very thing that marks us as uniquely Canadian and which pushes us to learn and re-learn what it means to be part of this human community…

Read the entire article here.

See Also:

• Part I : Guessing Game by Guest Contributor Mauree Aki Matsuska
• Part II : I Come From A Land Down Under (Or a Song by Men In Hats?) by Guest Contributor Naomi Ward
• Part III: Kinda Chinese by Guest Contributor Cedric Sam
• Part IV : Oh, really? You were born in Guelph? by Guest Contributor Araba Ocran-Caesar
• Part V: Same same, but different by Guest Contributor Julia Lin
• Part VI: Really Not That Simple by Guest Contributor Paul Dhillon

Appointment of a new Parliamentary Poet Laureate

Parliament of Canada
2011-12-20

December 20, 2011 (Ottawa) – The Speaker of the Senate, the Honourable Noël A. Kinsella, and the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Honourable Andrew Scheer, today announced the appointment of Fred Wah as Canada’s next Parliamentary Poet Laureate [2011-2013], effective immediately. Mr. Wah is the fifth poet to hold this office.

“As a distinguished poet, editor, and teacher Fred Wah is known across Canada for his interest in a range of subjects,” said Speaker Kinsella. “Mr. Wah brings forth a collaborative approach and unique perspective to his work inspiring younger poets, students and others both nationally and internationally with his reflections on Canadian culture.”

“Fred Wah’s poetry is grounded in Canada’s political and social landscapes,” said Speaker Scheer. “He has done much to encourage and promote the importance of literature, culture and language within Canadian society.”

Mr. Wah was selected by the Speakers upon the recommendation of the Selection Committee composed of Graham Fraser, Commissioner of Official Languages; Daniel J. Caron, Deputy Head and Librarian and Archivist of Canada; Robert Sirman, Director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts, and Sonia L’Heureux, Assistant Parliamentary Librarian.

Reflecting on his nomination, Fred Wah intends to share his enthusiasm for new poets and artists, and will bring to the position the passion and dedication he brings to all his work. “My work as Parliamentary Poet Laureate will continue to engage poetry as it represents our homes and migrations, our questions of history and identity. I’m grateful for the opportunity to sustain poetry’s presence in our national imaginary.”

Mr. Wah has been writing and publishing since 1965. Author of five limited-edition chapbooks and 18 books, his repertoire includes the 1986 Governor General Award-wining poetry book Waiting for Saskatchewan. Fred Wah has consistently challenged and thrilled readers and has had a major influence on multiple generations of writers…

Read the entire press release in HTML or PDF format.

The False Laws of Narrative: The Poetry of Fred Wah

Wilfrid Laurier University Press
October 2009
102 pages
Paper ISBN13: 978-1-55458-046-0

Fred Wah, Canada’s Parliamentary Poet Laureate

Edited by:

Louis Cabri, Associate Professor of English
University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada

The False Laws of Narrative is a selection of Fred Wah’s poems covering the poets entire poetic trajectory to date. A founding editor of Tish magazine, Wah was influenced by leading progressive and innovative poets of the 1960s and was at the forefront of the exploration of racial hybridity, multiculturalism, and transnational family roots in poetry. The selection emphasizes his innovative poetic range.

Wah is renowned as one of Canada’s finest and most complex lyric poets and has been lauded for the musicality of his verse. Louis Cabri’s introduction offers a paradigm for thinking about how sound is actually structured in Wah’s improvisatory poetry and offers fresh insights into Wah’s context and writing. In an afterword by the poet himself, Wah presents a dialogue between editor and poet on the key themes of the selected poems and reveals his abiding concerns as poet and thinker.

Edith and Winnifred Eaton: Chinatown Missions and Japanese Romances

University of Illinois Press
2002
240 pages
6 x 9 in.
14 black & white photographs, 7 line drawings
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-252-02721-5

Dominika Ferens, Professor of American Literature and Writing
University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland

Daughters of a British father and a Chinese mother, Edith and Winnifred Eaton pursued wildly different paths. While Edith wrote stories of downtrodden Chinese immigrants under the pen name Sui Sin Far, Winnifred presented herself as Japanese American and published Japanese romance novels in English under the name Onoto Watanna. In this invigorating reappraisal of the vision and accomplishments of the Eaton sisters, Dominika Ferens departs boldly from the dichotomy that has informed most commentary on them: Edith’s “authentic” representations of Chinese North Americans versus Winnifred’s “phony” portrayals of Japanese characters and settings.

Arguing that Edith as much as Winnifred constructed her persona along with her pen name, Ferens considers the fiction of both Eaton sisters as ethnography. Edith and Winnifred Eaton suggests that both authors wrote through the filter of contemporary ethnographic discourse on the Far East and also wrote for readers hungry for “authentic” insight into the morals, manners, and mentality of an exotic other.

Ferens traces two distinct discursive traditions–-missionary and travel writing–-that shaped the meanings of “China” and “Japan” in the nineteenth century. She shows how these traditions intersected with the unconventional literary careers of the Eaton sisters, informing the sober, moralistic tone of Edith’s stories as well as Winnifred’s exotic narrative style, plots, settings, and characterizations.

Bringing to the Eatons’ writings a contemporary understanding of the racial and textual politics of ethnographic writing, this important account shows how these two very different writers claimed ethnographic authority, how they used that authority to explore ideas of difference, race, class and gender, and how their depictions of nonwhites worked to disrupt the process of whites’ self-definition.

Finding Edith Eaton

Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers
Volume 29, Number 2, 2012
pages 263-269
DOI: 10.1353/leg.2012.0017

Mary Chapman, Associate Professor of English
University of British Columbia

Since her critical recovery in the early 1980s, Edith Maude Eaton has been celebrated as the first Asian North American writer and as an early, authentic Eurasian voice countering “yellow peril” discourse through sympathetic literary representations of diasporic Chinese subjects. Eaton, a half-Chinese, half-English writer who wrote under variants of the pseudonym Sui Sin Far, is best known for Mrs. Spring Fragrance, her 1912 collection of Chinatown stories, and for the stories and uncollected journalism reissued in the 1995 collection Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Other Writings. Recent discoveries of unknown works by Eaton made by Martha J. Cutter, Dominika Ferens, and June Howard have begun to complicate our scholarly understanding of both her biography and her oeuvre.
 
Late one night in 2006, I typed Edith Eaton’s name and her best-known pseudonyms (“Sui Sin Far” and “Sui Seen Fah”) into the search bar of Google Books. Instantly, a link came up (one that is, alas, no longer there) to a story signed “Edith Eaton” that appeared in the April 1909 issue of Bohemian Magazine. “The Alaska Widow” is not mentioned in Ferens’s detailed bibliography, in Annette White-Parks’s biography, or in the collection White-Parks co-edited with Amy Ling. It is also uncharacteristic of Eaton’s works. Unlike the stories collected in Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Other Writings, many of which are set in North American Chinatowns and/or feature Eurasian children, this story takes up the cultural dynamic produced by the Alaska gold rush and the Spanish-American War, and it features a child born to a Native American mother abandoned by a Caucasian adventurer father who later dies in the Philippines. “The Alaska Widow” is also unlike most of the works Eaton published after 1898 in that it is signed “Edith Eaton” without any parenthetical reference to her pen name. Because “The Alaska Widow” is so different from other works by Eaton, it made me wonder: How many other unknown stories by Eaton exist, and how might they challenge scholars’ understanding of the author?
 
In the years Eaton actively published (1888-1914), US print culture changed profoundly. The number of newspapers and periodicals quadrupled. While nascent mass newspapers cultivated advertising dollars by becoming politically neutral and purportedly objective, many periodicals marketed themselves to niche audiences organized by class, age, gender, aesthetics, vocation, and other categories. Together Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Other Writings have made available to scholars only about fifty (mostly Chinatown-themed) publications by Eaton. My archival research, combined with contributions from other scholars, including Cutter, Ferens, and Howard, has uncovered nearly two hundred additional texts of diverse genres, themes, styles, and politics published in more than forty different Canadian, United States, and Jamaican periodicals between 1888 and 1914.
 
In her early career, between 1888 and 1896, Eaton placed signed poetry and fiction in small-circulation Montreal publications such as the Dominion Illustrated and Metropolitan Magazine. She also filed regular, unsigned journalistic contributions (primarily about Montreal’s Chinatown) and sent impassioned letters to the editor (signing herself E. E.) about racist policies toward the Chinese in Canada to two local newspapers: the Montreal Daily Witness and Montreal Daily Star. In addition, she filed stories about smallpox outbreaks, fires, and murders from northern Ontario, where she worked as a stenographer from 1892 to 1893. Between 1896 and 1897 she wrote daily society and women’s page news for Jamaica’s Gall’s Daily Newsletter. But Eaton recognized early on that it would be almost impossible to earn a living publishing fiction in Canada. In 1896, therefore, she began to submit Chinatown stories, signed “Sui Seen Far,” to periodicals in the United States—the fin de siècle little magazines Fly Leaf and Lotus, as well as the regional emigration magazine Land of Sunshine and popular magazine Short Stories. On the basis of her success placing these stories, Eaton moved to the United States, relocating to California (San Francisco and Los Angeles), probably…