Multiple Time & Dialogic Space

Dionne Brand

Postmodern City Texts 2013 Fall

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Outline

Introduction Immigrants in Toronto &

Canadian Multiculturalism in Brief

Dionne Brand What We All Long For

chaps 1-8

After In the Skin of a Lion

Toronto the Good and the Grey in the first half of the 20th century

British, Irish, Italian, Jewish, East Europeans, Chinese

http://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/gta_immigration_history.html

South Asians, the Caribbeans, etc. since 1970’s

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Evolution of Multiculturalism in Canada

  Ethnicity Multiculturalism (1970s)*

Equity Multiculturalism (1980s)*

Civic Multiculturalism (1990s)*

Integrative Multiculturalism (2000s)

Focus Celebrating differences

Managing diversity

Constructive engagement

Inclusive citizenship

Reference Point

Culture Structure Society building

Rights and responsibilities

Mandate Ethnicity Race relations Citizenship Identity

Problem Source

Prejudice Systemic discrimination

Exclusion Globalization, security

Solution Cultural sensitivity

Employment equity

Inclusiveness ???

Key Metaphor

‘Mosaic' ‘Level playing field'

‘Belonging' ‘Two-way street'

Page 4•Source: •Fleras, Augie and Jean L. Kunz. 2001. Media and Minorities: Representing Diversity in a Multicultural Canada. Thompson Education Publishing.

Multiculturalism: Questions

Cultural Distinctness, Assimilation or Social Integration

Immigration Policy: How many is too many?

Identity: Babel or Pluralism (Unity in Disunity)

Two Examples Meeting Place (1990) Let's All Hate Toronto (2007)

(41:00; 52:00; 57:00) Page 5

Dionne Brand

A novelist, poet and essayist. A Marxist, Lesbian and Non-Elite

• Not here, nor there:

布蘭德自稱「逃離」家鄉的，因為當時在千里達她身為一個女孩很受限制 ( 所以她也是逃離 femininity Silvera 361-63﹔ ) 。但對她而言，她既不住在「那裡」 ( 千里達 ) ，也不住在這裡 ( 加拿大 ) ，而是在兩者之中 (Birbalsingh 1996: 122) 。

Dionne BrandDionne Brand

Biographical Sketch --fyiBiographical Sketch --fyi

1953 Born in 1953 Born in TrinidadTrinidad

1970 immigrated to Canada 1970 immigrated to Canada at the age of 17at the age of 17

1970s-80s 1970s-80s community workercommunity worker in Toronto in Toronto

1983 Information Officer for the 1983 Information Officer for the Caribbean Caribbean People’s Development Agencies People’s Development Agencies and the and the Agency Agency for Rural Transformation in Grenadafor Rural Transformation in Grenada

1997 won the 1997 won the Governor General’s Award for Governor General’s Award for PoetryPoetry and the Trillium Award for and the Trillium Award for Land to Light OnLand to Light On

A communistA communist who believes in equal distribution of who believes in equal distribution of wealth and ending exploitationwealth and ending exploitation

Founded and edited Founded and edited Our LivesOur Lives, Canada’s first , Canada’s first black women’s newspaperblack women’s newspaper

Brand—a thinker, writer and filmmaker Brand—a thinker, writer and filmmaker

BA in English and Philosophy and an MA in the BA in English and Philosophy and an MA in the Philosophy of Education –in Philosophy of Education –in University of University of TorontoToronto. .

Writer and Filmmaker -- Writer and Filmmaker -- A few examples: A few examples: “Blossom” Sans Souci and other Stories (1988) 9 collections of poems, including

No Language is Neutral (1990), thirsty 4 documentary films, including

Sisters in Struggle (1991), Long Time Comin' (1993), Listening for Something (1996)—(Adrienne Rich)

Novels Novels In Another Place, Not Here In Another Place, Not Here (1997)--novel(1997)--novel Land To Light On Land To Light On (1997)(1997) At the Full and Change of the MoonAt the Full and Change of the Moon—novel—novel What We All Long For (2006) Toronto Book Award

Toronto's new Poet Laureate

: Dionne Brand, 2009

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photo by: jasonchowphotography.com

Her Reading: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07LVxo31hI8 Intro to Toronto & the novelhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J72T6viUe8M

Winter Epigrams (1984)

I give you these epigrams, Toronto,

these winter fragments

these stark white papers

because you mothered me

because you held me with a distance that I expected,

here, my mittens,

here, my frozen body,

because you gave me nothing more

and i took nothing less,

i give you winter epigrams

because you are a liar,

there is no other season here

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What We All Long For: Characters

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Vietnamese Italian-Black Caribbean from Nova Scotia

artist courier poet fashion store owner

heterosexual

homosexual

What We All Long For: Discussion Questions

1. Description of the city: how it is described and personified?

2. Omniscient narrator and Quy: how are they related to the reader “you”?

3. 2nd-Generation characters & their parents: how do they each relate to their parents?

4. 2nd-Generation characters & their desires: what do they long for?

5. Quy: will he belong? (Guess!) Page 13

Plot Summary Chaps 1-8chap Main Character(s)/Themes

1 An overview of the city in early Spring, on subway train –3 of the four characters & Quy

Quy --leaving Vietnam; at Pulau Bidong

2 Tuyen – her brother visiting; about Carla, her parents [the four and their parents]

3 Carla –remembering her visit to Mimico; Carla facing the streets at night

4 Tuyen – calling her friends to help, discussing Jamal and being black [the four and their parents] Oku Jackie; Tuyen Carla

5 City overview—Tuyen’s family in Richmond Hill; about Quy

Quy At the camp

6 Jackie and Oku

7 Oku – about his father Fitz

8 Jackie -- on the streetcar, about her family, Ab und Zu Page 14

Toronto City – Can you relate to it?

Anonymity is the big lie of a city. You aren’t anonymous at all. You’re common, really, common like so many pebbles, so many specks of dirt, so many atoms of materiality. (3)

What floats in the air on a subway train like this is chance. People stand or sit with the thin magnetic film of their life wrapped around them. They think they’re safe, but they know they’re not. Any minute you can crash into someone else’s life, and if you’re lucky, it’s good, it’s like walking on light.” (2)

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Toronto The people, aware of their ground shifting;

permutations of existence at any crossroad; their lives doubled, tripled, conjugated; people in sensational lies

They think they’re safe, but they know they’re not.

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Descriptions of the city: Can you relate to it?

City (commercial center) on Mondays pp. 41, 53-55

A shalwa kamese and a Muslim cap

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Salwar Kameez

2nd Generation Characters

Their high school life pp. 18-19 shared everything except family details; Felt as if they inhabited two countries

20 think their own families boring 19 their parents’ expectation of their living

“regular Canadian life” (47)

debating about Jamal again (48) being black

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2nd Generation Characters

What do they long for? [related to family] Tuyen: an artist, presenting city dwellers’

longing; Carla (Italian—non-Vietnamese)

Tuyen (their sexual intimacy and a space of leave-taking) 50-51 –their talk about C’s having no desire (a week before the lawyer called) 52

Carla: loyalty to her dead mother

Carla’s experience: pp. 28-30 bike riding (the city has muscles and selves); watching 39 (the streets)

Oku: aspiring writer; walking in the city; Jackie

Jackie: [upward mobility] away from poverty, going down “the paths of flowers and trees”

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Tuyen and her Parents

Hates her Vietnamese background: About the Viet. Restaurant p. 21

Parents (65) father: From civil engineer to restaurant

owner Mother: manicurist

Her family family in Richmond Hill – antiseptic and rootless and

desolate 55; Cam – laminates proofs Tuyen’s (“my shit hole”) p. 56; to her mother 62 Tuyen – has wanted to “not be them” Binh and Tuyen –serve as translators for their

parents (67), becoming smarter Against Quy 60

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Tuyen’s Love & Art works

Loves Carla -- 17 reminds her of a painting by Remedios Varo*. 50 – 52 waiting for her to come around

She wanted sensuality, not duty. (61)

Her Art Expresses her love for Carla Expresses her sense of identity

Traveller 64

Her lubaio (14-17) “Messages to the city” (17)

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Quy What do you think about him? Top Concern: Survival

on the boat (7): mistreated at the camp: a mixture of goodness

and brutality --One rule—eat; you “Don’t be

sentimental. Don’t ascribe good intentions.” (9)

-- ran up to be photographed each time (9)

-- metal toy and a boy “the last sign of [his] innocence” (10)

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Quy: The Fittest Survive Quy and the “wicked” boy:

no mercy for the old playmate, only fighting back in order to survive pp. 74-75

I would have maybe said sorry myself; I did not miss him. (75)

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Quy

Communicating to “you”

Avoid being sentimental or fault-finding; seeing through media superficiality about their leaving Vietnam; One parent let go of his hand. “I won’t say who.” (7)Re. journalist

Feel “a lightness, a nonexistence” Other tragedies have

overshadowed his. (74)

Note: Pulau Bidong (source)

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Carla Her action in and observation of the city—

relating to the city through action and gazing riding from the prison to Etobicoke – High Park

– the “muscle of highway and streets” (31) – flies when she rides the bike, embraced by the prison when she stops. (32)

Monday- -walks against the current. Pre-occupied by Jamal’s problems

Jamal – his phone calls & his stories (33-34) (past: tried to get Derek to help without

success)

Distant from Nadine and Derrick.(37) A wall between her and Tuyen (40)

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PERSONAJE ASTRALMadness of the Cat

By REMEDIOS VARO

http://davidjure.wordpress.com/category/figuration-feminine-women-painting-women/

Jackie & Oku (chap 6)

Oku – finds himself losing ground, losing Jackie (72)

His poems for her missed their mark Jackie and Oku in traffic:

People moving, stopping, and the streetcar moving again, with her beautiful back disappearing”

Jackie held him in a kind of glimmer (72) “men are so innocent” (72-73)

Oku –finds himself sounding foolish saying “hook a brother up” (81), hoping that “the cards and posters” contain “a map to her” (81)

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Oku

He hasn’t done anyone any harm, ever. (80) – the idea of moving out (freedom) given up (82-83);

Oku & --Fitz – asked him to work; Fitz -- “small” man for Oku (47); gives the same

lesson every morning 83; Oku does not share anything with him except their

love of music (84-85) Fitz -- Felt held back (86) Oku’s question “you happy Pop?” (86-87)

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Oku

-- Oku –dropping out of school; doubts about a lit master’s degree (87)

-- no talking to Fitz, who has to be certain about everything, or pretends to be.

-- Oku does not have the father’s self-containment or pig-headedness. (88)

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Jackie (chap 8) in the world of fashion,

writing to InStyle (use of different languages) Ab und Zu –advertised itself as selling post-

bourgeois clothing (99);

about her past with “the same mix of desire and revulsion” (91); Alexandra Park (92); Paramount, the father into the

crap games, and the mother, fighting like men. (West Indian girls vs. Scotian girls) Paramount, like church (95)

despised people who don’t know what was happening to them (91)

different feelings about Reiner (apart and in control) and Oku (on the train, liquid and jittery)

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Jackie: “men are so innocent” (73)