1. Monkey Beach
English 1102

2. Without Treaty, Without Conquest
In the Delgamuukw court case (1997), the Supreme Court of Canada recognized
that Indigenous title to the lands in most of BC
was never extinguished
Significantly, the ruling agreed that intimate knowledge of the land transmitted in story, family crests, hereditary names, totem poles, etc. constitutes title to the land.
This ruling employed and recognized Indigenous law at the highest level of Canadian law

3. Monkey Beach

4. Monkey Beach

5. Story as title to land
William Gordon Robinson locates the origins of Haisla culture in his version of the popular myth of the “monster” of Kitimaat Arm, “The Story of Hunclee-Qualas or the Founding of Kitamaat”.
He tells of Waa-mis, who “accidentally” killed his wife one night as both of them were sitting by the fire. Fleeing the wrath of his in-laws, Waa-mis encounters the “monster”: the river opened a huge, gaping, white mouth then slowly closed it again. Terror came to his men’s hearts but he, being the leader, was determined to see just what the thing was and in spite of their fear they kept paddling on until the thing opened its mouth again. It was then that they saw that what had been believed to be a mouth was, in reality, a flock of countless millions of seagulls feeding on small fish in the river. The gulls, at times, would all sit on sand bars and then all of a sudden the whole flock would fly up. This was when the mouth was believed to open. When the party had taken enough of the small fish, now called eulachan, or oolachan, they returned to their camp at Kildala where the oldest woman cooked and ate the fish to see if it was good. Shortly afterwards she fell into a deep sleep for the fish were so fat that they had made her very drowsy. When she awoke she pronounced the fish very good and Waa-mis then moved his camp to the Kitamaat River Valley and pitched his new camp at the mouth of what is now called Anderson Creek for that was then the mouth of the Kitamaat River.
Waa-mis hosted a feast and changed his name to Hunclee-qualas; according to W. Robinson, he is honoured as Kitimaat’s fi rst settler.“That’s our story,” he concludes, “[i]t explains our origins and why our land is ours.
That’s how we Haisla came to be here ... and we’re still here. We’ll always be here.”

6. Monkey Beach stories of place

7. Monkey Beach stories of place

8. Monkey Beach

9. Story as title to land
Compare the version of the oral story Lisa inherits from her mother in Monkey Beach to William Robinson’s version from Tales of Kitimaat: “That’s our story,” he concludes, “[i]t explains our origins and why our land is ours.

10. There are at least three visions of ‘nation’ in Monkey Beach
1. Ma-ma-oo: Haisla (means both land and people)
2. Mick: Pan-Indian reclaiming of settler concept; seeks to unify hundreds of nations as all one identity Mick never overtly calls himself Haisla – why?
3. Lisa’s parents, and Jimmy (Olympics): identify as Canadian?
Lisa: renewal of Haisla identity, seeks Ma-ma-oo’s teachings
Younger generations: resurgence, rebuilding – and hybridity

11. Diaspora Diaspora: di·as·po·ra/ dīˈaspərə/
From Greek dia (across) + speirein (scatter)
Same root as ‘spore,’ part of plant that disperses/scatters
First used to describe diasporas within ancient Greece,
Then “Jewish diaspora” after expulsion from Jerusalem, 70 AD
Then used to describe other cataclysmic expulsions:
“Armenian Diaspora” (genocide)
“African Diaspora” (slavery)
The concept ‘migrates’ between cultures, spreading and changing meaning
More recently the meaning of Diaspora has ‘migrated’ (changed/expanded) to signify any mass dispersal away from a perceived ‘homeland,’ for any reason, whether forced or chosen (not just ‘cataclysmic expulsion’):
-“Hong Kong diaspora”
-“South Asian diaspora”
-Engineers, business people, etc. etc.
In its original meaning, signifies state of exile, yearning to ‘return’ to lost homeland

12. Diaspora
Dia spora:
Actual return may be eschatological (i.e. end times orientation) or may in practice be endlessly deferred as generations ‘put down roots’ in the (so-called) ‘new’ home.
In practice, the ‘routes’ travelled become ‘roots’, and the networks formed among ‘nodes’ in the diasporic nation become home, one characterized by the expressed ‘desire to return’ and the yearning for the lost original homeland, a homeland which one may never have seen and to which one may not actually return in any foreseeable future.
The Diasporic networks thus formed may have multiple cultural centres (in different nation-states), with networks of communication and support between the ‘nodes.’ These networks and ‘routes’ become their own ‘home.’
Thus ,‘Diaspora’ offers a counterpoint to nation-state formations, a way of ‘dwelling differently’ : ‘staying’ in the ‘new’ place, but being different.
Further cataclysmic expulsions can lead to state of ‘double diaspora’: ex: WWII JCs expulsed from BC Coast, where community had put down roots.

13. Notions of Nation
Diaspora within Canada:

14. Notions of Nation ‘Nation’ identities can be:
1. Statist (nations that want a state) or non-statist (do not want a state)
Statist nationalisms: Québecois, Acadian, Hindutva, Palestinian
Non-Statist nations: Haisla, Blackfoot, Tshimshian, etc.
2. Sub-state (i.e. smaller/below): Acadian, Haida, Québecois, Métis, Haisla,
Sub-state nationalism can include:
diasporic support for nationalisms of existing states (ex: Ukranian, Greek, Irish, Scottish, Zionist nationalism as it manifests in Canada)
diasporic nationalisms for ‘national liberation’ (ie.. State-seeking) movements of stateless nations (Tamil, Palestinian, Basque, Tibetan nationalism within Canada). Ex: support in Toronto for Tamil self-determination.
3. ‘Above’ or bigger than states: Pan-Africanism, Pan-Indianism
4. Can Cross state boundaries (Mohawk, Blackfoot, Iroquois/Haudenasunee)

15. Monkey Beach

16. Monkey Beach

17. Key Moments in Canadian Multiculturalism
~1860s: free entry policy; government gives land to European settlers
1858~: Chinese immigration during Gold Rush
1867: Constitution Act assigned Parliament legislative jurisdiction over "Indians and Lands reserved for the Indians.“ Policy of full assimilation.
1876: Indian Act passed. Enfranchisement in exchange for assimilation/loss of Status.
: Immigration from China sought by Canada, to build CPR
1903 South Asian immigration picks up, disenfranchised between
s: ‘White Canada’ laws and policies:
The ‘Border’ first appears in The Immigration Act of 1910.
Chinese Head Tax ($50 in 1885, $100 in 1900, $500 in 1903) and Exclusion Act (1923)
1910 ‘Continuous Journey’ regulation excludes British Subjects from India
1910 Exclusion in Immigration Act: ‘unsuited to the climate of Canada’ (mainly targeting British Subjects from India and the Carribean)
1914: Komagata Maru
WWII ‘None is too many’ policy
WWII: expulsion of BC’s coastal Japanese Canadian community
Denial of citizenship even to those born in Canada
1963 Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, response to Quebecois, Indigenous, and racialized minority demands for equality
Official Languages Act of 1969 made English and French the official languages of Canada; two ‘founding’ or ‘charter’ nations.
1971 Multiculturalism adopted as federal policy, ‘within Bilingual framework’
Non-immigrant Employment Authorization Program created the category of the worker who does not gain citizenship
1988 Official Multiculturalism becomes law: The Multiculturalism Act
1988 Free Trade Agreement (FTA) passed between Canada and US same year

18. Hybridity in Monkey Beach
Monkey Beach is hybrid in several ways:
-Oral narrative into written novel form
-Bildungsroman, altered:
- more characters, social networks more important
-transformation theme of Bildungsroman takes on Indigenous resonance i.e. via Raven (374), trickster figure whose role is to create transformation
-Lisa does not come to accept dominant cultures’ social role as expected of protagonist in traditional Bildungsroman
-Form: patchwork mixing: recipes, history, scientific text, story, etc.
-language is hybrid: traditional/natural and technological
-visions of land (and those who inhabit it) are hybrid: are the spirit beings real?

19. Hybrid language in Monkey Beach natural/technological
Similes: blend natural and technological

20. Are the spirit beings and visions real?
222 – vision of dead crow with missing wing – ‘teenaged’ – ‘transformed’
324 – Jimmy’s disappearance begins with injuring his arm

21. Visions of land (and spirits who share the land) are hybrid: are the spirit beings real?

22. Visions of land (and spirits who share the land) are hybrid: are the spirit beings real?

24. Relationship to Land
Five minutes quiet solo writing: What is your relationship to land? -family support / source of income -relaxation / vacation -where you live / own / rent (title to land?) -food, water, waste -origin and connection

26. Reading The Innocent Traveller
What / who does Topaz notice and not notice? Who does she meet?
How would a novel like The Innocent Traveller perhaps fit into the ways that Canada or Canadian culture as it was taking shape culturally (1910s – 1970s) would like to think of itself? How might this shift over the time between when the novel is set, when it was written, when it was published and when it became canonical?
How does Topaz understand (or not) the people she interacts with?
What or whose voices are distorted or missing in the narrative?
Were The Innocent Traveller’s Topaz to meet Monkey Beach’s Lisa, whose stories would be hegemonic? Who has the structural power to assert which are ‘real’ and legitimate and which are ‘just stories’?
What kinds of power (cultural, personal, ancestral) or awareness of who she is does Lisa have access to with which to resist this hegemonic notion of her land, her identity and culture?

27. from The Innocent Traveller

28. from The Innocent Traveller

29. from The Innocent Traveller

30. from The Innocent Traveller

31. from The Innocent Traveller

32. National Film Board: Joe
National Film Board: Joe

33. Segregation of swimming areas
The significance of Simone Manuel’s medal, first Black woman to medal for Olympic swimming, is greater than her individual win
Segregation of swimming areas

34. Segregation of swimming areas
A hotel in Las Vegas drained its pool in 1953 after the movie star Dorothy Dandridge dipped her toe in the water. Another pool was drained after the beloved singer/dancer Sammy Davis Jr had swum in it.
Segregation of swimming areas

35. Segregation of swimming areas
St. Augustine, FL, Fully clothed bystander jumps into pool to remove black swimmers at motel. Moments later, the motel manager poured acid in the water to drive them out.
Segregation of swimming areas

36. Segregation of swimming areas
Denied ready access to pools and swimming areas, Black people were then subjected to a myth that they ‘couldn’t swim’ which survived long after the end of Jim Crow
(source: Isabel Wilkerson)
Segregation of swimming areas

37. Segregation of swimming areas
Denied ready access to pools and swimming areas, Black people were then subjected to a myth that they ‘couldn’t swim’ which survived long after the end of Jim Crow
(source: Isabel Wilkerson)
Segregation of swimming areas

38. Segregation of swimming areas
English Bay was racially segregated except for Fortes
Meanwhile, housing policies and redlining across North America maintained segregation and set the stage for wealth disparity that continues today
Vancouver was no exception – meanwhile, Hogan’s Alley razed to make way for Georgia st Viaduct
Segregation of swimming areas