Notes on Reading - There There

Someone like me who grew up outside North America, I knew very little about First Nations' history. I learnt more after I came to Canada. I learnt the past on a larger scale when I was at school in China, we learnt about the European maritime navigation era and Colonel, we learnt about how stupid Columbus messed up between India and North America, and how he named First Nations as Indians. However, I did not know the details of those massacres.

In 1637, anywhere from four to seven hundred Pequot gathered for their annual Green Corn Dance. Colonists surrounded their village, set it on fire, and shot any pequot who tried to escape. The next day the Massachusetts Bay Colony had a feast in celebration, and the governor declared it a day of thanksgiving. Thanksgivings like these happened everywhere, whenever there were what we have to call "successful massacres." At one such celebration in Manhattan, people were said to have celebrated by kicking the heads of Pequot people through the streets like soccer balls. - p. 5

Some of us grew up with stories about massacres. Stories about what happened to our people not so long ago. How we came out of it. At Sand Creek, we heard it said that they mowed us down with their howitzers. Volunteer militia under Colonel John Chivington came to kill us - we were mostly women, children, and elders .The men were away to hunt. They'r told us to fly the American flag. We flew that and a white flag too. Surrender, the white flag waved. We stood under both flags as they came at us. They did more than kill us. They tore us up. Mutilated us. Broke our fingers to take our rings, cut off our ears to take our silver, scalped us for our hair. We hid in the hollows of tree trunks, buried ourselves in sand by the riverbank. That same sand ran red with blood. They tore unborn babies out of bellies, took what we intended to be, our children before they were children, babies before they were babies, they ripped them out of our bellies. They broke soft baby heads against trees. Then they took our body parts as trophies and displayed them on a stage in downtown Denver. Colonel Chivington danced with dismembered parts of us in his hands, with women's pubic hair, drunk, he danced, and the crowed gathered there before him was all the worse for cheering and the crowd gathered there before him with all the worse for cheering and laughing along with him. It was a celebration. - p.8

I finished There There within two days; the stories are short but very telling. I felt my heart was infiltrating into the acid water while I was reading. Moreover, this book also explains why there is a loss of indigenous traditions and languages.

Some people can never understand why I am so against white supremacy, let me tell you something. In 2016, the fourth summer of my university, a co-worker I had at Trinity Western University, he bullied me at work, he kept telling me to go back to China. I said this is not your land; this beautiful place belongs to First Nations, you and your ancestors took it from them and lied from the beginning to the end; if you ask me to go to China, then you should go back to Europe too. He got mad and yelled at me: "First Nations are not humans." I remembered I cried. This man just said sorry and mentioned he wanted to "fix" his mistakes. Why do white people always believe that they can fix racism or what they did in the past?

He is a white male, and his name is Michael Loughrin, he goes by Mike, and he was a student at Trinity Western University.

Whenever I am facing discriminations, I feel like I am under the water, I cannot breathe, there are so many words I want to yell back to them, but always my tears come out first instead. After nine years in Canada, I learnt that white people love to push their ideology to other people of different cultural backgrounds. When they are pointing fingers on other businesses, such as democracy, human rights, etc., they are ignoring, covering up, and running away from what they did in the past.

We all indeed trapped in history, cultures, and families. However, it is such a privilege to have one's own culture and avoid successfully from being assimilated or genocide.

Opal and Jacquie's mom never let them kill a spider if they found one in the house, or anywhere for that matter. Her mom said spiders carry miles of the web in their bodies, miles of story, miles of potential home and trap. She said that's what we are. Home and trap. - p.163

Since the 1900s, the West has always wanted to touch the East, the East suffered, but it still stays the same. Some country, such as China, which refuses to be assimilated, and always fights back. This is quite something. Therefore, the West is mad; instead of absorbing it, the West is trying to destroy those who refuse to be assimilated.

Similar to the loss of Indigenous traditions, I also noticed that all those minority traditions are all getting lost in North America, such as Japanese Canadian and Chinese Canadian.

I moved to Canada on my own after I turned 20, and all of a sudden, realized it was such a huge privilege I have when I was in China. My great-grandparents on my father's side moved from Japan to China during the Taisho period. (I know this is not a common one, but maybe google "Manchuria" would be helpful for the historical background. ) As all Japanese descendant who lives outside Japan, my grandparents did not talk about their Japanese heritage with their kids.

However, I got a chance to live in Japan with my grandparents before I turned eight years old. It was not easy for my parents to raise a kid like me; however, they tried their best to allow me to be who I am and to teach me to appreciate both my cultural background. I have a self-explanatory Japaneselized Chinese name. People in the community sometimes forced me to choose a side between Chinese or Japanese. However, my parents never stop me from watching NHK or listening to the Japanese boy band's music or reading Japanese novels. I did indeed struggle so much while I was in school back in Beijing, and, indeed, my father does not speak Japanese; but, we still who we are, and we are proud of our cultures and traditions. My mother always tells me that I am not half, I am the double, and I have the best of both. However, in North America, things are different - minorities are almost afraid of being themselves. They usually keep their heads down, and they even shamed of speaking their languages or eating their food. The older generations always push their children hard, because it is to prepare them for a world made for minorities (or people who are coloured) "...not to live but to die in, shrink, disappear" (p.165); this only shows me how hard to keep their cultures while the racism is around.

No one can be themselves or overcome the discriminations and racism when the authorities are against them. In Canada, there is the Indian Residential School System, Chinese Head Tax, Japanese Internment Camp, Anti-Chinese sentiment, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, etc.

There is an indigenous elder who plays the drum outside the AGO on Dundas/McCaul sometimes afternoon, his eyes are always closed, but the drum never stops. I don't have the knowledge about what is the message behind the drumbeat, but I still stand there and listen for a few minutes. And in my heart, I repeat, I am so happy to see you here again, please don't stop the drum, please keep drumming, please let the drumbeats travel to every individuals' heart, and make their hearts beat along your drum. Please, please.