Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 122-147
Always a Domes c?: The Ques on of Canadian Redemp on and Belonging in Selected Literature by Black Canadian Writers
Sharon Morgan Beckford Rochester Ins tute of Technology
Dr. Sharon Morgan Beckford, Department of English, Rochester Ins tute of Technology [email protected]
Abstract: The narra ves of black writers of Caribbean descent living in Canada provide a useful perspec ve on blacks and belonging in Canada. Their stories elevate the history and legacy of the Domes c Worker Program, which from the 1950s brought young black women from the Bri sh Caribbean to Canada.1 This program began in an era when Canada’s immigra on policies severely restricted Caribbean people from migra ng to and se ling in Canada. These early immigrants were the forerunners of later streams of black immigrants from around the world. In my reading of a selec on of fic on by Aus n Clarke, Dionne Brand, Cecil Foster, and David Chariandy, I argue that their narra ves show that while immigra on policies may have changed, the social posi oning and inequali es imposed on the domes cs s ll explain the social roles and posi oning of blacks in Canada. These writers speculate whether, historically, the narra ve of the black female in Canada is always to be imagined as a domes c.
public library, a short distance from In November 2007 I attended an parliament, the Supreme Court, and the event of little national note in residence of then Governor-General Ottawa, the Canadian capital. It was Michaëlle Jean, the first black in Canada to celebrate the 41st anniversary of to hold this regal position and herself a Barbados independence and to mark Caribbean immigrant.3 the 50th anniversary of the official arrival of the first women from the In comments to the gathering, British Caribbean under the Senator Ann Cools—like Jean another Domestic Worker Scheme.2 The black and Caribbean woman to reach celebrated women were not the first national prominence—reminded the West Indians to arrive in Canada as three generations of women4 in the domestics, but one of the traits audience that although much has been remarkable about them as a achieved for blacks in Canada, the pioneering group was their efforts to pioneering work of the early domestic escape the ascribed status of recruits was still incomplete.5 She said domestics and to transform Canadian blacks were still fighting for themselves into Canadians capable greater social inclusion, a sense of of living out their life dreams—just belonging, a challenge the keynote like ordinary Canadians. The speaker at the event, Cecil Foster, celebration was held at the Ottawa dubbed as a struggle for recognition and
122 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 122-147 human dignity. This paper is about —appear unable to escape the social the story of that unfinished business, positioning and stigma reserved as constructed through the fiction historically for domestic workers. This written by Caribbean-born analysis is about women as social agents Canadians: Austin Clarke’s novels and whether those with black skin in The Meeting Point (1967) and More Canada can ever liberate themselves (2008); Dionne Brand’s novel In from the dominant perception that the Another Place, Not Here (1996) and color of their skin makes them good only short stories “Blossom” (1989) and for the social position of domestic “No rinsed blue sky, no red flower workers. fences” (1989); Cecil Foster’s novel Sleep On, Beloved (1995); and David For the black female in general, Chariandy’s novel Soucouyant the ideal redemption painted by these (2007). I contend that these black writers is based on the hope of attaining writers use fiction to tell the stories subjectivity in and belonging to the of immigrants and the later Canadian nation-state. It is what the generations of Canadians they leading characters in these works produced. They articulate the perceive as a promise of a better life that experiences of the black female would lead to social integration into the subject, as an outsider, sacrificing Canadian mainstream and to full herself in the hope of a better life in attainment of all the rights and a new land. Her desire, something I responsibilities of a citizen. This ideal call a hope for C a n a d i a n goes beyond merely the economic. In an redemption, is for ultimate ideal world, these fictional characters transformation from marginal status experience desired redemption when into full citizenship. their dreams are realized. As with the real life women on whom the fictional Highly intuitive, the notion counterparts are modeled, obstacles are of Canadian redemption is always in their path to this redemption. simultaneously personal and In both the fictional and the practical impersonal: it is deeply personal for worlds, the obstacles to social the individual who hopes to achieve actualization are best exemplified by the that redemption in society, a state and its seeming unwillingness to profoundly impersonal space. In this allow the women to realize their dreams. context, I am suggesting that the This is where so-called fact and fiction notion of redemption as it traveled combine for a single narrative, one that across time and, as made current in is picked up in the realistic novels and this fiction, now speaks of the short stories of the writers under review. dreams and experiences of all black The conflict, as depicted in these stories, females in general, both those whose is usually a result of differences in status in life is still the domestic and perspective on belonging, as those who work in other fields but demonstrated by the state or the female who—merely because they are black characters themselves.
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For example, the Canadian redemption is imaginary, something that government’s ideal of redemption is starts out as a hope in the transcendent, one of benevolence—a form of because, in a sense, only the women objectification of the agentless black themselves can feel they have been body. Historically, the Canadian redeemed. Feelings cannot be proven nation’s aim to ease the economic objectively, but, nonetheless, they can problems of the less fortunate still be measured—such as how socially members of the British Empire was entrenched these women feel they have to provide rotating, temporary become and, perhaps even more opportunities of employment to important, whether future generations of selected female migrants when black women enjoy social mobility, that Canada needed a cheap supply of is they are not restricted only to menial labor. This goal was the genesis of and marginal roles in the society. Thus, I the Domestic Worker Program, turn to fiction to examine how they feel which itself was the precursor to about themselves and their status. more open immigration by blacks from the 1960s onwards, thereby Theorist Hilde Lindemann producing a black presence in major Nelson (2001) states in Damaged Canadian cities. The primary aim of Identities, Narrative Repair that the the domestic program was not to construction of stories—in this case help individuals per se but rather a those of the fiction genre—are how part of the British Empire with an some groups damaged historically can oversupply of labor. These make themselves whole. Indeed, individuals would be prescribed narratives such as fiction help to locate universal duties agreed to by the such people in time and space. I argue governments. They had to meet the that through these narratives of needs of Canadians as domestic immigrant women, Canadian blacks give workers, even if it meant sacrificing themselves a sense of rootedness and personal dreams. They would be belonging—a sense of citizenship even positioned in the Canadian society as when they might be living on the itinerant economic beings with no margins. This is why fiction is an real social attachment to the wider appropriate genre for this undertaking, society. for the narrative of Canadian redemption is one of intangibles. Studying the However, for black women, selected fictional works allow us to redemption was something analyze this desired redemption completely different. It had very subjectively—as what the women little to do with their work status but themselves define and require. These more with the type of social stories place the struggle for redemption personalities they could become after in time, for they speak of the past, the they had transitioned from their present, and the speculative hopes and entry-level status as domestic dreams of their black female characters. workers. Indeed, for the women this
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Fiction privileges the imaginary, employment visa foreclosed belonging, merging the real and the idealized. full acceptance, recognition, and integration. These programs were never These authors place their intended to make the women feel they characters in situations similar to belonged.6 I mean to use the term those women on the scheme or belonging as described by scholar Cecil holding temporary employment visas Foster in his award-winning book to effectively demonstrate their Blackness and Modernity: The Colour of realization that Canadian redemption Humanity and the Quest for Freedom is a myth: the widely held belief that (2008): migrating to Canada would allow individuals to attain a strong sense of Mythologically, Western financial independence and to societies have been achieve upward social mobility, all imagined as gardens of the things they imagined would purity and enlightenment come with the attainment of full that have been carved out citizenship. When the goals of the o f a w i l d e r n e s s o r myth are not realized, the characters Blackness that is the rest remain in a social and personal void. of humanity in its natural They are portrayed as being unable state. Those that belong to redeem the promise of redemption have traditionally been due to some personal i m a g i n e d a s W h i t e , “insufficiency” (King 1963). possessing unchangeable However, these women know that purity, goodness, and their failure is more socially imposed cultural enlightenment. than personally inflicted. The primary determinant of belonging is not the In the authors’ telling, the outer feature, such as sense of not belonging is germane to colour of the skin, but an the experiences of the domestics. u n w a v e r i n g a n d The programs that brought these unchanging commitment women to Canada were intended to and good intent to the meet the continued demand for ideals of society. Those domestic workers by white that do not share these Canadians. After the Domestic inner qualities are Worker Scheme was cancelled in imagined as Black, as the 1967, Canada adopted the Other. (65-66, emphasis Temporary Employment Visa added) program in 1973 to which those desiring to enter Canada as Foster’s notion of belonging highlights domestics could apply and be the problems for blacks in Canada. The admitted. However, the ideals of black/white have been mapped temporariness of this new to skin color, meaning whether blacks
125 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 122-147 have “an unwavering and In considering the demand for unchanging commitment and good domestic workers, Canadians were intent to the ideals of society,” it is reaching back into their history when difficult for them to experience they reflected on the need for black belonging. They will quite likely be workers. The first instance pointed to an seen as outsiders, “the stranger, the earlier domestic workers program for unknown, the corrupter” (Foster 66). women from Guadeloupe. This time, This is the ideology that governs, however, it went for British instead of objectively, the placement and French West Indians. Second, whether position of the domestic workers on British or French, the newcomers arrival, and blacks in Canada, conformed to an old stereotype of the generally. No need to spoil the ideal black worker as a domestic. For mythological garden. This approach these reasons I find the trope of the does not take into account what the domestic useful in this analysis: the women, as subjects, want for figure of the domestic worker, what I themselves. categorize as the archetypal domestic, is part of the dominant Canadian After the Second World War, imaginary. It is not so far removed from when Canadians imagined the mammy figure, such as Aunt Jemima industrious black women in the and Mammy of Gone with the Wind in Caribbean, they thought of domestic the North American imagination of the workers. Around this time, the ideal black female.7 Like the mammy, the domestic worker for Canadians was domestic is a historical figure in black white and European. It was only Caribbean and North American lore. It when efforts to attract Europeans describes the black female as an failed, and because of pressure from outsider, even when she is physically the Mother Country to consider present in a home that is not hers. She alternate supply sources, that Canada sacrifices herself in the hope of reluctantly adopted the West Indian ultimately transforming herself fully into domestic scheme in 1955. In 1967, a citizen, in what is analogously the when Canada changed its Canadian home; this is the redemption immigration policy to an individual she seeks. The black female, in the points system rather than country of language of the discourse on Canadian preference, the domestic scheme was multiculturalism, is seeking recognition cancelled. Because the new as a full human who enjoys all the immigration policy was intended to privileges and rights of Canadian remove racial discrimination, there citizenship. was, therefore, no need for a special scheme to admit Caribbean These Caribbean women, as domestics (Barber 24). In all cases, captured in the fiction, are fighting blacks were not imagined by against a fixed notion of the black mainstream Canadians as belonging female as a domestic in Canada. As I centrally to the Canadian nation. will show, it was the myth of the black
126 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 122-147 female as an ideal domestic that either gender, the dominant groups in brought these pioneering women to Canadian society see them as no Canada. Therefore, the ideal of the different from the pioneers. They are black female as a domestic was one always the domestics. They find that was held objectively of these themselves objectified, as historical women—by those who set figures in their marginalization, in what immigration policies and who would they believe should, by now, be fully determine what groups of people home for them. were best suited to make Canada their home. As the literature shows, To this end, the Caribbean even if these women were females arrive into a dominant myth that objectively domestics, they never they hope to reshape. Indeed, they must saw themselves only as domestics or have realized that those who arrived as being marginalized for long in earlier as domestics never escaped from Canadian society. As agents, they this ascribed status. Ironically, it is had dreams for themselves. Their because the previous groups did not aspirations speak to how these achieve their Canadian redemption that women see themselves transforming it was possible for Canadian elites to into citizens so that with time they consider another generation of women would not be stereotypically seen as from the Caribbean as ideal domestics. domestics. Therefore, attaining full citizenship was a tough task for those seeking Canadian A close reading of the works redemption, for the myth of the proper by the selected writers demonstrates place and position for black women in how they are concerned with the the Canadian society was already well picture of black women struggling entrenched. over their desire to be imagined fully as Canadians. They fight against In effect, the Caribbean-born their seeming inability to escape authors picked up the stories of the from a wider perception that holds efforts of these disillusioned women and, them fixed in the Canadian in a sense, continued in this vein of imaginary as only domestics. Worse testing the accepted view of how the for them, as depicted in these black female—this time originating in narratives, the generations that the British Caribbean—fits into the followed, including the children of Canadian national narrative of the now the migrants, faced the same kinds of expanded black community and its sense struggle: even though they imagined of identity, belonging, and full themselves socially as fully citizenship. For example, in her short Canadian and capable of achieving story “For Tea and Not for Service,” any status they desired, they still felt Nova Scotian author Maxine Tynes limited in what they could make of alludes to the kind of world the themselves. In the minds of the new Caribbean female would be entering. generation of black Canadians of Importantly, the story gestures to the
127 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 122-147 history of blacks in Canada from its those under the Domestic Worker earliest beginning8 in the province of Scheme would be arriving. Nova Scotia and locates the presence of the domestic in this setting. Tynes’s story invokes three Furthermore, it reaffirms the important concerns for this paper: first, enduring presence of the domestic the presence of the archetypal domestic figure in the fiction of black worker in black Canadian literature. In Canadian writers, precisely because the literature by black Canadian writers Tynes’s protagonist is black and of Caribbean descent, this figure Nova Scotian, and, therefore, represents an important trope that works provides a base on which to situate across generations. As a recurring device the following discussion. in this fiction, the archetypal domestic becomes an endearing and enduring Blacks have been living in literary figure, precisely because she Canada since the 17th century, but symbolizes the hopes and dreams of Tynes’s short story demonstrates that blacks who have migrated from the despite the longevity, black women Caribbean to Canada. At times she may in Nova Scotia and in Canada represent the hopes of black mothers, generally continued to suffer racism sisters, fathers, brothers, and lovers. Too, during the mid-20th century. The she embodies the experiences of the protagonist Celie has received black Canadian-born domestic servant international acclaim in the 1940s– who, like her, is perceived as an outsider. 1950s as a singer. The Imperial So her fight is the same as the domestics, Daughters of Halifax, an elite group who, like her, have always existed in of white women, has invited her to Canada. She cannot escape being have a celebratory tea. At the tea, imagined as a domestic worker by white Celie was avoided. She felt alone. Canadians. This overdetermined identity No one spoke to her. Indeed, one of points to a second concern: the Imperial Daughters “proclaimed speculatively, the black female, no to all and sundry that afternoon that, matter her accomplishment, cannot celebrated songstress or not, she escape the social positioning as a could barely abide being to tea with domestic. The third concern has to do ‘that gal.’. . . In fact, as she said or with the refusal of the dominant boasted. ‘It was all I could do to members of society to accept an keep from asking that gal to go down accomplished black woman into their to the cellar to fetch a scuttle of circle, clearly symbolizing the social coal’” (89). Only Dora, a woman exclusion of blacks from belonging to from Celie’s previous neighborhood, the nation-state and from receiving full was kind to her. As it happened, recognition of acceptance and belonging. Dora was the live-in domestic, These concerns raise the question: Are serving tea at the party. Such, then, black women in Canada always was the social climate into which imagined as domestics even when they perform different social roles? Some
128 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 122-147 black Canadian fiction writers seem domestic workers, most of whom were to say so, and, in their eyes, their exploited and oppressed and kept in their proof is the narrative that is history. positions by fear of deportation (Barber 24). This is a point at which fiction and Historical Narra ves non-fiction writers converge. Many The legacy of the Domestic Worker black Canadian writers, such as Makeda Scheme and it successor the Silvera, H. Nigel Thomas, and Agnes Temporary Employment Visa Calliste, highlight exploitation, sexual Program further reinforce the and physical abuse, oppression, and positioning that situates blacks as isolation as some of the main issues outsiders unable to self-actualize and facing the migrants. enjoy their accomplishments. The scheme began when Canada’s However, especially when these immigration policies severely narratives are taken up academically, restricted Caribbean people from there is little discussion of why these migrating to and settling in Canada. I domestic workers remained in Canada argue that while immigration rather than return to their homelands. policies may have changed, the This is a main point I will focus on in social positioning and inequalities this paper. I maintain that these imposed on the domestics still Caribbean women endure this treatment explain the social roles and by relying on the hope for Canadian positioning of blacks in Canada. redemption. They sacrifice their sense of Therefore, to get a keener self in the hope of redemption in a new appreciation of what it means to be social setting. I argue that evidence of black in Canada today, it is useful to this desire for Canadian redemption can reflect on the legacy of this scheme. be found in the fiction narrative. The works of several black Canadian writers, The Canadian government such as Clarke, Brand, Foster, Silvera, considered this scheme as a “foreign Chariandy, Tynes, H. Nigel Thomas, aid policy” and the participants as and, most importantly, George Elliott mainly seeking relief from economic Clarke, a seventh generation African poverty and limited opportunities in Nova Scotian, speak to this yearning for their countries of origin (Silvera transformation as redemptive.9 1989; Barber 1991; and Calliste 1991). The narrative in a selection of To this end, the idea of belonging black Canadian fiction tells a to the nation-state remains central to the different story. It argues that while hope that these women had for offering an escape from limited redemption into the Canadian garden. resources and opportunities, the But, as Silvera argues, this hope was scheme placed these women in founded on a perceived promise of compromised positions. The laws of redemption based on false advertising the day did more to protect the that increased the number of applicants, Canadian employers than the resulting in the exploitation of the
129 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 122-147 availability of women coming to Canadian redemption was not only Canada on temporary employment about improving themselves by coming visas, perhaps encouraging them to to Canada but also about changing the have false dreams. She asserts: Canadian social perception of the women. The misconception of Canada as the land of milk and honey is reinforced by airline Textual Analyses: The Past advertisements, domestic Becomes the Present agencies, weekly dramas Austin Clarke’s trilogy The Meeting on the television set Point (1967), Storm of Fortune (1973), w h i c h s h o w N o r t h and The Bigger Light (1975) focuses on America as the land of the issues of acceptance and belonging plenty where happiness for black immigrant characters from the and wealth can be bought Caribbean, reinforcing the importance of on credit and where maids their experience not only to the like those shown on development of Canada but also to the weekly sit-coms, are legacy of later generations of blacks. For treated with respect and as example, in The Meeting Point, through a special part of the the black female domestic worker’s family. (5) voice and presence, Clarke inscribes blackness in the Canadian literary The women arrived to face a clash in imaginary from the perspective of a perception. They came for a better Caribbean-born writer. Clarke’s life, or Canadian redemption. They protagonist Bernice and her fellow encountered “widespread domestic, Dots, are reminders to readers prejudice . . . and the racism about the 1960s in Canada, the existence imbedded within a system which of the scheme, and the inability of thrives on the labour of women of domestics to achieve social mobility in colour from Third World countries, the Canadian setting. We see Clarke women who are brought to Canada return to this struggle in his novel More, to work virtually as slaves in the written some 50 years later, published homes of both wealthy and middle just after the 50th anniversary of those class Canadian families” (Silvera 5). women who had arrived on the scheme. With the entrenched belief that black That picture for blacks is even bleaker women should be domestic workers, this time around. Later we will return to with the help of the laws and More. immigration policies, employers ensured they remained in that role. Clarke’s Meeting Point captures As the fiction writers suggest, in the the lived reality of women in situations end, all these women had left of their similar to that of Bernice; she remains real selves was hope—now ambivalent about the benefits of living in
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Canada, while desiring the physical Barbados” (28). Bernice’s ambivalence benefits usually indicative of reminds us that desires are always belonging, such as better and more changing: the Bernice now living in consumer products that are generally Canada desires a status change; the old associated with living the good life. Bernice of Barbados within her, The Burrmann’s children and their however, recognizes that in terms of her friends often made Bernice feel a physical survival, she is better off in this diminished sense of self by speaking present situation. We recognize, too, that about her in racist ways. Once the her desires would have to be frozen in young Ruthie Burrmann had to time for her now to consider her present remind the Gasstein children that situation as redemptive. “she’s our maid . . . And she’s a person” (24). The Gasstein boy Although financially stable, remarked, “Mummy called the Bernice’s position in society prevents woman on the pancake box, Aunt her from enjoying the fruits of her labor Jerimima, Bernice’s sister, because and satisfying her desires. She has she is a nigger” (24), and later he friends, but she does not have access to exclaimed, “She’s only a maid!” the social spaces that would make her Bernice endured the taunting from feel she has attained her dream: this young boy, who, with his “mouth turned up in a sneer . . . his One day, in a pit of tongue hanging out in derisive depression, Bernice went contempt” sang, “And eeny-meeny- down to Eaton’s department miney, moe! and catch a black store and brought back two nigger by her toe . . .” (28). After this hundred dollars in dresses incident Bernice reflected on how plus a ninety-dollar swim several times over the 32 months she suit. She put on the dresses; had been employed by the but she did not wear them Burrmanns, she had considered out of the apartment. There leaving her employer “without was nowhere to go. And so notice, and with the kitchen sink full she called her friend, Dots, of dirty dinner dishes” (28). and the two of them However, she reconsidered: a l t e r n a t e l y d r e s s e d “Always, her mind was changed for themselves in the dresses, her by the terror of facing a and modeled the swim Canadian winter without a job” and suit . . . . The next day, losing her apartment “which was Bernice telephoned Eaton’s part of her wages for working as a to pick up the clothes. . . . domestic. It was her self-contained Dots had liked the swim suit; shelter, against herself and other and wanted to keep it. But racial fallout. This apartment remembered in time (‘Where contained more facilities than she I would wear this thing, eh, had ever known back in gal? In the backyard in the
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summer? ’Cause I have what Karen Flynn (2003) describes as a never seen one Negro form of privileging immigrants that person in any o’ these Canadian officials felt could assimilate swimming pools they easily (252). Bernice, therefore, leaves have all over this city!’). the Toronto Negro Baptist Church to (29) attend the Unitarian Congregation, “a cleaner, wealthier church” (29-30) that Clearly these women knew Mrs. Burrmann used to attend. In this that their desire for luxury was setting she performs an elevation in unrealistic. The sacrifice of being the status, but she can only do this in the domestic without the possibility of a confines of this church where “the status change had overwhelmed congregation was all white — or mostly Bernice, who felt taken for granted white” (30). When she leaves this after 32 months of serving Mrs. environment, she returns to her real Burrmann, who did not think twice status, her position as a domestic. about offering Bernice’s service to her friend in need: “I will send Bernice’s friend Gertrude, whose Bernice over,” offered Mrs. social life revolved around a similar Burrmann. “She can do the work of a “white” church, was not as fortunate as mule, two mules, ha-ha! and look her and Dots to be placed with you don’t even have to bother paying employers in Toronto, where they could her anything. Bernice will come, be part of a community of other blacks darling” (8). like themselves, when the performance of whiteness was over. Bernice thinks Throughout it all, Bernice about Gertrude’s plight: still desires to change her status and to become a Canadian. She writes …remember, Bernice, do you her mother: “I following the lead of remember Gertrude? And my mistress, and trying to improve what happen to her? Never a my mind. She gone back to school, soul with who she could taking lessons. . . . This lady, Mrs. exchange a word with…. Burrmann, have learning already, Days and days pass, and not and money too. I don’t know yet one o’ we women from the which road to follow. But I intend to West Indies ever went up to follow both; and get some of O r i l l i a a n d s e e h o w both” (30-31). Based on Mrs. Gertrude making out….Lord, Burrmann’s example, Bernice and when all of us was believes that education and wealth thinking that things up there would lead to Canadian redemption. was rosy, that Gertrude was Thus she aspires to be like her making money like water, employer and to enjoy the same Gertrude, oh dear loss! flat lifestyle. Moreover, Bernice desires on her back in a mental “whiteness” as “Canadianness,” hospital. Gertrude let the
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loneliness and the hard “Some were carrying placards; some just work go to her head, and walking. A few black persons (mostly it sent her straight inside women) were walking and holding down the insane hospital…. Up their heads as if they thought they should there in the wilderness, not be seen.” The placards read: all by herself.... (31-32) “CANADA IS NOT ALABAMA,” “END RACE PREJUDICE NOW,” Isolation leads to loneliness, and this “BLACK EQUALS WHITE,” and was Gertrude’s experience. In this “NEGROES ARE PEOPLE” (304). figurative wilderness—ironically not They had to protest for redemption sake. a garden as in the garden of the As the archetypal domestic, the black dominant narrative—she was female is unable to escape the socially alienated from her self and her constructed role in which she is placed. community, an alienation that Her status might change, but Canadian predictably led to madness. Her redemption could only be a dream, an insanity, then, can be understood as a ideal in the transcendent and beyond her result of her inability to feel a sense reach. of belonging. As Clarke suggests, isolation and alienation become the Dionne Brand switches the lenses reality for some of the migrant in her representation of independent women whether living in the black immigrant women living in metropolis or hinterland. Bernice, Toronto. These women refuse to submit however, continues her quest for to abuse and denigration even though whiteness, to belong to the Canadian they are domestic workers. In her short garden. At the end of the novel, story “Blossom,” the black female Bernice is no closer to attaining her characters attempt several dream. entrepreneurial activities to support themselves. They claim their subjectivity Clarke portrays the by refusing to tolerate exploitation by experiences of black women living their employers, such as when the in Toronto during the 1960s, protagonist Blossom enters into private characterized as either domestic contracts as a domestic worker; the workers or nurses who, like the narrator explains: “Well now is five domestics, had social limits placed years since Blossom in Canada and on them.10 In a sense, nurses were nothing ain’t breaking. She leave the imaginatively domestics. Their people on Oriole for some others on desires, their failures, and their Balmoral. The white boss-man was a inability to overcome the limit of doctor. Since the day she reach, he social exclusion and to belong are eyeing she, eyeing she” (33). Wise to the made all the more palpable during a doctor’s intention, Blossom waits until scene, near the end of the novel, he sneaks up on her to “grab on to he depicting a small group of black little finger and start to squeeze it back women advocating for equality: … and he had to scream out. Blossom
133 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 122-147 sheself start to scream like all hell, waiting for their redemption that might until the wife and children run not be realized. Their presence lays bare downstairs too” (33). Blossom society’s need for illegal workers (who embarrassed the family by exposing otherwise would have been deported). the doctor’s intentions to his family, However, though needed, their the neighbors, and the police, all of illegitimacy forecloses belonging, but whom were intimidated by their desire to be legalized fuels the Blossom’s tirade. She was not afraid condition because it is their only way of to challenge the abuse and make it existing momentarily until they can known. She had to claim her improve their circumstances. redemption by withdrawing from mainstream society and creating a Such is the case in Brand’s short space in which she could self- story “No rinsed blue sky, no red flower actualize. Eventually Blossom fences.” The nameless protagonist claims her redemption by turning to confines herself to her apartment out of religion and spirit possession and fear of being found living illegally in using her entrepreneurial skills to Canada. Brand describes her protagonist start a speakeasy business supported and her charge: “She, black silent and by blacks in her community. They unsmiling; the child, white, tugging and feel a sense of belonging in this laughing, or whining” (87). After underground enterprise—a familiar working six years as an illegal babysitter space that reminds them of back in Canada, she longs to return to the home—but a space that, Caribbean. However, she remains, nevertheless, marks them as although she has a baby she sends back outsiders. home because an illegal mother cannot register her baby, even if the laws Brand portrays another require everybody be registered. She is manifestation of the archetypal afraid of being evicted from her domestic in her short story “No apartment and of being discovered as an rinsed blue sky, no red flower illegal worker. Too, she feels alienated: fences” and in her novel In Another “She was always uncomfortable under Place. The women are illegal the passing gazes, muttering to herself immigrants working in domestic or that she knew, they didn’t have to tell her factory settings. The narratives that she was out of place here” (87). But reveal the physical and economic she is trapped in this situation of living abuse the women suffer in these in Canada illegally and sending money conditions, as well as what they must back home, even if she cannot pay her do to survive. For them Canadian bills. She lives in hope. She reflects on redemption meant to legalize their having painted her apartment walls from status. Until then, they had to yellow to white, which symbolically become entrepreneurs, responsible suggests a transition from the sunny for creating employment while Caribbean to white Canada; in this tolerating abusive employers and sense, whiteness signifies belonging,
134 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 122-147 security, which, for her, would mean evident in A Place Called that “the creditors, the mornings full Heaven if only because the of bills, would go away or she could essays that comprise it feel them gone in the blinding document and analyze the white” (85). She escapes only in her various ways by which dreams at night, when she flees from Toronto’s Blacks try to keep the drudgery of her life in Canada a step ahead of psychological and from her anxiety over her illegal and cultural death in the status. She hopes for redemption on u r b a n w i l d e r n e s s o f waking, but “[m]idday found her on hopelessness and contempt the street corner, a little white hand that the dream has brought in hers, her other hand kneading a them to. (488) headache from her brow” (93). The headache, a symbol of her constant Moreover, regarding Foster’s Sleep On, psychic conflict, reveals her Thomas explains: “the novel’s theme is ambivalence toward her future; her that Blacks do not find in Canada the dreams represent her desired nurture they need for self- redemption, which is just an ideal. realization” (488). In this novel, the The myth of Canadian redemption protagonist Ona, at 16 years old, has a keeps her hoping for a change in baby Suzanne, while living in Jamaica. status, even though she has long After the birth, she secures a job since come to realize it is just that, a working as a clerk at the Barclay’s Bank myth. International in urban Kingston, and leaves Suzanne with her mother in rural Thus, redemption remains a St. Ann’s so that she can work and hope for rebirth somewhere in the provide for herself and her daughter. transcendent. Literary critic H. Nigel While in Kingston, she is nurtured and Thomas makes a similar point in his supported by her past high school article “Cecil Foster’s Sleep on, teacher Mrs. Small, who was responsible Beloved: A Depiction of the for getting Ona the job at the bank, all Consequences of Racism in the while encouraging her to look for Canadian Immigration Policy.” more promising opportunities. Ona Speaking about Foster’s discussion aspires to be like Mrs. Small, who in her on the benefits and pitfalls of eyes is the epitome of success, having immigration in his book A Place received her education overseas—a Called Heaven: The Meaning of measure of success in Jamaican society Being Black in Canada, Thomas —as the narrator observes, “On the walls remarks: were framed pictures and paintings of scenes from overseas, along with the That Foster recognizes parchments and educational scrolls with this to be a manifestation Mrs. Small’s name on them. Those of the Promised Land scrolls, and the experience of living myth that infects us all is abroad, were what made the difference
135 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 122-147 in Mrs. Small’s life, what gave the Kevin Jenkins, who refused to pay her teacher her freedom to do as she the wages to which she was entitled. Ona pleased despite what others thought, dared not complain to the authorities. a fact that Ona found impossible to That was a luxury available only to ignore…” (65). It was clear to Ona, citizens, which she was not. then, that if she “wanted to redeem herself, there was no doubt she had Although the Jenkins’s breached to find a way . . . . Undoubtedly, she the contract with her, and that should would have to seek redemption away have “painful consequences” for them, it from St. Ann’s, or even Jamaica was Ona who was told by Mr. Jenkins itself” (66, emphasis added). From that “[i]t could result in Ona being sent Ona’s point of view, redemption had back home” (76). She was alone, knew to come from another location, and no one in Toronto, and “the alternative, based on her mentor’s image of as explained by this lawyer [Mr. success, it had to come from Jenkins], was simply overseas; in this case redemption had unimaginable” (76). Eventually, Ona to be Canadian. became pregnant and had to have an abortion, and one evening three months Upon reading “the short item later, suspecting Mr. Jenkins’s intent on about the new Canadian immigration raping her again, Ona ran away and policy,” and that “[a]ffluent without having attained her landed Canadians were looking for immigrant status. She was befriended by dedicated young women to work in an older woman, Mrs. King, who their homes as live-in “adopted” her. Ona felt abandoned and domestics” (69), Ona, at 17 years without Canadian redemption, as old, did not hesitate to apply and was Thomas put it: “That the Canadian accepted. Her mother wasn’t happy government never thought it necessary that Ona had made these plans, to put in place provisions to protect the especially leaving Suzanne behind, indentured workers from abuse shows but she promised to take care of her that it was not concerned about the granddaughter, assuring Ona: workers’ welfare. The threat of “‘Don’t you worry,’ she said, ‘Go deportation, of which the employer and and make something of yourself. employee are always aware, facilitates Whatever you do always ask the true exploitation and renders the victim and living God to guide your helpless” (491). In fact, Ona was legally footstep’” (66). Ona left and “never living in Canada but did not know this in her wildest dreams did she think it until she was arrested for working in a was going to be almost 12 years factory that hired illegal workers for before she set eyes on Suzanne pittance. Mrs. King contacted Mr. again” (66). Little did Ona imagine Jenkins and got him to defend Ona after she would be sexually abused, her arrest by threatening to expose his repeatedly, as well as economically earlier abuse of her. He arranged for her oppressed, by her new employer, release from the immigration detention
136 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 122-147 center by producing her legal papers, 1990s. He depicts the sacrifice and hope which he had received in the mail for redemption, expected by immigrant shortly after she had run away women, through the female protagonist (95-96). Idora. Despite her efforts to integrate into Canadian society, she is unable to While Ona was subsequently do so. Although a Canadian citizen and able to sponsor both her husband Joe no longer a domestic worker, she from Barbados and her daughter experiences difficulty in becoming fully Suzanne from Jamaica, she was not Canadian. Idora’s struggles to achieve able to self-actualize. Suzanne was social mobility powerfully illustrate the taken away from her by the issues of identity, recognition, Children’s Aid Society and placed in belonging, and self-determination that foster care. She almost lost Telson, faced these women. Her thwarted efforts her and Joe’s son, to a similar fate. caused her to reflect on her reasons for Joe did not help Ona financially, and migrating to Canada from Barbados in so her social status, rather than the 1970s as a domestic, as the narrator improving, rapidly declined. Her informs us: “at the time, as a bright sacrifice was immense: separation young black woman, she knew it was the from her daughter for 12 years, easiest—if not the only—means open to which did not allow them to bond; her to immigrate to Canada” (65). “You her enduring abuse and exploitation go! Go!” her Mother had said, clapping while working on the scheme; and her hands in triumph when the official her failure to transition socially even letter arrived bearing good tidings. “Go! with landed immigrant status. Ona And make a woman of yourself. This eventually suffered a mental island has nothing for you!” (65). Her breakdown. Struggling to survive in mother emphatically counsels her to a strange land without social and leave Barbados, and Idora accepts this economic support was not advice, escaping to Canada, a place that redemptive. As Mrs. King, Ona’s promises her, a bright woman, the guide in this hell, put it: “I hope the desired opportunities after her domestic day soon come when all o’them contract had ended; she could “go to advantage-takers get what’s coming university and make a life for to them. I don’t know who tell them herself” (65). However, when we meet that they got any right to keep Idora, she works in the kitchen at “this exploiting all them women from venerable Trinity College Dining Hall” poor countries.’ . . . ‘Cause this is a at the University of Toronto. At this real strange country for black point, she can only imagine her son as a people” (96-97). student sitting at the dining table. Like Bernice, she, too, was unable to attend Similarly, Clarke invokes this university; instead she settled for “strange country” in his most recent attending night classes at George Brown awarding-winning novel More Community College. But she attends (2008), set during the 1970s to early only one class: “That’s all I think about,
137 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 122-147 night school. I am too damn tired on survival. Adele’s mother earned a living Fridays, when I have to get to my as a prostitute, a future to which Adele classes” (20). Even with the best of did not aspire. She could escape from intentions, Idora is too tired to those “stuck back there,” and, as she pursue the education status that she reminded herself, “she’s been given a desires. chance in a new land. She’s one of the lucky ones. She must always remember In his acclaimed novel that” (51). Both Idora and Adele saw Soucouyant, David Chariandy their futures mapped out in the promise portrays the hope for redemption of redemption in Canada, a promise that through his female characters’ desire never materialized. to escape the social and economic limits imposed on women living in Elusive Redemp on: Narra ves of the Caribbean, as well as their failure Sha ered Dreams to integrate in the Canadian setting Thus succumbing to the myth of upon migrating. As with the fiction Canadian redemption, the protagonists, of his contemporaries discussed in the texts discussed here, migrate to earlier, this novel reaffirms the Canada for economic and social consequence of alienation from advancement. And while these women society through its representation of hope that they would be able to improve the issues arising from exclusion, their lives and that of their children, loneliness, and oppression, as most realize the futility of their experienced by the protagonist expectations. The notion of shattered Adele, who suffers the early onset of dreams is not new to Brand, who, unlike dementia. The trope of dementia in the earlier short stories discussed, symbolizes her psychological escape depicts this predicament in her novel In 11 from reality into madness. Adele Another Place, Not Here. The character migrated from Trinidad in the early Abena reflects on the recurring cycle of 1960s via the Domestic Worker domesticity and abuse that black women Scheme. Like Idora, Adele believed from the Caribbean suffered at the hands the Caribbean had nothing to offer of their white Canadian employers. Here her. Canada was seen as redemptive; Brand significantly captures the it provided a path for people like disillusionment of shattered dreams as Adele to escape what she saw as “the experienced by Caribbean domestic running sores of their histories” (51) workers. They abused their own —the period in Trinidad’s history, daughters, whom they sent for from the the 1940s, when the presence of Caribbean, but when these children American soldiers profoundly joined them, these mothers immediately impacted the island. And, as some saw their own hopelessness reflected in argue, these soldiers commodified their children. Abena recalls: and possessed the bodies of many Trinidadian females, for whom They sent for us, sent for us prostitution became a means to daughters, then washed our
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faces in their self-hatred. tried to claim their redemption through Self-hatred they had reuniting with their daughters. As Abena learned from the white explains, redemption didn’t come from people whose toilets they the sacrifice they made by migrating and had cleaned, whose asses attaining permanent residency, perhaps they had wiped, whose even citizenship. Redemption did not kitchens they has materialize by sponsoring their scrubbed, whose hatred daughters to Canada for a better life. they had swallowed, and And they did not experience redemption when they sent for us, when they physically abused their they hated us because daughters. There was no redemption they saw their reflection through these acts because they saw their in us, they saw their past mirrored in their daughters’ futures. hands swollen with Brand’s representation shows the water, muscular with persistence of the domestic archetype of lifting and pulling, they a strong woman leading her family into saw their souls assaulted the Promised Land. But it also shows a n d i r r e c o v e r a b l e , that they realize that, like them, their wounded from insult and daughters would be treated in similar the sheer nastiness of fashion. This insight suggests the white words and they likelihood of the black woman being beat us abused us perceived as a domestic or channeled terrorized us as they had into service roles that reinforced that been terrorized and image. Ona, in Foster’s Sleep On, beaten and abused; they experienced a similar fate because even saw nothing good in us when she and her daughter reunited, because they saw nothing there could be no reconciliation. good in themselves. They made us pay for Similarly in More a n d w h a t t h e y h a d Soucouyant, the protagonists believe the suffered. . . .They did not Caribbean is not good enough for them, feel redeemed by it but but they sense that white Canadians they themselves had been believe that they are not good enough for so twisted from walking Canada. Thus, in Canada they are denied in shame that they the social mobility they desired and twisted our bodies to suit became social outcasts, alienated from t h e i r s t r i d e . ( 2 3 1 , self and the wider mainstream society, emphasis added) specifically the communities in which they lived and worked. In Idora’s case As the above excerpt she attempts to belong by trying to attain demonstrates, Canadian redemption whiteness. But the closest she could had failed those women who had come to achieving that goal was by landed immigrant status and who working in the kitchen at University of
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Toronto or by attending “St. James’s outsider status and symbolizes her Cathedral” (5). When these social displacement and exclusion in Canada; spaces still do not fulfill her desire to she is unable to fully belong. We observe belong, she shrouds herself in a this exclusionary practice in a scene set white comforter or wears a white in the 1970s, in which Adele, desiring a imitation silk nightgown while in her piece of pie, enters a family restaurant, a basement apartment or clothes symbol of social inclusion: “She enters herself in full white and lightens her to the chiming of bells on the door of the skin tone with white face powder restaurant and then the shushing of when she goes outdoors, all in an sound and the dead weight of effort to effect whiteness of the body. disapproval in the room. She knows that However, rather than achieving there are many people sitting in the belonging, she ends up being a social restaurant” (50). Adele takes a seat when outcast. She remains in her basement no one offers to seat her. Mistaking her apartment, refusing to go to work for a prostitute (society’s projection of during a four-day hiatus, waiting for her mother’s history on to Adele), a man the promised redemption that embarrasses her by making an advance. naturally does not materialize. While The owner eventually “softly explains reflecting on her situation, Idora that this is a family restaurant and that invokes the biblical narrative of no coloureds or prostitutes are Jonah and the Whale, a process of allowed. . . . He knows of other places social withdrawal.12 on another street where she would be welcome” (50). The restaurant owner Withdrawal, then, becomes denies Adele the opportunity to acquire a an important trope to these writers. piece of the figurative social and This reaction might be expected economic “pie” and redirects her to a because experience was proving place where she can belong. This Canadian redemption happens only experience presents an interesting in the unreal—in the transcendent. In paradox: Adele leaves Trinidad to escape Soucouyant, degenerative dementia the life of a domestic worker or becomes Adele’s coping mechanism prostitute and arrives in Canada where and represents her decision to forget she is received and perceived as both. her past in Trinidad and her failure to integrate in the present in Canada. In In both novels, then, the negative her reverie, she talks about life in history of displacement and alienation Trinidad, about “shadow bennie,” looms large and provides a mirror about “coconut cakes,” and about against which both authors reflect the soucouyants—animal spirits that negative effects of racism in Canada. roam the earth seeking to devour the The black female characters, as domestic young—mythical representations of workers in Canada, had no social capital, social outcasts. In many ways, unlike in the Caribbean where social Chariandy’s literary treatment of capital was based on their idea of self Adele as a soucouyant evokes her and where their assumed color or racial
140 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 122-147 superiority had led them to believe Always the domes c?: they were too superior to remain Specula ve Narra ves of there. In one scene, we observe Idora Ci zenship riding on the subway in Toronto. She The writers under discussion reflect the reflects: “This feeling of being in the historical tenor of the critique of the minority . . . of inferiority . . . not illusive Canadian redemption for black that I am inferior. . . . This feeling women immigrants in the narratives; all of segregation runs through my of them place the archetypal domestic as mind, each time I travel on public the modern tragic heroine of her/story. transportation” (Clarke 69, emphasis Their characters’ desire to escape social added). By feeling a sense of and economic oppression leads to a train unbelonging in Canada in a very of failed attempts at gaining agency and public space, Idora realizes that she of satisfying their desires. Idora’s mother is not the subject in this historical had continually told her to stay away narrative, where she can decide that from the Caribbean in blatant ways: “Go what she is “entitled” to is not good and shake the dust of the Island off your enough for her; rather in this version two feet, as the Bible warned you of history she is the object, the other girl. . . . Do not return to this blasted in a place that, as she puts it, “makes island. . . . “This place don’t have one you believe you’re what they paint damn thing to offer you” (67-68). Clarke you and define you to be” (69). reveals the irony in the words of Idora’s Adele, too, was aware of “how ever mother, however, by critically more conspicuously different she juxtaposing a cold unwelcoming Canada was. People everywhere would offer with the warm and welcoming sites/ cold cutting glances on streetcars sights and sounds of the Caribbean that and sidewalks, or wrinkle their noses exist in selected locales in Canada, such and shift away, or stare openly at the as the famous Kensington Market in oddity that she had become in this Toronto, where Caribbean people invoke land” (Chariandy 49). Crumbling belonging. Ironically, belonging is not under the weight of difference, both manifested in the right to be treated characters become the women they equally in society; it also is not did not want to be: lonely, hopeless, portrayed as a shift in status as a result and mentally ill. C a n a d i a n of movement into professional positions redemption, then, was not only and being recognized as Canadian unreal but also a matter of intuition. (meaning permanent status), but it is These writers seem to be saying that constructed in spaces of isolation, Canadian redemption will always be difference, and exclusion, places white illusive for their characters. The Canadians, like Idora’s friend Josephine, reality is these women can never did not even know existed. escape being the archetypal domestic. The market becomes an important symbol to the characters’ sense of identity in both More and
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Soucouyant. Thomas suggests that in West Indians and domestic in the eyes of an effort to maintain psychic the wider society. Therefore it is wholeness, immigrants rely on instructive that she does not identify as symbols and icons that represent Canadian. their homelands (489). Moreover, the presence of similar symbols and Yet, the various identities often icons in these novels resonates with merge in shared spaces such as the use of symbols in Brand’s work: Kensington Market. For Idora, the the sea, sky, and the speakeasy, as market is about feeling a sense of mentioned earlier, and we observe belonging to the space, a space in similar use in Foster’s Sleep On, “the downtown Toronto where the sights, Hole, . . . an affectionate name for sounds, and smells invoke the the long narrow basement of St. Caribbean. The lack of social and Mark’s Church on Queen Street economic services that would allow West . . . an informal social center, a these women to integrate in Canadian gathering spot for West Indians and society has recurring consequences for friends” (101). In More, Idora future generations, as Brand’s mother/ attends “St. James’s Cathedral” daughter characters in Another Place when she wants to feel Canadian and demonstrate—repeating the cycle of the black church Apostolical oppression and exclusion. Canadian Holiness Church of Spiritualism in redemption, as figured in the fiction Christ when she wants to belong to a discussed here is, indeed, imagined and community. These symbols and not necessarily experienced in places icons anchor the characters, thereby viewed as traditionally or authentically allowing them to claim belonging in Canadian. a society that marginalizes them. Characters in these novels are often As we have seen with the redirected to places where white experiences depicted in some of these Canadians believe they belonged but stories, the lack of social mobility is places where the characters lived as systemic and partially a consequence of if they had achieved Canadian the laws that were in place to protect the redemption. When Idora wants to employers of migrant domestic workers establish her identity and distance and the government. A number of herself from having a hyphenated domestic workers lived in isolation with Canadian identity, she quickly points little exposure to mainstream society, out that she is not Afro-Canadian or and many succumbed to a form of African-Canadian, as her Jamaican madness that symbolizes the failure to friends called themselves; Idora achieve redemption in Canada. says, “Me? As I say, I am pure Loneliness stemming from isolation and Barbadian. And this is good enough the anxiety arising from fear of physical for me, darling” (118). A little island abuse and super-exploitation led to their rivalry, perhaps, for whether resignation: they submit to another Jamaican or Barbadian, they are all world, madness, where their sacrifice
142 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 122-147 and failed dreams no longer matter. So I return to the event in the This, again, raises the question of national capital and the question of the what prevented the domestic workers place and position of blacks in the from achieving their dreams, those national narrative of Canada. And here dreams for which they sacrificed we see the enduring presence of the their children, their family, and domestic, archetypically, as the black themselves to the hope for Canadian outsider still searching for Canadian redemption into a better life. redemption—for full social inclusion, acceptance, and a sense of belonging Thomas points to the role of that are granted by full citizenship. the government and immigration However, it is important to consider the officials as one possibility: consequence of mainstream Canadians’ expectation of the roles for a black Undoubtedly, one can woman in Canada. For if her motility argue that it was because and affectivity are strongly linked to her they were conditioned to working in service positions, then she attach little importance to becomes the archetypal domestic worker B l a c k h u m a n i t y, t o who will be seen as the outsider, the discount it even, that the immigrant always seeking “entrance White Canadians who status”13 but often not seen as worthy of originated this scheme entering the Canadian garden. So while saw no need for a blacks, in general, form part of the grievance mechanism. Canadian society, their status remains in T h e y a n t i c i p a t e d a precarious position in the nation-state problems from the where, permanence is overwritten by indentured workers and temporariness and, thus, belonging is stipulated the penalty of rendered unstable. This becomes a deportation for such but legacy for blacks in general. I base this saw no need to envisage point on the observation that even now problems from the black women’s jobs are mostly limited to employers who were service roles, and as primarily the head members of the dominant of their households, they are kept in low- group. (492) paying service positions significantly The threat of being deported restricting their access to social mobility. effectively impeded the ambitions of As Carole Boyce Davies (2007) points black women who were not out in her article “Caribbean Women, Canadian citizens. Most did not have Domestic Labor, and the Politics of the ability to become self-sufficient Transnational Migration”: “Since black and to apply for permanent women are often heads of households, residency, much less citizenship then the poverty of black communities is status, a route toward belonging to assured if the black women stay the nation-state. underpaid and super-exploited” (129). Yet, like the domestics of Tynes’s time,
143 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 122-147 they are the breadwinners, for as ---. 1989. “No rinsed blue sky, no red flower domestics they work and interact in fences.” Sans Souci and Other Stories. Toronto: the mainstream at levels not Random House. normally available to the men and ---. 1999. In Another Place, Not Here. Toronto: their sons. And today, while some Alfred A. Knopf Canada. black women have escaped the physical trap of being limited to the Calliste, Agnes. 1993/1994. “Race, Gender and role of the domestic worker and Canadian Immigra on Policy: Blacks from the attained some prominence in society, Caribbean, 1900 – 1932.” Journal of Canadian such as Michaëlle Jean and Senator Ethnic Studies, 28: 130 – 48. Cools, most black women remain, ---. 1991. “Canada’s Immigra on Policy and like Celie, outsiders unable to Domes cs from the Caribbean: The Second achieve meaningful change in social Domes c Scheme.” Race, Class, Gender: Bonds status. As an ethnic group, blacks are and Barriers, ed. Jesse Vorst et al., 136-68. left holding the “bad check.”14 Thus, Toronto: Garamond Press. in terms of Canadian redemption, the Canadian government should Chariandy, David. 2007. Soucouyant. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press. broaden its perspective, as it does for the dominant groups, to recognize in Clarke, Aus n. 2008. More: A Novel. Toronto: blacks “unwavering and unchanging Thomas Allen Publishers. commitment and good intent to the ideals of [Canadian] society” (Foster ---. 1975. The Bigger Light. Boston: Li le Brown. 66), which it sees as necessary for ---. 1973. Storm of Fortune. Boston: Li le Brown. full citizenship. In doing so, the Canadian government could make ---. 1967. The Mee ng Point. Toronto: belonging to the nation-state more McClelland and Stewart. accessible and meaningful, and a route to self-determination for all it Clarke, George Ellio . 2002. Odysseys Home: citizens regardless of race. Mapping African Canadian Literature. Toronto: UTP.
Davies, Carole Boyce. 1994. Black Women Wri ng Iden ty: Migra ons of the Subject. References London: Routledge. Barber, Marilyn. 1991. Immigrant Domes c Servants in Canada. O awa: Canadian ---. 2007. “Caribbean Women, Domes c Labor, Historical Associa on. and the Poli cs of Transna onal Migra on.” In Women’s Labor in the Global Economy: Brand, Dionne. 1989. “Blossom, Preistess of Speaking in Mul ple Voices, ed. Sharon Harley, Oya, Goddess of winds, storms and 116-133. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP. waterfalls.” Sans Souci and Other Stories. Toronto: Random House. Foster, Cecil. 2007. Blackness and Modernity: The Colour of Humanity and the Quest for Freedom. Montreal & Kingston: McGill/Queen’s UP.
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Pachai, Bridglal and Henry Bishop. 2006. Images ---. 1996. A Place Called Heaven: The of Our Past: Historic Black Nova Sco a. Halifax: Meaning of Being Black in Canada. Toronto: Nimbus Publishing. HarperPerennialCanada. Rushdie, Salman. 1992. “Outside the Whale.” ---. 1995. Sleep On, Beloved. Toronto: Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Cri cism Random House Canada. 1981-1991. London: Granta Books, 87-101.
Foucault, Michel. 2009. “Figures of Silvera, Makeda. 1989. Silenced. Talks with Madness.” History of Madness. London: Working Class Caribbean Women about Their Routledge, 251-296. Lives and Struggles as Domes c Workers in Canada. Toronto: Sister Vision Press. Flynn, Karen. 2004. “Experience and Iden ty: Black Immigrant Nurses to Canada, Taylor, Charles. 1994. Mul culturalism: 1950-1980.” In Sisters and Strangers? Examining the Poli cs of Recogni on. Ed. and Immigrant, Ethnic, and Racialized Women Intro Amy Gutmann. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton in Canadian History, eds. Marlene Epp et UP. al., 381-398. Toronto: UTP. Thomas, H. Nigel. 2008. “Cecil Foster’s Sleep on, ---. 2003. “Race, the State, and Caribbean Beloved: A Depic on of the Consequences of Immigrant Nurses, 1950-1962.” In Women, Racism in Canada’s Immigra on Policy.” Journal Health, and Na on: Canada and the United of Black Studies Vol 38 (3): 484-501. States since 1945, eds. Georgina Feldberg et al., 247-263 Montreal & Kingston: MCGill- Tynes, Maxine. 1990. “For Tea and Not for Queen’s UP. Service.” Woman Talking Woman. Lawrencetown Beach, NS: Po ersfield Press. Innis, Hugh R. 1973. Bilingualism and Biculturalism: An Abridged Version of the Wallace-Sanders, Kimberly. 2008. Mammy: A Royal Commission Report. Toronto: Century of Race, Gender, and Southern McClelland & Stewart Ltd. Memory. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P.
“Jean Augus ne.” 2006. Contemporary Endnotes Black Biography. The Gale Group, Inc. 1 In 1910-1911 Quebec residents recruited Answers.com.h p://www.answers.com/ French-speaking women from Guadeloupe to topic/jean-augus ne. work as domes cs mainly in Montreal and other areas of Quebec. For a fuller discussion on the Jewell, K. Sue. 1993. From Mammy to Miss experience of the women who came in 1910 – America and Beyond: Cultural Images and 1911, see Agnes Calliste’s “Race, Gender and the Shaping of US Social Policy, London: Canadian Immigra on Policy: Blacks from the Routledge. Caribbean, 1900 – 1932,” Journal of Canadian Ethnic Studies 28 1993/1994. 130 – 48. King, Mar n Luther, Jr. “I Have a Dream” Speech 1963. www.americanrhetoric.com/ 2 The celebra on took place two years a er the apeeches/mlkihaveadream.htm. 50th anniversary of the arrival of the first group of domes cs from the Bri sh West Indies. Nelson, Hilde Lindemann. 2001. Damaged Iden es: Narra ve Repair. New York: Cornell UP.
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3 Although Governor-General Michaëlle 7 For a detailed study on the mammy figure, see Jean is the first black to hold the posi on, it Kimberly Wallace-Sanders’s engagement with is important to note that other blacks have the African American counterpart to the held the tular vice-regal posi ons as archetypal domes c in her book tled Mammy: Lieutenant-Governors, such as Lincoln A Century of Race, Gender, and Southern Alexander in Ontario (1985-1991) and Memory, Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2008. In Mayann Francis in Nova Sco a (2006-2012). the chapter “Blown Away: Gone with the Wind and The Sound and the Fury,” she discusses 4 The event was a “family” affair in that it “[t]he complicated rela onship that African brought together some of the women who Americans and white Americans have with the pioneered this program to celebrate with mammy symbol as an enduring memory that is their daughters, their grandchildren, and a social, cultural, regional, and on many levels wider family of friends, specifically those na onal” (132). K. Sue Jewell’s From Mammy to with Caribbean roots. Miss America and Beyond: Cultural Images and the Shaping of US Social Policy, London: 5 Note: Jean Augus ne, a former poli cian, Routledge, 1993 provides an extensive analysis arrived from Grenada as a nanny circa 1959 of the ways cultural imagery informs social and was the first black woman elected to policy. Parliament of Canada (1993) and the Federal Cabinet (2003). Note Augus ne was 8 See George Elliot Clarke’s Odysseys Home: a schoolteacher in Grenada prior to Mapping African Canadian Literature. Toronto: migra ng to Canada (Gale). She holds the UTP, 2002; and Bridglal Pachai and Henry Order of Canada (2010), the na on’s Bishop's Images of Our Past: Historic Black Nova highest na onal honor. Sco a. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 2006.
6 See Calliste’s essays “Race, Gender and 9 George Ellio Clarke’s Odysseys Home: Canadian Immigra on Policy” and Mapping African Canadian Literature “Canada’s Immigra on Policy and documents the lineage of blacks and their role Domes cs from the Caribbean: The Second in the founding of the Canadian na on-state, Domes c Scheme,” Race, Class, Gender: repairing the damage done by the selec ve Bonds and Barriers, Ed. Jesse Vorst et al., amnesia evident in aspects of the dominant Toronto: Garamond Press, 1991 for details Canadian narra ve. Odysseys Home includes a on the experiences of domes c workers me culous record of the contribu ons of blacks living in Canada and the immigra on to the development of Canada, importantly policies governing them. redressing the tendency toward erasing their right to legi macy.
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10 Karen Flynn’s ar cle “Experience and 13 See Hugh R. Innis’s text Bilingualism and Iden ty: Black Immigrant Nurses to Canada, Biculturalism: An Abridged Version of the Royal 1950-1980” points out that nurses were Commission Report, Canada: McClelland & recruited from the Bri sh West Indies “to Stewart Ltd., 1973, 140, in which he discusses act as ambassadors of their race,” playing the fact that the report the Royal Commission quite a different role in Canada than the on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963-69) domes cs. Hospital administrators, against indicates that “Negro” women accepted the will of the immigra on officials, o en domes c work as an “entrance status.” requested them to fill the labor shortage. 14 However, Flynn’s work also shows that In his “I Have a Dream” (1963) speech, Mar n nurses suffered similar expecta ons by Luther King, Jr. speaks about the “bad check” Canadians. They were overworked, that African-Americans received when their assigned heavier pa ent loads, and they dreams for “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of worked longer hours than their white Happiness” were denied. America had defaulted peers. They also experienced similar on its promise and did not fulfill its obliga on to immigra on restric ons due to the refusal them as was s pulated in the Cons tu on and by immigra on officials to extend some of the Declara on of Independence. Accessed their contracts. They too relied on the October 24, 2011. h p:// company of their friends, the church, and www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ their community when they desired a mlkihaveadream.htm. respite from racism. Flynn further points out that discrimina on occurred more frequently than was recognized. Clarke portrays nurses, like the domes cs, as empathizing and suppor ng the civil rights movement during the decade of the 1950s-60s.
11 Michel Foucault discusses demen a in his chapter “Figures of Madness,” History of Madness, London: Routledge, 2009, 251-296.
12 Salman Rushdie discusses Orwell’s use of Jonah and the Whale in his chapter “Outside the Whale,” Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Cri cism 1981-1991, London: Granta Books, 1992, 87-101. Essen ally the whale is a metaphoric womb into which “a willing Jonah” withdraws. Orwell suggests withdrawing into the womb is a way of remaining “passive,” accep ng of one’s situa on. As Orwell put it: “He [Jonah] feels no impulse to alter or control the process that he is undergoing” (95).
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