Details: Published on Sunday, 05 February 2012 23:44

Canada: Aboriginal Peoples In Canadian Cities - Transformations And Continuities

Heather A Howard & Craig Proulx eds.

2011

Wilfrid Laurier University Press

From the onset of the first page, Aboriginal Peoples in Canadian Cities: Transformations and Continuities External link deconstructs the cliché that all First Nations people live on reservations and demonstrates to the reader that First Nations communities exist in an array of vibrant societies throughout Canada’s urban landscapes. Contributors in this edited volume excel at dismantling the stereotypes about the Canadian aboriginal and lend a more realistic picture to their complex lives. Editors Heather A. Howard and Craig Proulx brought together numerous indigenous and non-indigenous scholars, activists, and community members to contribute to broadening the audience’s ideas about aboriginal heterogeneity. And while each essay focuses on a particular focal point, there are an abundance of overlapping themes, issues, and topics that each author addressed, creating a well read fusion of ethnographies and histories.

Issues of identity are a resounding theme with many of the authors; from individuals and community members working towards identity continuation and transformation, to reclamation of a once abandoned identity as told by early Inuit, First Nations, and Metis people migrating to the cities in search of jobs, education and social services. Aboriginal people are shown maintaining and recreating their identities through community organizations, such as the Friendship Center (Howard) and gangs (Buddle), to expressing youth identity through the globalized practices of hip hop and graffiti (Ignace). What drew me into each contribution were the issues endemic to many colonized people and the disenfranchised enclaves of youth. Both groups are constantly discovering new ways of expressing themselves and who they are in the face of dominant groups be they paternalistic colonial society or domineering older generations. This book is definitely pertinent to Native and identity studies, because it clearly demonstrates through the discussion of identity, without the attachment of Native American romanticism, that First Nations identities are dynamic in that identity constantly changes and it has the capacity to adapt to new socioeconomic and political relationships as they arise in various times and places (Abdi 1999, p 161).

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Patrick et al. reminds us that “identity” and “community” formations are conceptualized as reciprocal processes that are constituted by discourses, historical developments, institutional practices, and everyday life” (p 69). Likewise, it is important to note that cultural identity and affiliations taught must be acted upon in order to be accepted. Wolcott (1997) argues that culture is not only a process of transmission from the community or from one individual to another but a process of personal rediscovery in which each individual is exposed to a particular aspect of the culture and is transmitted through active participation. Thus, throughout this text we learn how the authors have noted how community and personal identities are constantly being created, recreated, rejected, and/or embraced.

Stereotyping is another major focal point brought to the reader’s attention. There is no difference between a “good stereotype” and a “bad” one, in either circumstance a group of people categorized under a label and if they do not meet the expectations of the stereotype they are considered inauthentic or something unique in their overcoming of adversity. However, Howard illustrates how some First Nations people actually embraced stereotypes to help fund and recreate the Friendship Center (Howard, p 94). In so doing communities were able to promote everything from arts and culture to social services.

In my research on Coloured identity in South Africa I was bombarded by stereotypes and colonial misrepresentations of native people very similar to typecasts that afflict First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities; this list includes, but not wholly: alcoholism, laziness, and violence were constantly referred to when speaking with youth. As a result “mixed race” people tried to emulate Europeans in order to escape the inflicted shame concerning their tribal ancestors who wore skins, bore their breasts, and lived in beehive grass huts. In peoples’ shame families, in both lands, they were splintered by colonial policies that put non-Europeans at a disadvantage. Additionally, Coloureds stereotyped “full bloods” in very similar ways that First Nations and Inuit people were stereotyped in North America. Stereotypes negatively influenced the two Inuit contributors in Chapter 5 to the point that they did not want to be seen as alcoholics, suicide risks, and “raw meat eaters” living in “igloos”. As a result they became “ashamed” and “disgusted” of their ancestry (Brown and Langille, p 78) and for a time passing for something other than Inuit seemed logical. I found this chapter so poignant because I encountered similar sentiments during my fieldwork.

Chapter 8 focuses on the shortcomings of aboriginal education. The authors discuss the history of aboriginal education starting in the 1960s and the attempt at redressing the inequities of the past. According to the authors, however, the number of First Nations people living off the reservation is much higher than those living on the reserve (Donovan, p 125). In terms of demographics, First Nations peoples are portrayed as being similar to other migrants who move to urban areas for better social services as well as increased educational and occupational opportunities. However, according to Sadie Donovan urban Indians are someone else’s problem because they live off the reserve which is the only place status Indians are eligible for government sponsored social benefits (p. 126). As a result many First Nations youth living in cities are defined as “at risk” based not only on their living situations but also because they receive no acknowledgement of government reparations, their cultures and histories are not recognized in schools, and they further become what John Ogbu (1990) called “involuntary minorities”. Being a colonized group, they therefore suffer the debilitating effects of what many see as oppressive institutions and the colonial past much like other groups - Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, and Afro-Americans - who became minorities because of mercantilist policies, imperial wars, forced assimilation. Thus, any attempt to get such groups to “buy-in” to the system without acknowledging their individual struggles often fails.

In all this collection of essays was informative and eye opening. It made me want to visit these places and people for a different perspective, especially after living with my husband on an Indian reservation in New York State for his research. I was able to observe many overlaps occurring on the reserve and what was documented throughout this text. As wonderful as I found the book there were a few things I wish some of the authors had done. For example, with Ignace’s article in chapter 11, while her insights were interesting I feel like she focused too much on information provided by her son; and while I enjoyed the visual representations of the youth art I was felt wanting for a larger sampling of youth perspectives on hip-hip culture. I was drawn to the article by Craig Proulx who was doing a critical analysis of a series of articles entitled “Welcome to Harlem on the Prairies” because I grew up near Harlem, went to school in Harlem, worked and played in the area and knew the area to be vibrant, exciting, and full of life. After reading the article I did not make the connection between the title and subject, other than the disparaging negative stereotypes were being linked to the neighborhood of Harlem and Canada’s urban indigenous populations (this was not addressed). There was no analysis on the part of Proulx of the title of John Stackhouse’s article and why Harlem was referred. Furthermore, the subject matter seemed disjointed and did not fit with the other contributions to the book which focused on ethnology from very personal experiences as opposed to critical discourse analysis. Despite these minor criticisms I have of the material, the book is an excellent read and brings to light important issues concerning aboriginal people in Canada that has a resounding echo within the United States, and I suspect within other areas of the world where indigenous authenticity invokes images of rural primitives conducting nature rituals and living off the land where they are disconnected from the conveniences of modern equipment, styles, or knowledge. This collection of essays refutes such a mindset.

Works Cited:

Abdi, A. A. 1999. Identity Formations and Deformations in South Africa: A Historical and Contemporary Overview. Journal of Black Studies 30 (2).

Ogbu, J. U. 1990. Minority Education in Comparative Perspective. The Journal of Negro Education 59 (1):45-57.

Wolcott, H. F. 1997. The Anthropology of Learning. In Education and the Cultural Process, edited by G. D. Spindler. Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press, 28.

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