Short Story #27 -- Nine-Year-Old, Reimagined

Yesterday when I sat down to work on a Writing Club story (for the club composed of my best friend, Cathy, and me) I was surprised to see that it had been over two years since I'd written the last one, The Killer Whale and the Meadowlark. Cathy suggested the topic for this one -- an opportunity to look back at some event that impacted our younger selves and to respond to it differently.

One of the defining moments of my life was when I was nine years old, and my parents moved our family from small-town Saskatchewan to Alberta's capital city so that they could take over a church supplies store. It was a big adjustment for a little prairie girl. I knew so little about the big wide world, and how was a nine-year-old supposed to handle racism?

One day, helping at my parents' store, I picked up the first badge mentioned in the story below, and when I wore it to school and the kids asked its meaning, they started to call me “Holy-holy.” My nickname didn’t bother me as much as some of the other girls’ nastier nicknames bothered them, but we were all bothered, no question. Here’s that life event reimagined, as my affirmation for anyone who was ever teased or bullied by other kids.

Nine-Year-Old, Reimagined

MCWC #27

November 17, 2020

There was no way around it, these kids were strange.

And loud, and rude, and mean.

Not all of them. But more than I was used to, including the gossipy girls and Tom S and Tommy W. Maybe being a city slicker made you that way. But Diane wasn’t a city slicker in my old hometown, and she had seemed loud and rude and mean sometimes, like these kids. Especially when she swore, and when she tried to make my baby sister eat a mud, leaves and sticks pie. And now it seemed like I was going to a school with lots of Dianes.

Moving from a Saskatchewan hamlet of three hundred to a city of 450,000 was a shock to the system. So was going from a quiet class of 17 to a noisy group of 22. I liked Mrs. Collins, but some of the kids, not so much.

Laurel was paired up with me as soon as I walked into the classroom. She was allowed to pull her desk next to mine so she could help me find my way through the textbooks and activities that the other Grade Fours had already been working through for two months. At first it seemed like she was really excited to show the new girl around, like I was her prize, not to be shared with the other girls. But then at recess two days later, she got into a fight with Tommy W, and I was shocked by the way her fists flew. She seemed to expect me to jump in and help her, but I didn’t understand that until after, when she told me I was useless. After the fight, I overheard her and some of her usual friends whispering about me. The words “small town nobody” filtered into my consciousness, and Laurel abandoned me.

Joan, Karen, and Patricia told me to ignore the mean girls, who were mean to them, too. The unlikely trio who adopted me were quieter than Laurel and her friends, but they were also made fun of by the mean girls, and were picked on relentlessly by Tommy W and Tom S. Patricia’s dad was from the West Indies and her mom was from Holland, so she wasn’t quite as white as the rest of us. She was a small but feisty target for the class bullies’ entertainment, able to shout them down sometimes, backed up by Karen, the tallest kid in our class, and Joan, who invoked her big brother’s name whenever she deemed it necessary to strike real fear into the school bullies’ hearts. They all seemed to know about John, and backed off when she threatened his intervention.

Even so, no one could stop Tom S and Tommy W from chanting at Patricia from a distance, “Paki! Paki! Your dad is a Paki and so are you!” until she was in tears and they ran off laughing.

What on earth was a Paki?

I had no idea or explanation, but Joan, Karen and Patricia would sometimes launch themselves after the Grade Four bully boys and chase them all the way across the school yard, and pull their hair or kick their shins. These chases made me really uncomfortable because I didn’t want to fight like Laurel had. I could see that the boys’ nastiness came out of boredom. It was always a relief when they were busy playing soccer with the Italian kids at recess because they forgot to bother us. But when the Italians got fed up with Tom S and Tommy W’s cheating and kicked the two bullies out of the game, look out! They took it out on Patricia.

Joan, Karen and Patricia seemed kind of strange compared to friends back in my old hometown. They didn’t want to play games at recess. Mostly, they stood around talking about cable TV shows and pretending they were Pinky and the Tuscaderos. They liked to gossip about David Cassidy, Donnie Osmond, or whoever was the flavour of the day on the cover of the latest teen magazine that Joan’s big sisters subscribed to.

And they had so many ‘clubs.’ At recess, I never knew whether it would be The Six Million Dollar Man, Tiger Beat, Fleetwood Mac or any number of other fan clubs from one day to the next. It baffled me, but I tried to seem interested, though I had little idea what they were talking about because my house didn’t have cable TV yet.

After three weeks in Grade Four, Mrs. Collins pulled me aside one recess and asked me how I liked my new school. “It’s okay, I guess,” I said, “and the work is pretty easy so far.”

“Well, Maria, how would you like a bit more of a challenge? The tests Mrs. Hilderink gave you in the Resource Room say that you’re reading way above Grade Four Level, so I was wondering if you would like to go for Grade 5 Language Arts with Sylvia and Simon? This afternoon, Sylvia will take you with her to Mr. Wozny’s room, and help you figure things out.”

Sylvia was one of Laurel’s friends, but I soon discovered that, away from Laurel and the rest of the mean girls, she was okay. I didn’t like Mr. Wozny very much, but he was pleased with my reading and writing, and I kept up just fine. Plus I got to know a few of the Grade Five girls, who seemed nice, if a bit aloof.

Mr. Wozny put me in a desk right behind Anna. She and her older sister were the only Chinese Canadian students in the entire school. She was smart and pretty, I thought, and nicer than Sylvia. She had a quiet smile and a sharp sense of humour, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that she was always having to use it to deflect nasty comments from some of the other Grade Fives, who seemed to be jealous of her.

One Friday morning recess when Joan and Patricia were pretending to be Police Women and had commandeered Francis and Karl to be bad guys, I noticed Anna walking along the edge of the school fence all by herself. I ran over to her, and saw that she was crying.

“Anna, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing you should bother with.”

“No, I want to know.”

She sniffed and used her mittens to dry her eyes. “Michael, Scott, and Greg were just calling me a Chink, like they always do. This time, they tripped me and ran away before the supervision teacher saw it.”

The boys were off in the distance, pointing at us. I frowned and found a crumpled Kleenex in my pocket to give to her. “Is Chink anything like Paki?” I asked.

She gave me a funny look, then laughed out loud. “I guess so. But my family is Chinese, not Pakistani.”

“Neither is Patricia’s family.”

“No, the bullies don’t care what they call people, they just want to pick on someone for being different.”

“But we’re all different.”

“No, you’re white.”

“I know. But they treat me different because I don’t know how to be a city kid. And because my parents run a church supplies store and I’m learning lots about church stuff.”

“That’s not like being Chinese.”

“I guess not, but I think you’re so smart and pretty and funny, and they just need to see it.”

“I don’t think they can,” she sighed. “They just think what they think, and it’s like they all think the same.”

“Well, they need to think different,” I said. “Maybe there's something we can do. In the meantime, can I hang out with you? Karen’s not here today, and I don’t really like being part of the “Police Woman Club.”

“Sure.” Anna smiled a small smile. “I’m not an Angie Dickinson fan either.”

“Who’s she?”

“What else don’t you know, country girl?”

I took a chance and asked Anna a lot of the questions that I had been afraid to ask the other kids in my class since arriving in the city. She told me that Pakistan was closer to China than the West Indies, and that the bullies probably were confusing Patricia with the Pakistanis who were immigrating to Edmonton to get English educations. Anna’s own family had emigrated because things had been difficult for them in China. And Anna knew way more about cable TV shows than I did.

When the recess bell rang, we started back to the school, but Michael, Greg, Scott, Tommy W and Tom S were waiting for us mid-schoolyard.

“Chink, Chink, Chinky-Chink!” Michael, Greg and Scott screamed. “You eat cow stomachs for lunch!”

Tommy W and Tom S circled around me, vying for the older boys’ approval, saying, “Why are you hanging out with the Chink, Small Town Nobody?” Tom S pounded my back with his fist for good measure, watching for the Grade Fives' grins, catching me by surprise. Angry tears jumped to my eyes, but I just stood there, staring them all down.

“Huh,” Tom said. “She doesn’t hit back.”

“Don’t you know that Jesus said to turn the other cheek?” I said quietly. “Leave us alone.”

“Chinky-chink and Holy-holy,” Michael yelled, as Anna and I moved closer together and glared at them. The boys all took up the chant as they ran for the school.

“Are you okay?” Anna asked.

“Yeah, just mad. And I’m thinking about what to do about it.”

When I walked into the Grade Four classroom, Karen was telling Mrs. Collins that she came late because her dad forgot to wake her up. She was eating a cereal bar, and it looked like she had just climbed out of bed and put on her clothes about a minute before. Her socks didn't match and her hair was sticking out all over the place.

“Rooster Tail, Rooster Tail!” Tommy W and Tom S started another chant, and for a few seconds, I was glad they weren’t chanting Holy-holy anymore. But Karen was livid. “Don’t call me that!” she said loudly, her face turning bright red.

Mrs. Collins silenced the boys with a look, and started a Social Studies lesson. But whenever the teacher was distracted by other kids, Tom and Tommy were quietly rude and mean, goading Karen with her new nickname, which they had shortened to Rooster. By the end of the day, she was in tears, too.

When I got home from school, Mom told me that the evening’s plan was to rearrange and reorganize another corner of the new store. When Dad came home, we all had a quick supper and drove back downtown as a family. My sisters went straight to the kids’ corner to look at the picture books and read to each other, but I wandered around aimlessly, thinking about Anna and Karen and the bullies.

“Maria,” Mom called, “would you mind sorting out this box for me? All of these pins have gotten mixed up, so they need to be separated back into their proper compartments.”

There were doves, crosses, rainbows, happy faces, lambs, peace symbols, more different pins than I had ever imagined. I dumped the whole mess out onto a countertop and it took me a good half-hour to sort everything. When I was finished, I had about two dozen pins that didn’t fit into the box with the others, including ten round badges of different fluorescent colours that bore the cryptic message, PBPGINTWMY.

Mom checked on my organizational efforts. “Thank you, Maria, that’s much better.”

“You’re welcome, Mom. There are a few single ones that don't match any of the others. And what do these fluorescent ones mean?”

“I’m not sure. Is there a sticker on the back?”

“Just the company name.”

Mom went to the order desk and pulled out a catalogue. “Let’s see if we can find out. She flipped through the pages until she found it. “Hmm, it seems to be shorthand for ‘Please Be Patient. God Is Not Through With Me Yet.’ But if you have to ask, maybe no one else will know what it means either. Do you want these things?”

“Sure. They give me an idea.”

Monday at school, I gave out my own reinvented fluorescent badges to Anna, Patricia, Karen, Joan and a few other quieter girls on the playground who were picked on by the bully boys, or who the mean girls gossiped about. My badges said IASAKAFABANOWSOKWTTA.

“I-a-sak-a-fab-a what?” Joan tried to pronounce it.

“What does it mean?” everyone asked.

When I told my new friends that it was a new club to protect them from the nasty kids, and what the letters meant, they laughed, but they nodded when I said, “You don’t have to tell the nasty kids what it means. You’re the one who knows who you are. Just point to your badge, walk away, and find other friends with badges. We’re a club, remember?”

The loud, rude and mean kids were flummoxed. “What language is that supposed to be? And what does it mean? What does it mean?”

“That’s for us to know and you to find out,” we replied, and I’m not sure even one of us ever revealed our badges’ secret super powers, probably because it was hard to get the saying right. Even I got it mixed up, but it translated as

I
Am
Smart
And
Kind
And
Funny
And
Beautiful
And
No
One
Who
Says
Otherwise
Knows
What
They’re
Talking
About.

Canada Day Book Review: From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle

I am a proud Canadian. I am so happy to live in this country we call Canada, but I also can't deny its shadow sides.

When I was small, my best friend was a wonderful girl of Indigenous origin who had been taken from her parents at the age of three in what we now call the Sixties Scoop, which is something of a misnomer for events that took place from the 50s right through to the late 90s (and even the present day) in some cases.

My friend and I didn't know about cultural genocide as we played together, running loose all over our small town in Saskatchewan. I had no idea that my happy childhood was her main source of happiness at that time, a respite from life with a white foster family where different kinds of abuse deeply affected her and her sister.

For most of my life, Canada Day has meant celebrations of our country's goodness, beauty, and grandeur, some of which I was blessed to see on family summer vacations in the mountains or on the coasts of British Columbia. I was always proud of our country's peacekeeping track record, its welcome of immigrants and refugees, including those from the Underground Railroad for black settlers from the US, and other sources of struggle overseas, its resultant multiculturalism, and its efforts to stand up for justice in world conflicts.

Of course, as time has passed, social media has brought a wider awareness of the many places where Canada has fallen short of its professed high ideals, and as I have matured, it has become impossible to wear rose-coloured glasses when it comes to my country. Since reconnecting with my childhood friend a few years ago thanks to Facebook, when I put on my red and white Canada Day t-shirt (sporting our anthem's lyrics), I hesitate for a moment and think of all those people for whom the concept of Canada as our home and native land causes deep hurt.

This year, in the light of events since the end of May, I am thinking especially of people of colour who have experienced racism at the hands of white settlers and their descendants, people just like me who have forgotten that this land wasn't ours to begin with.

The good thing is that Canada is generally a wonderful place, full of many opportunities and freedoms for those who manage to come and live here. My family of origin, descended from Russian-German farmers, has lived in Treaty 6 territory for well over 100 years, and we have reaped many benefits over time.

The terrible thing is that most of the people we unwittingly displaced have not fared nearly so well.

So even as I celebrate Canadians' good fortune in living in this wonderful land called Canada, I am thinking of those who have experienced its darknesses in the forms of systemic racism that can lead to family breakdown, deprivation, poverty, addictions, and abuse. To that end, I'm reading From the Ashes: My Story of Being Metis, Homeless, and Finding My Way, the story of Jesse Thistle, a man who, with his two brothers, was also a victim of the Sixties Scoop.

From the Ashes is one of this year's Canada Reads book, and more than an eye-opener. Gritty and honest, told in heartbreaking poetry and prose, it has made me cry on more than one occasion. As I read, I can't help but put myself in the place of Jesse, asking myself how I would have reacted in the situations he found himself in, realizing the huge struggles that arose from systemic racism and the loss of his parental relationships. His story has made me more determined than ever to work for reconciliation and justice for Indigenous people and for all who are treated unfairly by the descendants of white settlers.

I can't recommend this book enough. If you have been wondering about your place in recent anti-racism events since the death of George Floyd in Minnesota, it's worth making an effort toward self-education and a deeper understanding of the Canadians who have been treated even worse over the centuries than our black community members, who are relative newcomers. It's worth rethinking our place in Canada, period, remembering that we are all equal in God's eyes, and thus, should be in Canadian society, too. There is so much healing required. And it starts with us refusing to allow systemic racism to continue unchallenged. 

On this rather sodden, dark, and rainy Canada Day in Edmonton, I will finish Jesse Thistle's book, and encourage all my readers to read it, too. In addition, I pledge to continue volunteering in capacities that connect me to my Indigenous brothers and sisters and other people of colour, to look for more such opportunities for friendship and connection, and to find places and ways to stand against the racism that we white people have allowed to continue for too long.

It is only through rebuilding our country's self-understanding through relationships, reconciliation, and justice efforts that we can truly be proud Canadians -- together.

Taking a chance on each other

My great-grandparents in Russia

October 2018 -- This post bears repeating, and repeating, and repeating. With war, dictators, famine, and climate refugees so much in the news these days, we need to remember our own roots, and the generosity of those who welcomed our ancestors when they arrived in Canada.

I’ve been noticing way too much anti-immigrant/refugee commentary here in Canada, and it’s really bothering me. Yesterday it reached the tipping point in my head and spilled out in a grumpy, miserable moodling that I’ve toned down a lot. Even so, this may get a bit messy:

With the exception of Canadian-from-the-very-beginning Indigenous people (who are still handling the effects of long-term Canadian racism -- another huge problem that still needs to be addressed), we, the people of Canada, are made up of immigrants and refugees from all over the world. Most of us came from other places to belong to a country that wasn’t ours to begin with. None of us really own our homeland, but we have helped to shape it into a country that strives to be open toward and tolerant of our human differences -- with varying rates of success.

My own great-grandparents were Russian-German farmers and blacksmiths who left their land near the Volga river during the Russian Revolution in the early 1900s. They came to Western Canada simply because their lives had been caught between the Red and White armies battling for control of Russia after the era of the Tzars. Their homes and families endangered, my ancestors fled to safety in Canada. Eventually they learned English, though the punchlines of jokes were usually in German, much to the chagrin of my third-generation cousins and me!

I suspect that most Canadians whose ancestors arrived in the first quarter of the last century (or much earlier) would say that they are also descendants of immigrants who came to Canada for the promise of good farm land, freedom, and safety for their children. Yet some of the descendants of these same immigrants now self-righteously act as though they own Canada and have the right to determine who is a “true” Canadian.

How quickly we forget our own history!

My great-grandfather came across on a boat, praying with his family to survive the long ocean crossing. He stood in a line at Pier 21 in Halifax, like thousands of others waiting to be documented, and I wonder if he got down on his hands and knees to kiss the ground once he'd scrawled his signature on the dotted line. Then he and his wife and children boarded a train that took them across the country, searched the Saskatchewan prairie for the iron stake that marked their homestead, and built a sod house before winter set in. The new immigrants had to work hard physically -- longer, harder days than many of their great-grandchildren ever will. It goes without saying that we are grateful for the Canadian birthright they worked for and handed down to us.

In a similar fashion, today's immigrant or refugee may have been driven to put his family on a boat -- belonging to a human trafficker -- because it was safer than facing terror, genocide or war where he once lived. He and his family prayed to get across the sea safely, and arrived on the other side to be herded into a truck that took them to an overcrowded refugee camp where they waited for three or four years in squalor  -- with no school for the children, no privacy, no real healthcare, and nothing to call their own but the clothes they wore. They had to scramble for money to pay foreign people to fill out reams of paperwork so they could to come to Canada, where they now have to navigate a very complex and, unfortunately, racist society. And the worst of the racists are usually nth-generation descendants of immigrants from years past.

From conversations with my immigrant friends who have come to Canada more recently, I know that they are more than willing to uphold Canada's laws and support their new country in good and bad times, to learn a new language, and to contribute their many significant talents to society while working, worrying about family members back home who might also hope to come to Canada, and helping their children to feel as though they belong here. They just want to make a good impression, to be welcomed, to have friends.

So it makes me angry when some people -- who probably don't even personally know (as friends) any of these newcomers -- decide that our new arrivals to Canada don’t deserve to be here because they’re not adapting quickly enough. The thing is, life is so different now -- in many ways that we barely even realize. While it’s true that today’s immigrants and refugees don’t have to build sod houses or plow virgin prairie, they struggle like our ancestors did to build new lives, but in a world where land, home, employment and citizenship are harder and harder to come by for lots of different reasons.

And it disturbs me to no end that some of today's nth-generation children of immigrants use the "history" of their European ancestors' military service in fighting for Canada in the World Wars as an example -- to insinuate that recently-arrived Canadians are probably terrorists from other countries who would never dream of lifting a finger to defend the Canadian lifestyle into which they and their families have been welcomed. The critics are forgetting that many of the new Canadian soldiers in the World Wars (who fled wars in their lands of origin) were conscripted. And isn't it a bit unrealistic to expect people who have fled violence for peace and security in Canada to turn around and enlist in our armed forces? Most of the Canadians-to-be that I know are just struggling to understand and fit into their adopted country’s language, culture and traditions while still treasuring their own, just as my great-grandparents did. My immigrant friends have left war, desperation, hatred and divisions behind to fully embrace their new homeland with an incredible gratitude, even as many life-long Canadians take our country for granted.

To people complaining about our newcomers I want to say: Sure, immigrants and refugees might dress differently than you and I do, but that's okay, really, it is. Their customs and traditions might seem a bit unusual at first, but everything new takes some getting used to. Their skin might not be the colour we're used to, but they're just as beautiful if you really look, and though it might be hard to understand them at first, communication will become easier with practice. And I am almost certain that anyone who lives a week in their lives or walks a hundred miles in their shoes will have nothing but respect and admiration for them, just as they respect and admire Canada for welcoming them.

Diversity means resilience and strength in nature. And diversity in our country is one of our strengths too. So while our family histories as longer-term Canadians are something that, yes, we can be proud of, they are also a reason to cut our newcomers some slack, to give them some time to settle in without facing undue criticism or racism. We need to realize that offhandedly spouting racist remarks (or copying them on social media) about not accepting people different than ourselves isn't helping anything -- rather, it's increasing bullying, prejudice, injustice, and worse, creating conditions for violence.

Instead, let's make time and opportunities to get to know more immigrants and refugees and let them share with us their goodness, kindness, generosity and friendship. And let's reciprocate! We’re better off taking a chance on each other than ignoring or denigrating potential new friends. After all, we are brothers and sisters in one human family, and in this country, we are all on our way to being Canadians together.