“Respecting Your History:” Jessica Yee on being Asian, Aboriginal, and Canadian

But where do you go to even learn about your culture? The mass assumption usually is that as Indigenous peoples, we must have been living with our Elders and were raised in our home communities with the abundance of rich land and resources where we might have learned everything about who we are, and speak our language. That is very untrue for many of us, not just because of environmental degradation, but because colonization is still very real and happening to us each and every day. Many reservations aren’t even traditional territories, they are cut out land marks that we got the sore end of the deal of to try and make a living on. 60 Indigenous languages are disappearing all over the world, every day, and we need to focus on our young people now to get back what we’ve lost.

We’re still reeling from 500 years of colonization, and have only started to come out of it and begin the healing process in the last 50. We need to re-learn our culture and who we are as a people, and no longer be ashamed of the means and processes we do to get there. I am personally trying my hardest to gather as much information as I can about my culture and my traditions, and it’s by no means an easy process. Especially in the work that I’m involved in, I know that so much of it is rooted in Indigenous, matriarchal societies who were living with the very principles of healthy sexuality, but many of those I try to learn from don’t know about this since their teachings were erased in residential schools. I remind myself that “traditional” means before colonization happened, and that there is still a lot of deconstruction that has to take place.

“There are gaps in all multicultural societies,” says Lily Chow, author of the First Nations and Chinese historical accounts Sojourners in the North and Chasing Their Dreams. “These older generations regret that they didn’t know how to appreciate one and other. There are so many similarities if you look a little bit closer. We need more education on where we come from.”

It’s true that nowadays we don’t really sit down and discuss our culture with one and other. We see it represented mostly in festivals or conferences, but we have the ability to do more than that. As Ms. Chow puts it, “You don’t just look at the foods and colours of people if you want to know about their culture, you have to understand wholly where the person comes from. It’s more than just their country.”

But where do I fit in with all of this? I have listened to the great stories of the Chinese and First Nations unions, dating back to the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, or later on during the gold rush years. I empathize with several friends of mine who are the offspring of these unions, feeling that they too have to suppress part of themselves to be accepted into one or the other side, while they listen to their own families bash and stereotype the other.

“I’ve never had a problem being both Chinese and Native,” says Raymond Lazore, president of Students for Multicultural Alliance. “I’ve actually always found them both to have a lot in common and even complement each other. It’s everyone else that seems to have a problem with it.”

I’ve always had to do a little extra explaining myself because I am Indigenous—but that ancestry doesn’t only come from one place. And to the surprise of many of those questioners who approach me, Aboriginal people don’t only live in North America. There are Indigenous people all over the world, and those that live in what we now know as Taiwan, China, the United States, and Canada are all part of my ancestry.

Not being 100% of something or a “pure blood” as the cliché goes, makes you wonder where your place is and who you really belong to. Those “pure bloods” with a less complicated ethnic history and an easier shot at finding a racial identity are still revered in many cultures for their oneness and ability to breed more “pure” offspring with a fellow “pure” mate.

I’m also Indigenous from the land that China colonized. It’s still difficult for me to find any semblance of Indigeneity within the mainstream Chinese culture that exists in Canada, and a lot of it has to do with the reality that just like in this country, Native people are pushed out of sight and out of mind in China. Even in my research for this article, I heard comments such as, “I really like the Natives here in Canada. You know, our Chinese men did not treat the First Nations women right when they came over here. We need to make up for that.” My response? “Um, you know there are Indigenous people in China too right? Who also got screwed over by the Chinese? What about them?”

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