provinces. They knew what provinces were. They even knew the capital cities of the provinces and the lakes and the other big bodies of water. Sure, I was superior—there were many more states than their flimsy little province-count, and I knew them all—but I was suddenly not the same as everyone else and suddenly very far behind. And kids notice that kind of thing. They notice when you pronounce words differently. I remember sitting with alittle girl in the school library on one of the first days and everyone laughing at me because I said “orange” differently; I said “R-ange.” I also said “toilit paper” and “maalk.” The little girl was so nervous that day that she threw up all over the library books spread out in front of us. I remember the smell. But no one noticed, because I was the novelty of the day.
Years ago my mother was accused of having an Australian accent. Her New Jersey drawn-out a’s and r’s mellow with the length of time she spends in Victoria. When she goes home to visit her family, she comes back sounding like she never left the States. It takes a week or two to fade. I notice my slight accent (just on certain words) when I’m giving readings. The American twang to my speech seems to fit my writing, seems destined to be part of how I think.
“Yankee,” the kids said on the second day. They must have gone home and told their parents about me. Tensions between Canada and the U.S. were relatively high at that point. Academics like my father were being written up in the newspapers as having taken jobs away from Canadians. The year before we came to Canada, there was an amendment to the immigration act which stated that if there was a qualified Canadian applicant to a post-secondary institution, he or she should be considered before a foreignapplicant. Even with this amendment, there was still a strong fear that the universities would become Americanized. There was also ripe, fetid anger against Americans following the horrible truths about the Vietnam War. After all, the draft dodgers (mostly middle-class, educated, white young men, who assimilated quickly into Canadian culture) had fled here and were working and living in Canada. The facts of Vietnam were coming out.
So we were the “Yanks.”
This, of course, is the history I remember. This is something that has no corresponding photograph I can refer to.
I remember rapidly learning the provinces, trying desperately to catch up to the rest of the class. By Christmas I was cast as Mary in the nativity play we were doing at school. There is a photograph of me, kneeling down in front of the cradle, my head swathed in a veil (a soft white towel, it looks like), wearing a blue dress. There are kids to the left of me, to the right of me, Joseph and the three wise men standing there looking lost, a choir singing. How did I earn the right to be in the centre of all of this? Between September and December had I started to pronounce words correctly? Had I stopped being a Yankee? Did the teachers feel sorry for me? Ormaybe it was just one of those times where the new kid has to do the thing that no one else wants to do.
I had friends. I had best friends. I rushed to school early every morning to play floor hockey. I hung around with the crowd who chased the boys, and I played a big part in getting them to kiss us. I joined a baseball team and did cartwheels out in centre field. In the beginning of grade three I remember Mrs. Harrington died. And that broke my heart. This elderly British woman had taken me in and made me feel as if I had arrived somewhere, as if I were finally home. She never once corrected my accent or made me feel different.
By the end of grade three I was quickly forgetting the States. I forgot everything I had ever learned. My grandparents visited from New Jersey every year, and one year they brought me a Betsy Ross pincushion doll.
“Who’s Betsy Ross?” I asked my mother as I flipped up the skirt to see what you
Years ago my mother was accused of having an Australian accent. Her New Jersey drawn-out a’s and r’s mellow with the length of time she spends in Victoria. When she goes home to visit her family, she comes back sounding like she never left the States. It takes a week or two to fade. I notice my slight accent (just on certain words) when I’m giving readings. The American twang to my speech seems to fit my writing, seems destined to be part of how I think.
“Yankee,” the kids said on the second day. They must have gone home and told their parents about me. Tensions between Canada and the U.S. were relatively high at that point. Academics like my father were being written up in the newspapers as having taken jobs away from Canadians. The year before we came to Canada, there was an amendment to the immigration act which stated that if there was a qualified Canadian applicant to a post-secondary institution, he or she should be considered before a foreignapplicant. Even with this amendment, there was still a strong fear that the universities would become Americanized. There was also ripe, fetid anger against Americans following the horrible truths about the Vietnam War. After all, the draft dodgers (mostly middle-class, educated, white young men, who assimilated quickly into Canadian culture) had fled here and were working and living in Canada. The facts of Vietnam were coming out.
So we were the “Yanks.”
This, of course, is the history I remember. This is something that has no corresponding photograph I can refer to.
I remember rapidly learning the provinces, trying desperately to catch up to the rest of the class. By Christmas I was cast as Mary in the nativity play we were doing at school. There is a photograph of me, kneeling down in front of the cradle, my head swathed in a veil (a soft white towel, it looks like), wearing a blue dress. There are kids to the left of me, to the right of me, Joseph and the three wise men standing there looking lost, a choir singing. How did I earn the right to be in the centre of all of this? Between September and December had I started to pronounce words correctly? Had I stopped being a Yankee? Did the teachers feel sorry for me? Ormaybe it was just one of those times where the new kid has to do the thing that no one else wants to do.
I had friends. I had best friends. I rushed to school early every morning to play floor hockey. I hung around with the crowd who chased the boys, and I played a big part in getting them to kiss us. I joined a baseball team and did cartwheels out in centre field. In the beginning of grade three I remember Mrs. Harrington died. And that broke my heart. This elderly British woman had taken me in and made me feel as if I had arrived somewhere, as if I were finally home. She never once corrected my accent or made me feel different.
By the end of grade three I was quickly forgetting the States. I forgot everything I had ever learned. My grandparents visited from New Jersey every year, and one year they brought me a Betsy Ross pincushion doll.
“Who’s Betsy Ross?” I asked my mother as I flipped up the skirt to see what you
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