EDCI 330 Reflection #4: “Where I’m From” poems… Where am I from, and how much does it matter?

“So long as you think you are white, there is no hope for you.”

-James Baldwin

This week, we had a special guest in class who invited us to revisit an activity that many people have done in elementary school: an ad-libbed version of George Ella Lyon’s 1993 poem “Where I’m From”. She gave a wonderful talk, and finished it by handing out templates of this poem for us to fill in using details from our own lives. I thought this activity was a good balance of structured and creative, and I see a lot of value in encouraging students to consider where, who, and what they are from. I think of how common it is for Canadians who are People of Colour to be asked “where are you from?” with thinly-veiled malice, and with an unearned sense of white entitlement to places. I would like to think that reminding students that everyone is “from” somewhere unique, that many of us came as immigrants/colonizers (even if it was generations ago), could help disrupt this way of thinking.

Now, back to that James Baldwin quote I used to grab your attention: I agree with the sentiment that whiteness, as an identity, needs to be abolished. I was initially put onto this idea by reading Noel Ignatiev’s work, which asserts the same thing. This article I read a few years ago sums his work up well, especially in this particular quote:

“Reading his work and that of his colleagues, it becomes clear that almost every element of white identity that one might want to preserve is already contained in other identities – ethnic, religious, national, cultural – which do not inherently marginalize and dominate others and whose positive characteristics are diminished rather than augmented by association with whiteness.”

-Mark LeVine, on Noel Ignatiev’s legacy

I want to present this option to my students, that just because they are white does not mean they have anything meaningful in common, or that they’re part of a big enough club to justify their shared norms being the norm in the classroom. I would love to help white students accept that just like “everybody else”, they are descended from diverse and complicated ancestors, each of which made foods that a classmate may call “weird” if brought to school for lunch today. I remember the one time my mum made Scottish mince for dinner, and I was embarrassed to bring it to school because it looked ugly (it is, and it’s fine) compared to my classmates’ Lunchables. It didn’t help, either, that I probably brought it in a pasta stained Tupperware that was as old as me.

I feel awkward bringing up times like the Scottish mince lunch, because moments like that were minuscule blips for me, a microbe compared to the planet-sized experiences of students who are Children of Colour or recent immigrants. I’m Canadian, it’s only my ancestors from four generations back that were truly Irish and Scottish, and last thing students need is another educator who centres their teaching around white people’s feelings. At the same time, maybe students need a teacher who is willing to “engage critically and creatively with ideas to be a change agent in society, especially with regard to equity and justice”– emphasis on critically. Imagine if I told students the truth, that my Irish ancestors betrayed their Black American and Canadian neighbours to gain access to the benefits of white supremacy? Maybe students would know how flimsy and fake whiteness was if they knew that there was a point where my palest ancestors were not considered white like their British-Canadian neighbours. I am not certain yet how to go about the conversations that will come up from teaching rooted in these ideas, but I am going to figure that out because I think all Canadian students benefit from knowing these complex truths.

And in case you were wondering, here is my “I am From” poem:

I am from polar fleece PJs

From Stanley thermoses and my mum’s curls

frizzy, beautiful, warm

I am from Creeping Jenny,

bright and scented like chlorophyll

I’m from “Galway Girl” and loud laughter with cousins

From Marilyn and Louise

I’m from the love and nagging

From “strong calves” and “no meat on your bones”

I’m from a two-century old bible, but before that, from Danu and the Cailleach

I’m from Lheidli T’enneh homelands and places I’ve never met

canned salmon, potato bread

From cedars so big, you can lay in the cut before falling them