Writing the Self Analysis: Looking for Normative Narratives

i) Normative Narratives

Canadians have a worldwide reputation of being very nice, kind, friendly, and helpful people. This can be recognized by both citizens of Canada and people all around the world. This reputation is one many Canadians are proud to uphold and be known for – it supports our patriotism for the wonderful country we and others tend to believe we have and live in. In Cambri’s story she emphasizes that in Canada “kindness is our core value and that diversity is the essence of what joins our country.” She tells the story of how her highschool basketball team each donated a new pair of basketball shoes to send to a team as “a note of appreciation.” This action merely being out of pure kindness because of the impact the previous game against this team had on them. The main point Cambri kept displaying throughout her story was proving that the Canadian repuation of being nice people is true, and it is something us Canadians recognize as being a “Canadian” thing.

Wanbli’s story on the other hand comes from the perspective of someone outside of Canada. She describes her first day of school in Canada after leaving the United States of America. Wanbli goes into great detail explaining her overwhelming, nervous, and intimidating emotions she was feeling entering the new environment. To her pleasant surprise she was greeted with many “friendly smiles” and a “welcoming handshake.” The principal of Wanbli’s new school was there helping her navigate her first day which initially had her thinking “is he being friendly to trick me into thinking this is a well-off school?” She was surrounded by so much kindness that it was almost hard to take in. Wanbli then came to the conclusion saying that “perhaps the stereotypes are true: all Canadians are sincere and generous for absolutely no reason.” She admits having known the common understanding that Canadians are all nice, and in her firsthand experience she was able to determine that maybe it is in fact true.

Both Cambri’s and Wanbli’s stories display examples of Canadians living up to their “good” reputation. My story also helps defend Canadians’ kind and helpful character that we are known to have. In my story I discuss how a few of my classmates and myself left class after a huge snowstorm to help our community. Out of pure kindness, we entered the snow filled streets and helped shovel and push out any cars that were stuck and shoveled people driveways. This act of kindness is similar to Cambri and her teammates donating basketball shoes; neither of us were obligated to such an act, but we chose to do so anyways. We both participated in selfless acts to help out someone other than ourselves which we both recognized being something that “a Canadian would do.” These “Canadian” qualities Cambri, her teammates, my classmates, and I displayed were similar to the traits Wanbli was able to notice and appreciate when she first came into a Canadian school. All three of these stories show in slightly different ways how Canadians prove on a day to day basis that in fact they can be generous, kind, and helpful to anyone despite where they are from, so we often tend to associate Canadians with niceness and kindness.

ii) Disrupting normative narratives 

Through Cambri’s, Wanbli’s, and my own story, we identified the common theme of Candians known to be nice and kind, from both a Canadians perspective and an outside perspective. Jerico’s story on the other hand counteracts some of the claims we previously made. He claimed near the end of his story that “to be Canadian is to be part of a community. A community that respects, listens to, and understands all of its people.” Before saying such courageous words about Canada he explains about a day at school when he earlier had a predicament and then spoke to his class about his opinion on offensive and traditionally derogatory words being used in a society like Canada. Jerico said that many of his classmates “had tears in their eyes” since they must have never felt the pain he experienced when he was called such offensive names before. This going to show that many Canadians have used and may continue to use derogatory names or terms which is in no way at all nice or friendly thing to do, unlike what Cambri and my own story displayed. We tend to praise all the good things many Canadians do, but ignore all the negative things that occur on daily basis.

In Nikki’s story, we see another example of students in school not being as kind and friendly as they are expected to be. She goes on to explain how she had just moved to a new town and during O’Canada, many students were being disrespectful “fidgeting, whispering and looking with interest at my sister and I.” She began thinking that the whispering was directed at her and her sister because they were the only new students in this town for years. Her new classmates seemed very judgemental and completely opposite of welcoming and friendly as Wanbli previously experienced entering a new school in Canada. Despite Wanbli’s good welcoming into a new school, we see through Nikki’s story that not all Canada schools will be similarly nice. Not just particular schools themselves, but the people who populate our country are not always as perfect and kind as everyone assumes they are just because “they are Canadian” and “all Canadians are supposed to be nice.” We are constantly believing this normal narrative that it can be shocking to some when they first encounter a non-polite Canadian or unfriendly environment.

Not only does Jerico and Nikki’s story goes against the Canadian identity, we see through “Racism it’s a Canadian Thing” that Canadians are not as pleasant and great as many think. This article states that “white supremacy remains deeply embedded within the ideological structures upholding the Canadian state.” From statistics we see a noticeable difference in the income, employment, infant mortality, and poverty rate as well as who populates the prisons, of racialized Canadians in comparison to white Canadians. In “Mr. Kristif, the caricature is dangerous” we have more evidence of Canadians not being as perfect as they seem. First and foremost our “country has a colonial history of cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples.” Even currently First Nation communities do not have proper access to clean drinking water and or sanitation. She explains that Canadians do not want to talk about any of these issues we face as the reason that we are “able to deny and ignore these injustices to such an incredible (and terrifying) extent is our national narrative identity that we are nicer, kinder, and more compassionate than other countries/peoples.” This however, should not be any excuse to deny any of the the “injustice, intolerance, nationalism and racism” that we still face in Canada while the world continues to believe we are wonderful people.