Blog Post 10

My upbringing focused a lot on, be yourself unapologetically. When I first moved to Canada I had an accent which I got bullied for “you say words wrong” “you talk funny”. I slowly started talking the “proper” way until it just disappeared. However with out the accent I am just another White Female in school. I the only comment ever been said to me in regards to being an immigrant was by a girl in my class “Immigrants like you should just go back to where you came from, all you do is steal jobs.”. I remember feeling ashamed of being here. I remember when Brave came out, I was so excited. I had a Scottish princess that spoke the way my family did. It was so cool. We watched it in class and everybody just came up to my sister and I asking “what are they saying” “are they even speaking English”. It was very annoying. However, I will never experience side glances for how I appear. I couldn’t imagine being a kid and not having a character represent you.

My school definitely had a single story, which mainly focused on white European views. My town was very religious and in elementary we were forced to stand for the lords prayer (in a public school) and if you sat down, you got sent to the office. We learned everything from the the text books which were written by white men. Our history classes barley ever strayed away from Europe and Canada. It wasn’t until grade 7 we touched on first nations history but that again was taught with European ideals. It wasn’t until university that I really understood them impact. I wish our school dove into other cultures and explained them.