Thursday, January 13, 2005

My Ethnicity? I'm, I'm..... Canadian?

So, I'm taking this class called Learning to work in a Diverse Environment (or something along that lines) and for our first assignment we had to answer these questions about our own ethnicity. *Insert cold sweat here* I looked down at the paper in front of me and realized that I had no answers. I have essentially, little to no ethnicity. Let me break it down for you, I am blond, blue eyed, pale skinned, protestant and my first language is English. I was born in Canada, my parents were born in Canada, their parents were born in Canada, and so on... On both sides of my family I am descended from "Planters" and "Empire Loyalists". We came over on the boat. Or as I like to joke "we're the ones that handed the Natives the smallpox infested blankets" Needless to say, my family has been here a long time. We've retained little to no culture from the United Kingdom, except for, of course, English and a penchant for Fish and Chips. We have no customs, nothing that really ties us to the "homeland" Frankly, we don't even eat a lot of "British" food.
Looking around, I notice that's there's really not even that much diversity in the town I live in. It is predominantly white middle class protestants. I live in a fishtank full of goldfish, instead of an ocean of diversity. And that saddens me a little, because what then do I have to pass on to my children that is uniquely our heritage? What traditions and language and food and even dress can I pass on? I suppose I can be proud of my "Planter" roots, I mean, back in the 1700's we took a chance on the "new world" but in terms of something concrete, I feel like I'm lacking.
I suppose that's why I am fascinated by, and love culture of all kinds. It's something that I don't have for myself, and so other people's cultures fascinate me.
I suppose I am fortunate that my boyfriend is "right off the boat" and so, I'll at least have some culture to pass on to my kids, even if it's not my own...

6 Comments:

Blogger ebert said...

Hi there,
I'm literaryvamp from over at Chicklit.
And from the sounds of it, I look a lot like you. I get the vampire jokes all the time, because I'm so pale!
Anyways, I went to your website & checked out some of your writing. It's really good! I also really like how you have it set up. I'm hoping to do the same at my website sometime. Right now I just have a personal blog, & a book review page. Mind if I link to you?

Yvonne
http://www.literaryvamp.com

January 14, 2005 10:45 PM  
Blogger Shannon said...

Well, I'm glad you like my writing. Please feel free to link to me.
Sorry it took so long to reply, I've been sick.

January 20, 2005 5:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well.. when I tell you that your writing is most excellent ( ROCK ON!! ) then what, you don't believe me! :P Will you update this thing for goodness sakes! :)

P.

January 21, 2005 10:27 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great! I'm still in the process of building the writing site, so I think I'll link you from there. Also, I was wondering if there's any way to remove my earlier post. I accidentally signed with my real name, and I prefer to stay behind a mask for now. I googled my site (yes, I know, shameful) and found that I had commented on a couple of sites with my real name. Now I have to go fix things. Thanks! And sorry for the bother. Happy writing!

January 31, 2005 11:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Argh. Anonymous above is Literary Vamp. Sheesh. I'm having a really bad day.
Thanks again. At least you have lots of comments now!!

January 31, 2005 11:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

NSU - 4efer, 5210 - rulez

February 21, 2007 10:29 PM  

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