<font color='black' size='2' face='arial'><b style="font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">Canuck Zhinoy Canadian</b><br>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">Bilingual Canadien is the object of public schooling in a
place that prides itself as a mosaic of varied colors. Though the signage is only in English and
French, the lilt of the Irish and Scot, gruff of the German and Russian,
Ukrainian and Finn, and the sing-songs of the Hindi, Chinese, and Filipino were
spoken by the population I heard cruising among the plaid-shirted,
buckled-denim-pants, hat-and-boots crowd of the Calgary Stampede.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">Nunavut is actually home to the First Nations, a term that
covers a multitude of self-esteems. A
grouping names the <i>Woodland First Nations</i>
in the dense boreal forest of the northeast; the <i>Iroquoian First Nations </i>that inhabit the southernmost fertile area
for corn, beans and squash - cousins to the 'Indians' who smoked with the
Pilgrim's progress in their first thanksgiving dinner after a year of surviving
a harsh winter in the Atlantic coast; and the <i>Plains First Nations </i>that lived in the grasslands of the Prairies,
whose maidens warmed up to Scot, Irish, and Welsh fur trappers, rendering them
as the forsaken <i>Metis </i>folks (mixed
blood) I once worked with in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">Then we have the <i>Plateau
First Nations </i>that dots the semi-desert arid air south of the high mountains
and dense forest in the north; the <i>Pacific
Coast First Nations </i>whose fingerprints are left in abundant shellfish and
salmon consumed in gigantic red cedar buildings and huge houses; and the <i>First Nations of the Mackenzie and Yukon
River Basins </i>that weathers the harsh environment of swampy <i>muskeg</i> terrain<i>, </i>barren land, and dark forest.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">Like the rest of the aborigines and indigenes elsewhere, if
they had not yet been decimated by the genocidal policies of Indo-Aryan's
racial superiority, they are relegated to providing native costumes to local
fests, at best, the recipients of well-intended dole, and, at worst, the
victims of deliberate oppression, sad in either case.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">Our playful title of the <i>Canuck
Zhinoy Canadian </i>encompasses the Canadien (Canuck used by Canadians though
used pejoratively in the U.S.), the Zhinoy (am coining the new word in lieu of
the pejorative "Chinoy") workers that now do the manual labor in
eateries and retail fronts in shops, and the Celt-Anglo-Teutonic of the ranch
farms and the coat-and-tie Canadians that dominates the country's political
stables, all visible in Spadina, Toronto any given day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">I identify with the growing Zhinoy (like <i>Champinolinians</i> for Chamorro, Pilipino
and Carolinian mix), a clear Sino-Indo-Malay blend now in worldwide
diaspora. One of my children who added
Celt-Anglo-Teutonic shades to her genetic mix had a banner flying at her
university declaring: "mongrels of the world, unite!" This is different from her <i>Metis </i>brothers and sisters whose
self-depreciating story was ingrained by the ambivalent non-treaty category
they endured when the purist perspective of Canadian dispensation thought them
dispensable as the elk and the uranium.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">I was in Sichuan in southwest China not too long ago, in the
Zang region (Xizang is the local name of Tibet in the Himalayas, xi = west,
Zang = a Himalayan ethnic group) of Kangding in the Garze Autonomous Region
where I saw how the Chinese government bolsters the self-image of its minority
groups, imbuing pride to those who appropriate the "affirmative"
action of the central government's policy on minorities. I visited Liuliude Park where the native
Kangding Love Song <i>(liuliude) </i>was the
theme but like many affirmative actions in other places, responsibility is on
those who take advantage of opportunities offered rather than on those who wait
to be spoon-fed by guardians and powers-that-be.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">Barack Hussein Obama broke through a glass ceiling. I hope he can stay away from the trigger-happy
nut cases that proliferate America's armed handgun closets (numbers for the top
three: of every 100 folks, there are 86 handguns in the US, 55 in Yemen, and 46
in Switzerland). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">I started this reflection on Canada's celebration of its
mosaic character, one I dearly appreciated when I lived in Saskatchewan where
one daughter acquired a Canadian passport (later exchanged for a US blue simply
on the dictate of travel convenience), and another daughter born in Alberta who
appropriates her mongrel lineage among the <i>aloha</i>
waves of Polynesia.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">I was in Calgary on <i>Canada
Day 2014, </i>when it went into its annual introspection: "What does
Canada mean to me?" It is a
question that every political entity can ask of its adherents. It is the question that stands in between the
personal "Who am I? or Who do I say I am?", to the all-encompassing
question of the earthrise, "Where is home?", where belonging to one planet is an
illuminating reality that now receives widespread allegiance. Asking all three leaves the middle, usually the
domain of jingoistic responses, an intentional communal life between the
experience of one's uniqueness, and the demand of nothing less than be human on
earth.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">I, too, am proud to be a mosaic. Thank you, Canucks.</div>
<br>
<div style="font-size: 18px; clear: both;"><i>j'aime la vie</i><br>
<a href="mailto:pinoypanda2031@aol.com">pinoypanda2031@aol.com</a><br>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!</i></div>
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