Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
identification of a subject, a naming rarely so explicit, though always
understood in its absence:
The house across the lane was bought by Orientals. Soon after they moved in,
two 200 year-old Douglas firs were cut down. It felt to me like one of my
children was dying… The English family who originally built the house and
had lived there for 50 years had asked me especially to protect those trees, the
tallest in the whole neighbourhood…
Agency is located generically in a non-specific cultural group from Asia.
One might prefer that this naming, or any other, be erased. But the naming
permits the contrast of cultures to be made between 'the Orientals' and 'the
English' who are also named. This writer clearly identifies with the English
landscape precedent, so acutely indeed that tree felling primed an extraor-
dinary grieving analogy: 'It felt to me like one of my children was dying'.
The familiar narrative re-appears: longevity, protection, neighbourhood
obligation, sale, destruction, loss. The naming permits the contrast of two
cultural landscapes. It is a reminder of a sentiment made to me keenly by
one South Shaughnessy resident - 'You know we have a culture too' -
remarkable for the subject position it suggests of a people seen to be with-
out a culture. To name one's culture, to name the culture that threatens its
place-based continuity, is a strategy for survival. For better or for worse to
evoke the Englishness of Shaughnessy was akin to evoking the Chineseness
of Chinatown. It permitted a case for survival to be made as a character
neighbourhood, drawing upon social and cultural rights in an argument
based on multicultural identity politics.
There can be no doubt that business groups and others used the charge of
racism tactically and it was strenuously resisted. 'This issue has absolutely
nothing to do whatsoever with race,' a South Shaughnessy resident wrote to
Council, 'I have Oriental neighbours who recently bought the house next
door, intending to live in it long term and retain it. I am most happy they are
my neighbours. The issue is solely one of preserving the basic design charac-
ter of our area'. A similar message appeared in a letter to the
Vancouver
Courier
, under the title 'Good taste not racist': 'I am not racist. I tell myself
this over and over again to loosen the creeping fingers of intimidation that
Mr. Hersh and his developer friends are attempting to tighten around my
voice box' (anon 1992). Such prioritization of 'good taste' contrasted with
an implied 'inferior taste' might itself be seen as a form of ethnocentrism or
even cultural racism. But it can also be read as an appropriation of a multi-
culturalism that values the legacy of immigrant cultures, as in the preserva-
tion of Vancouver's Chinatown. From such a perspective the right to protect
Chinatown as a case of a valued cultural legacy could equally be extended to
the English-derived character landscape in Shaughnessy.
