Women and Canadian Multiculturalism

Table of Contents

Editorial/Éditorial
Ana Carastathis, Eve Haque, Suzanne Lenon, Andrea Medovarski, Candis Steenbergen and Joyce Wayne

Belonging, Unsettling
Troubling Herstory: Unsettling White Multiculturalism in Canadian Feminism
by Mary-Jo Nadeau
Talking Race, Talking Colour: Racialized Women, their Home and Belongingness in Multicultural Canada
by Aisha Chapra and Soma Chatterjee
Accommodate This! A Feminist and Anti-Racist Response to the “Reasonable Accommodation” Hearings in Quebec
by Robyn Maynard and Sophie Le-Phat Ho
The Sound of Doors Slamming: Does Immigration Policy Fight Racism in the Workplace?
by Joyce Wayne
No Woman Left Covered: Unveiling and the Politics of Liberation in Multi/interculturalism
by Tanisha Ramachandran
Deceptive Inclusion: The 2010 Vancouver Olympics and Violence Against First Nations People by Robyn Bourgeois

Teaching, Activism
Reasonable Accommodation as a Settling Concept
by Cory Legassic
Voices for Justice: Iranian Women Graduate Students Theorize the Source of Oppression in Canadian Society
by Zahra Hojati
Moments of Misrecognition: Violence Against Women and the Multicultural Classroom
by Eva C. Karpinski
Post-Reunification Reconciliation among pinay Domestic Workers and Adult Daughters in Canada
by Conely De Leon
March 8, 2009, Montreal, Canada photoessay
by Faiz Imam
March 8th Coordination and Action Committee of Women of Diverse Origins
by Farha Najah Hussain and Marie Boti
Feminism and Multiculturalism in Quebec: An/Other Perspective
by Dolores Chew
Des enseignantes-immigrantes nous on dit…
par Marie Louise Lefebvre

Literature, Art
“there are atomic openings in my chest / to hold the wounded”: Intimacy, the Body and Transnational Solidarity in Dionne Brand’s Inventory
by Paul Barrett
Compelling Disclosures: Colonial Violence and the Narrative Imperative in Feminist Anti-Violence Discourse and Indigenous Women’s Writing
by Allison Hargreaves
“We’re Here, Standing at the Shoreline”: Sylvia Hamilton’s Intervention in the Nova Scotian Discourse of Belonging and Multicultural Citizenship
by Sharon Morgan Beckford

Poetry
The Crumbs of Civility
by Robert F. Thimmesh
Who am I, Canadian woman?
by Feiziya Patel
Unnaturally warm
by Sheila Stewart
Loss
by Joanna M. Weston
Chinatown East
by Marge Lam
Swaddling Clothes
by Marlene Kadar
august
by Catherine Burwell
Roya’s Racialization: Found Poetry from a Young Iranian Immigrant Woman
by Ardiss Mackie
Not So Sudden
by L. June Stevenson
The Library
by Sheilah Roberts
Mother God
by Margo Swiss
Delilah
by A. Mary Murphy
Remembrance
by Sheila Stewart
Hatching of the Heart
by Margo Swiss

Book Reviews
Justice, Gender and the Politics of Multiculturalism reviewed by Wing Hin Lee
Women’s Health in Canada: Critical Perspective on Theory and Policy reviewed by Deborah McPhail
Culture-Infused Counselling: Celebrating the Canadian Mosaic reviewed by Dawn McBride
Feminist Methodologies for International Relations reviewed by Joanna Swanger
Sex and Family in Colonial India reviewed by Anindo Hazra
Black Geographies and the Politics of Place reviewed by Sharon Morgan Beckford
Seven Valleys of Love: A Bilingual Anthology of Women Poets from Middle Ages Persia to Present Day Iran reviewed by Desi Di Nardo
The Iron Shoes: Poems reviewed by Hollay Ghadery
Autobiography and Gender in Early Modern Literature: Reading Women’s Lives, 1600-1680 reviewed by Elizabeth S. Cohen
Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism reviewed by Rachel Hurst
From Where We Stand: War, Women’s Activism & Feminist Analysis reviewed by Tarah Brookfield
Women, Sociability and Theatre in Georgian London reviewed by Kym Bird
Working-Class Students at Radcliffe College, 1940-1970: The Intersection of Gender, Social Class, and Historical Context reviewed by Marlene Clapp

About the Artwork

Front Cover
Vishakha Gandhi, “I Bite my Tongue (on the vowels),” oil and found image on canvas, 10″ x 8″, 2004. Photo: V. Gandhi.

Back Cover
Vishakha Gandhi, “Paisley,” oil on canvas, 12″ x 12″, 2006. Photo: V. Gandhi.

Vishakha Gandhi is a Montreal-born academic, visual artist, and writer who is currently completing her doctorate in English at York University. She has exhibited her visual art at the Annual Graduate Women’s Studies Student Association Symposium, Lunar Eclipse: A Night of Words and Art at the Toronto Women’s Bookstore, Linux Café, and in School Magazine. She plans to mount another solo exhibition at Alternative Grounds in the upcoming year. Her portfolio can be viewed at www.myspace.com/dripping orientalism.

“As someone knowledgeable of postcolonial studies, I find myself in a vexed position in relation to elements that might be considered South Asian in style or imagery. To this end, I have created an aesthetic that I call ‘dripping orientalism,’ that includes lush colours, Indocentric iconography such as lotus flowers, and Hindi or Gujarati script. However, the viewer’s gaze is interrupted by what appears to be blood drips and splatters; these drips illustrate the violence of western consumption of the East. In the painting “I Bite my Tongue (on the vowels),” this violence is twofold, as I reference my childhood frustration at being taught the Hindi vowels over and over by inept teachers. “Paisley” is the quintessential Indian pattern revisited in the opulence of gold, orange, and yellow. Here, the paisleys create a riotous swirl across the canvas, unlike the more ordered paisley patterns that are seen traditionally in Indian art. Both paintings contain within them a longing and a desire; they speak to a desire to both see old forms in new, decadent ways, and to attempt control on how the viewer receives the art.”