Despite Canada’s official policy of multiculturalism, until recently, the perspectives of the country’s lesser-known, marginalized writers have not been usually taken into consideration in mainstream discussions on the nature of Canadian identity and its socio cultural mosaic. Specifically, minority life writing narratives had generally received little critical attention in Canada. This paper aims to fill this slowly-decreasing gap through the exploration of two texts whose female writers negotiate their distinct ethnic and national selves within the cultural dominant of Canada. The essay compares Apolonja Kojder’s Polish-Canadian memoir, Marynia, Don’t Cry, to Rita Joe’s Mi’kmaq-Canadian autobiography, Song of Rita Joe. The analysis of these texts sets the Polish and Aboriginal communities into conversation, and yields a discussion on the nature of cultural, national, linguistic and female identity. It argues that identity is political, relational and always in process. Since much of the personal narrative writers’ identity struggle in an alien land and language often unravels as a translation of the self into another world, the two personal narratives add nuance to our understanding of the contradictions found in institutional policies. The study creates awareness of the literary and discursive strategies by which writers of disadvantaged communities challenge and subvert cultural oppression, identity misconstructions, and the exclusion of ethnic and women’s histories from within mainstream society. However, through the textual hybridization of cultures, languages, histories and life experiences, Kojder’s and Joe’s intention is to facilitate understanding across groups, create respect for diversity, propel social participation and induce socio political transformation. This paper means to shed light on the Canadian experience in its unique variations, and to add to life writing studies on ethnic and national individuals’ personal encounters with and within the Canadian socio- cultural and political milieu.

Despite Canada’s official policy of multiculturalism, until recently, the perspectives of the country’s lesser-known, marginalized writers have not been usually taken into consideration in mainstream discussions on the nature of Canadian identity and its socio cultural mosaic. Specifically, minority life writing narratives had generally received little critical attention in Canada. This paper aims to fill this slowly-decreasing gap through the exploration of two texts whose female writers negotiate their distinct ethnic and national selves within the cultural dominant of Canada. The essay compares Apolonja Kojder’s Polish-Canadian memoir, Marynia, Don’t Cry, to Rita Joe’s Mi’kmaq-Canadian autobiography, Song of Rita Joe. The analysis of these texts sets the Polish and Aboriginal communities into conversation, and yields a discussion on the nature of cultural, national, linguistic and female identity. It argues that identity is political, relational and always in process. Since much of the personal narrative writers’ identity struggle in an alien land and language often unravels as a translation of the self into another world, the two personal narratives add nuance to our understanding of the contradictions found in institutional policies. The study creates awareness of the literary and discursive strategies by which writers of disadvantaged communities challenge and subvert cultural oppression, identity misconstructions, and the exclusion of ethnic and women’s histories from within mainstream society. However, through the textual hybridization of cultures, languages, histories and life experiences, Kojder’s and Joe’s intention is to facilitate understanding across groups, create respect for diversity, propel social participation and induce socio political transformation. This paper means to shed light on the Canadian experience in its unique variations, and to add to life writing studies on ethnic and national individuals’ personal encounters with and within the Canadian socio- cultural and political milieu.

Despite Canada’s official policy of multiculturalism, until recently, the perspectives of the country’s lesser-known, marginalized writers have not been usually taken into consideration in mainstream discussions on the nature of Canadian identity and its socio cultural mosaic. Specifically, minority life writing narratives had generally received little critical attention in Canada. This paper aims to fill this slowly-decreasing gap through the exploration of two texts whose female writers negotiate their distinct ethnic and national selves within the cultural dominant of Canada. The essay compares Apolonja Kojder’s Polish-Canadian memoir, Marynia, Don’t Cry, to Rita Joe’s Mi’kmaq-Canadian autobiography, Song of Rita Joe. The analysis of these texts sets the Polish and Aboriginal communities into conversation, and yields a discussion on the nature of cultural, national, linguistic and female identity. It argues that identity is political, relational and always in process. Since much of the personal narrative writers’ identity struggle in an alien land and language often unravels as a translation of the self into another world, the two personal narratives add nuance to our understanding of the contradictions found in institutional policies. The study creates awareness of the literary and discursive strategies by which writers of disadvantaged communities challenge and subvert cultural oppression, identity misconstructions, and the exclusion of ethnic and women’s histories from within mainstream society. However, through the textual hybridization of cultures, languages, histories and life experiences, Kojder’s and Joe’s intention is to facilitate understanding across groups, create respect for diversity, propel social participation and induce socio political transformation. This paper means to shed light on the Canadian experience in its unique variations, and to add to life writing studies on ethnic and national individuals’ personal encounters with and within the Canadian socio- cultural and political milieu. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Practically since its celebrated premiere in 1967, George Ryga's drama about urban Native Canadians, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, has enjoyed canonical status in Canada. Yet the same three decades that have seen over 200 productions of Rita Joe have also witnessed radical transformations in the ways First Nations' peoples are represented, heard and perceived in Canada. How has a play written about Natives by a non-Native man in 1967 managed such a long production history on such contentious and unstable ground? How do identity politics influence this piece of theatre, and how does the theatre shape identity politics? As popular notions about Native identities have changed and as Native people continue to represent themselves in and put of court, and on and off the stage, this play about Native people in Canada has been performed and re-performed. But the directors, the venues, the actors, the costumes and sets, the language itself and (most significantly) the resulting characterizations have changed over the years — in subtle and rather dramatic ways. While the words and the fundamental plot of Rita Joe have remained the same, its messages about Native identity has evolved since 1967, in relation to social, political, economic, and cultural changes. Indeed, historical developments impact the particular ways an "Indian" is represented in a particular time; what makes a "real Indian" tends to shift with the political and social needs of the moment. This paper examines the way Native identity is represented in eight productions of Rita Joe mounted between 1967 and 1992, creating a production history that focuses on the relationship between representations of identity and particular moments in time and space and, ultimately, discerns a complex and symbiotic relationship between the aesthetic, creative world and the historio-political world. Perhaps most remarkably, the play stretches to accommodate diverse cultural narratives, gathering meaning from the identity politics of its particular performance place and time.

Practically since its celebrated premiere in 1967, George Ryga's drama about urban Native Canadians, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, has enjoyed canonical status in Canada. Yet the same three decades that have seen over 200 productions of Rita Joe have also witnessed radical transformations in the ways First Nations' peoples are represented, heard and perceived in Canada. How has a play written about Natives by a non-Native man in 1967 managed such a long production history on such contentious and unstable ground? How do identity politics influence this piece of theatre, and how does the theatre shape identity politics? As popular notions about Native identities have changed and as Native people continue to represent themselves in and put of court, and on and off the stage, this play about Native people in Canada has been performed and re-performed. But the directors, the venues, the actors, the costumes and sets, the language itself and (most significantly) the resulting characterizations have changed over the years — in subtle and rather dramatic ways. While the words and the fundamental plot of Rita Joe have remained the same, its messages about Native identity has evolved since 1967, in relation to social, political, economic, and cultural changes. Indeed, historical developments impact the particular ways an "Indian" is represented in a particular time; what makes a "real Indian" tends to shift with the political and social needs of the moment. This paper examines the way Native identity is represented in eight productions of Rita Joe mounted between 1967 and 1992, creating a production history that focuses on the relationship between representations of identity and particular moments in time and space and, ultimately, discerns a complex and symbiotic relationship between the aesthetic, creative world and the historio-political world. Perhaps most remarkably, the play stretches to accommodate diverse cultural narratives, gathering meaning from the identity politics of its particular performance place and time. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate