Vancouver Public Library’s (VPL) relatively new (2022) Indigenous Considerations for Newcomers to Canada (ICNC) program is designed to educate newcomers about Canada’s Indigenous history and culture.
Taking the innovative program one step further and hoping to reach out to Vancouver’s broader Chinese community, VPL will be hosting the program in Cantonese for the first time on Nov. 26 at the Terry Salman Branch. The library plans to host a Mandarin version in 2025.
“The key point we want people to understand is that [Canada’s reconciliation process] is a commitment as a nation,” says Gladys Chen, VPL’s manager of special projects.
The desire to learn
The ICNC is an hour-and-a-half long lecture-based program that covers the various Indigenous communities present in Canada, Indigenous histories, and how participants can honour reconciliation. The program ends with a brief question-and-answer session for participants to clarify any concepts brought up during the program.
“We have a program called ESL (English as a Second Language) Conversation Practice and many participants in that program have expressed their desire to learn more about Indigenous-related topics,” Chen says. “We also received the same request from the Library Champion Program, which introduces newcomers to the library.”
Although ICNC only covers basic information, it serves as a good starting point for newcomers seeking to learn more about Indigenous culture and history. VPL encourages the public to check out its other programs such as the Indigenous Storyteller in Residence. There is also a second step to ICNC called Towards Reconciliation: Start Your Learning Journey, another lecture-based program where locals and immigrants can learn more about the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
Expanding the program
“There are a lot of immigrants from China at West Point Grey,” Chen points out. “That’s why we [decided to] translate [the program] into Chinese.”
As Chinese and English are vastly different languages, the VPL staff put in extra effort to ensure that the program’s translation reflected the facts as accurately as possible. Since Cantonese and Mandarin share a written language, the translation process involved writing the key points of the program in Chinese first before presenting it in different dialects.
“[Translating the program in Chinese] was very challenging,” Chen admits. “We did not want to do a translation on top of a translation, […] so we clarified concepts with our Indigenous planner, Rick Ouellet, and we figured out how to [translate it] in Chinese. If we just looked at the English version, we might have translated it differently.”
Common terminologies like “truth and reconciliation” and “land acknowledgements” are easily understood in English but can be expressed in many ways in Chinese. The VPL staff presented Ouellet with multiple translations to determine which phrase best represented each term and concept.
As the ICNC sees participants from various cultures in each session, all with different concepts of Indigenous culture, the staff receives different questions each time. These questions help the staff understand what newcomers wish to know about Indigenous culture and tweak the program accordingly to clarify any concepts.
“We are always revising the materials,” says Chen. “We always [try to] meet the needs of the community.”
A nation’s commitment
As the Cantonese offering of the ICNC is new, the turnout is uncertain. Regardless, VPL strives to raise awareness among as many people as possible about the histories and cultures of Indigenous communities, either through the ICNC or other Indigenous-related programs.
“As a person, as a settler, [reconciliation] is each one of our responsibilities as well,” says Chen. “If the participants were only to remember one thing, we hope this is what they remember.”
For more about ICNC and VPL’s other programs, see: https://vpl.bibliocommons.com/events/6707f075e37c5596179fc07b
