RELATED: 2013-05-03 Anthropology students face abuse, even rape, at field sites. Globe & Mail
Senator Dyck continues in her support role for persons of varous backgrounds who are subjected to exploitative behaviour in the University.
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http://www.newstalk650.com/story/saskatchewan-senator-reflects-racism-and-discrimination/105926
SNTC play inspired by Senator Lillian Dyck’s experiences
A Canadian senator is the inspiration behind a play that premiers in Saskatoon tonight.
“Cafe Daughter” is about a young Chinese Canadian Cree girl growing up in a small Saskatchewan town.
Senator Lillian Dyck said her father arrived in Canada in 1912 to start a business. Since he was a Chinese immigrant, he was required to pay a $500 head tax.
“At that time in history that would have been the equivalent of one or two years’ salary just to get into Canada,” she said in a telephone interview from her office in Ottawa.
The financial setback was not the only hurdle he would face because Saskatchewan and other provinces had a law that forbade Chinese men from hiring white women to work for them.
“Because they didn’t want intermarriage between the Chinese and white people at that time,” said Dyck.
That led her father to marrying a Cree woman from Gordon’s First Nation who had begun working at his cafe. “The discriminatory laws actually enabled the marriage, had it not been for that, I wouldn’t be here, nor would by brother.”
Dyck said she was teased and harassed as a child for being Chinese. She said she followed her mother’s lead and never let anyone know that she was also First Nation.
“To be Indian was something that you didn’t want anybody to know because people would really look down on you,” she said. Growing up was bad enough, but Dyck said that the worst treatment she received was because she was a woman.
While studying and working at the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) in the 1970’s she faced sexism, harassment and racism.
“And I worked as a woman in science, which was a bit of an anomaly in my time and still is,” Dyck said.
The experience at U of S could have prevented the future senator from getting to where she is today, but the self-described fighter said she refused to give up. The trials she faced would only build her character.
Soon Dyck became the go-to person when it came to equity problems. She said colleagues and students would approach her for help when they thought they were not being treated fairly.
But it wasn’t until Lillian Dyck was 36 years old and awarded her PhD in biological psychiatry that she came to terms with her heritage.
“I said ‘that’s it, from here on in I’m letting the world know that I’m not just Chinese, I am also Cree and I’m proud of it’.” “No one can look down on my anymore, because now I’m Dr. Lillian Dyck.”
Her advice for young people who are struggling with identity is to find strength in what makes you feel weak.
“Every one of us has the ability to be a leader and to be the best in our field, in however you define success, just don’t give up,” Dyck said.
Playwright Kenneth Williams interviewed the senator in 1999 because she was receiving a National Aboriginal Achievement Award.
But Dyck said during the interview, the focus shifted. She said Williams became very interested in the discriminatory laws that affected her and her parents.
He later approached her to let her know he would like to use her story as a script for a play.
The Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company is presenting the Saskatchewan premiere of Cafe Daughter. The play runs April 18 – 28 in Saskatoon.
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