The Nest
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At the end of her motherís life, decolonial writer Julietta Singh returns to her childhood home to say goodbye and confront its haunted past. Investigating the houseís history, she uncovers 140 years of forgotten matriarchs and political rebels whose stories were erased. Collaborating with filmmaker Chase Joynt, Singh creates a politically charged, cross-community film that weaves together Indigenous, Deaf, Japanese, and South Asian histories linked through the home. A meditation on memory, matriarchy, and silenced voices, THE NEST asks who is lost in historical archives and what becomes possible when those stories are recovered, reimagining a single house as a site of collective reckoning and radical potential.
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Distributor subjects
Women's History; Activism & Resistance; Decolonization; Disability Justice; MÈtis History; Canadian HistoryKeywords
THE NEST
FINAL TRANSCRIPT
LENGTH: 01:29:18:06
Date: September 12, 2024
10:00:16:12
SUPER: The task at hand is to fully embody the erasures of colonial history.
The aim is not simply to offer another version of the past,
but to create the grounds for collective life.
10:02:38:15
MAIN TITLE: THE NEST
10:02:54:18
JULIETTA SINGH: Okay, Mama. Okay, Mama. [laughs] Thank you. [clears throat] Nice to start with a little…
10:03:03:18
CHRISTINE COMMON: Can you talk a little louder?
10:03:04:22
JULIETTA SINGH: Yeah.
10:03:05:13
CHRISTINE COMMON: I think I'm getting a little...
10:03:07:03
JULIETTA SINGH: A little-- A little Deaf?
10:03:08:08
CHRISTINE COMMON: A little Deaf, yeah.
10:03:09:06
JULIETTA SINGH: All right.
10:03:10:03
CHRISTINE COMMON: Maybe there's a whole bunch of things at my age that I shouldn't be hearing anymore.
10:03:13:13
JULIETTA SINGH: Well, I think that's it, yeah.
10:03:14:14
CHRISTINE COMMON: [laughs]
10:03:15:10
JULIETTA SINGH: It's an interesting, you know, you were saying-- Can you talk about that a little, actually, Mom? Because remember you were saying losing hearing was part of a kind of ecological transformation of the body. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? We were talking about aging, and the way that you start to lose some of your… senses? Do you remember having that conversation with me?
10:03:38:08
CHRISTINE COMMON: What was it Shakespeare said about old age? "Old age, I abhor thee. Youth, I adore thee.” Shakespeare.
10:03:51:01
CHRISTINE COMMON: When we get older, things happen in a natural process. But in our modern world we are not prepared to accept that. We have to intervene at every stage. I am a non-interventionist. Unless I have to intervene, I will intervene. But there are huge industries that have grown up around the inability to accept the fact that, like a leaf, like any other type of living thing, we grow, we mature, we age, and then we drop off and become part of the next ecosystem and the next generation.
10:05:05:01
JULIETTA SINGH: My mother has been threatening to die for as long as I can remember. A threat once meant to keep her young children well-behaved.
10:05:17:18
JULIETTA SINGH: Now, every visit home carries the burden of knowing it could be the last.
10:05:26:03
JULIETTA SINGH: She's lived in her grand old house for 44 years. A house whose historical restoration has been her life's passion. A house that never felt like home to me.
10:05:44:04
JULIETTA SINGH: And a house that, for my daughter, is full of intrigue and wonder.
10:05:54:08
ISADORA SINGH: Did you ever think the house was haunted?
10:05:57:01
JULIETTA SINGH: Yes.
10:05:59:14
ISADORA SINGH: And then when did you think the house was haunted?
10:06:02:21
JULIETTA SINGH: I was very scared in the house when I was a kid, um, but I felt lots of presences of ghosts when I was little. One way is that it used to be, um... you'd hear sounds of like, no windows were open, but doors would slam. Or you'd hear footsteps upstairs, often on the third floor where we are now, tons of ghostly sounds would come from upstairs. Are you scared?
10:06:30:01
ISADORA SINGH: No...
10:06:31:00
JULIETTA SINGH: [laughs] Can you delete that part?
10:06:32:17
ISADORA SINGH: No! [laughs]
10:06:34:21
JULIETTA SINGH: I wanted to ask you if you have felt the presence--
10:06:39:20
CHRISTINE COMMON: Oh, yes. On more than one occasion, yeah.
10:06:44:06
JULIETTA SINGH: Can you talk about it?
10:06:46:14
CHRISTINE COMMON: Um… I was, uh... on my knees... with the hammer pulling up nails, and I felt a presence and a hand on my back, and I just… it was like scary. It was like somebody was touching my back between where my jeans departed from my T-shirt. What do they call that? They call that the plumber's line or something? [laughs]
10:07:13:12
JULIETTA SINGH: The plumber's bum.
10:07:15:05
CHRISTINE COMMON: Plumber's bum. [chuckles] Whatever. And, um… then it just was like this wind that went… and some noise. And then it was gone, you know? It was definitely a presence and I was just paralyzed for a little while. I could not move.
10:07:36:13
JULIETTA SINGH: I used to be scared of them. But now that I'm older I feel like... even though I can still sense them sometimes when I'm here, I feel more like they're just like Granny. Like, people who have lived here before whose lives have unfolded in the house and that Granny’s going to join those ghosts as part of the archive and history. Do you think that's weird?
10:08:01:14
ISADORA SINGH: No? Yes… Maybe?
10:08:04:06
JULIETTA SINGH: Don't you think that when Granny’s gone--
10:08:06:13
ISADORA SINGH: Yeah, but I think that's a little bit weird to think about.
10:08:09:06
JULIETTA SINGH: Yeah, I don't mind.
10:08:10:16
ISADORA SINGH: Not the ghost part. Just thinking about…
10:08:15:22
JULIETTA SINGH: Thinking about what? Granny being gone?
10:08:18:10
ISADORA SINGH: Yes.
10:08:18:22
JULIETTA SINGH: Yeah. You know it will happen one day soon, right? Yeah. Nobody lives forever.
10:08:35:16
JULIETTA SINGH: It's interesting right now ‘cause she's, like, here in the house, but she's also not here. You know what I mean?
10:08:42:05
ISADORA SINGH: [whispers] Yeah.
10:08:46:21
ISADORA SINGH: How many times do you think you swam as a kid?
10:08:49:11
JULIETTA SINGH: A hundred thousand.
10:08:51:10
ISADORA SINGH: Would you swim every day?
10:08:53:09
JULIETTA SINGH: In the summer, yes. Every day that it wasn't raining and pouring, every day that I was allowed to swim, I swam all the time. I loved swimming in the pool. But... also scared. [laughs] Love you, Boo.
10:09:07:13
ISADORA SINGH: Love you too.
10:09:08:22
JULIETTA SINGH: You're the best.
10:09:17:16
JULIETTA SINGH: Sometimes the most beautiful places are the ones we most need to flee.
10:09:24:12
JULIETTA SINGH: My childhood home was as grand as it was filled with violence.
10:09:31:05
JULIETTA SINGH: I was the youngest of four children caught in the crossfires of our parents' turmoil.
10:09:39:08
JULIETTA SINGH: One by one, we left the house behind us, and our mother transformed her damaged nest into a thriving bed and breakfast.
10:09:54:05
JULIETTA SINGH: While strangers moved in and out of our home with ease, our history of struggle lived on here.
10:10:39:10
JULIETTA SINGH: Can you remember the day of your fall?
10:10:44:12
CHRISTINE COMMON: On that day, I was going off to the third floor in the house to close windows because there was a storm warning, and, um... that was when I ran up those stairs, which are very steep, and I was already 80 years old, and, uh, I ran up those stairs to close the windows and I never got there. I don't remember anything after that, but I was running up the stairs to do that and I guess I fell backwards, and my head had been wounded. There was a large gash and it started a bleed, a profound bleed into my brain, so… The first thing I remember was waking up in the intensive care unit at the Health Sciences Centre, and, you know, everybody standing around me all these tubes, you know, attached to me, and then of course, the whole right side of my body not being able to move. That was the first thing I remember. And I said to Renate, your sister, who's a physician, who was by the bedside, I said to her, "Oh, my god, I am hemiplegic.” She said, "Yes, Mom. You are paralyzed on one side.”
10:12:14:05
JULIETTA SINGH: While my mother remained in the hospital bedridden for months, it was clear that our life here was coming to an end.
10:12:28:13
JULIETTA SINGH: I returned often to the house, haunted by her absence, and felt suddenly drawn toward a place I had always run from.
10:12:41:17
JULIETTA SINGH: I began to wonder who else had been here, a question that drove me toward years of research and unexpected connections.
10:12:56:05
JULIETTA SINGH: There, in the margins of the archive, was Annie Bannatyne. The woman who had established the first hospital in Winnipeg… the hospital where my mother lay paralyzed, had also built my mother's home.
10:13:35:19
JULIETTA SINGH: Who is Annie Bannatyne?
10:13:37:21
TAMARA VUKUSIC: So, Annie Bannatyne was a radical matriarch. She was a Métis woman who publicly horsewhipped a racist man, and in doing so, she helped spark the Red River Resistance led by Louis Riel. And Annie Bannatyne was my great-great grandmother.
10:13:59:16
TAMARA & JULIETTA SINGH: [shared laughter]
10:14:02:04
JULIETTA SINGH: Wow!
10:14:02:16
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Yeah!
10:14:03:09
JULIETTA SINGH: Amazing!
10:14:04:03
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Fuckin' A!
10:14:04:14
JULIETTA SINGH: Yeah!
10:14:05:04
TAMARA VUKUSIC: She was my great-great grandmother...
10:14:07:14
JULIETTA SINGH: "Annie of Red River.” She looks pretty awesome, doesn't she?
10:14:11:14
ISADORA SINGH: Yeah.
10:14:14:09
JULIETTA SINGH: So this is the Red River and the Assiniboine River where we are now, where Granny lives.
10:14:20:12
ISADORA SINGH: Mm-hmm.
10:14:21:10
JULIETTA SINGH: And this is the area that was called the Red River Settlement before it became Winnipeg.
10:14:32:04
JULIETTA SINGH: Okay…
10:14:33:00
JULIETTA SINGH: Tell me about the archival research on Annie that led you to write the graphic story.
10:14:38:07
KATHERENA VERMETTE: Well, I just, I found her there.
10:14:39:02
SUPER: Katherena Vermette
Michif Writer
10:14:40:05
KATHERENA VERMETTE: Like, I was doing another history project around the Golden Age of the Métis people in Winnipeg, and she just appeared, you know? And I think she was always there, and I know I've read about her and I've read about the story, but I just… It's such a wild, Wild West story.
10:14:58:20
JULIETTA SINGH: Mm-hmm.
10:14:59:12
JULIETTA SINGH: [Louis] "HBC is negotiating this land and everything on it. We will all be sold like cattle to the slaughter.” [Annie] "We are respectable and God-fearing and have been here for generations. Of course they will honour our lands and our homes.” [Louis] "We are also Métis, Madame. No more than savages to some.” I love this image of Louis Riel.
10:15:20:02
ISADORA SINGH: Mm-hmm.
10:15:25:08
KATHERENA VERMETTE: Back in 1868, this was not yet a part of Canada, and the rumour was that Canada was going to take over Red River. What happened is a lot of Canadians kept emigrating over here, mostly to speculate land and try to make a whole bunch of money and try to literally take over this place that they thought was going to be theirs.
10:15:50:21
JULIETTA SINGH: "February 1869. The Daily Globe, Toronto.” [Annie] "This is appalling. Simply unbelievable. Such unfathomable lies. Who does this Mair fellow think he is?”
10:16:05:15
KATHERENA VERMETTE: So, Charles Mair was a poet of some distinction. He wrote op-eds for The Globe newspaper in Toronto, and in them, he basically just made fun of everyone who was around here, particularly the Métis women. So, Annie did not stand for this, and one day, when Charles Mair came into her shop to collect his mail…
10:16:27:16
JULIETTA SINGH: …to the shop, and the shop boy sees and runs into the back room and gets Annie, and he's telling her, "Charles Mair is here!” And then what does Annie do?
10:16:37:12
ISADORA SINGH: Oh!
10:16:38:12
JULIETTA SINGH: [laughs]
10:16:38:20
ISADORA SINGH: That's this kind of story.
10:16:40:06
JULIETTA SINGH: That's this kind of story. "Mair!" she yells, and he's like, "Huh?”, and she grabs him by the nose, pinches him by the nose, and drags him out of her store. [Annie] "How dare you! How dare you speak of us so!” And then she just takes the whip and cracks him.
10:16:57:18
ISADORA SINGH: Just… eliminated!
10:17:00:02
JULIETTA SINGH: Yeah. [laughs] Then…
10:17:01:18
KATHERENA VERMETTE: She horsewhipped some white guy in the street to show him who was in charge. Like it was just frickin' great. And it, like, and by doing so, she literally inspired this next wave of resistance that happened directly after that. Like, it's an amazing story.
10:17:18:23
TAMARA VUKUSIC: When stories are told, and specifically the Annie whipping story, there are some differences in that story.
10:17:19:11
SUPER: Tamara Vukusic
Great-great granddaughter of Annie Bannatyne
10:17:25:10
TAMARA VUKUSIC: So for example, in one retelling of it, she grabs her shawl and in another, she doesn't. You know, she either grabbed him by the nose or grabbed him by the ear.
10:17:33:20
JULIETTA SINGH: Yeah.
10:17:34:08
TAMARA VUKUSIC: The number of times she lashed him. And that used to worry me because it was like, which is the right story? But what I really came to realize is that doesn't make a lick of difference. No matter which story you read, like, I feel like a bit of a swell here, and I feel the hair go up on the back of my neck.
10:17:51:06
JULIETTA SINGH: Mm-hmm
10:17:51:12
TAMARA VUKUSIC: And I have, like, that little… like just a gulp of air, and I just think… it's the story that matters.
10:17:58:04
JULIETTA SINGH: Mm-hmm.
10:17:59:09
KATHERENA VERMETTE: What I love about that age of history, and Annie in particular really embodies that age, it was a time when my people were in charge and knew that they were in charge, and knew that they… This was their place, and they had all of this.
10:18:16:14
JULIETTA SINGH: What's so interesting for me about collaborating with you is that you have an entirely different relationship to Annie than I do, and an entirely different attachment to Annie than I do, but the connection is attachment.
10:18:27:18
KATHERENA VERMETTE: Yeah, I feel in solidarity with Annie. I feel like my re-enactment is one of hopefully many, um, by people taking on this idea of her story, which is just an idea of her story, it's just like almost a haunting of-- of us, which is so wonderful and should be explored.
10:18:56:08
JULIETTA SINGH: The revelation that a powerful Indigenous woman was the first matriarch of my home challenged everything I had been taught about my home, my city, and my nation's history. The house was nationally recognized because it once belonged to a wealthy colonial banker, and this single history, of whiteness and patriarchy, had displaced all its other histories.
10:19:30:00
JULIETTA SINGH: In discovering Annie, I was discovering nothing short of another world.
10:20:06:00
JULIETTA SINGH: Annie called the house "The Nest,” a name I never learned growing up that was concealed by colonial history.
10:20:27:18
JULIETTA SINGH: In a settler colony, the question of home is an inherently vexed one.
10:20:36:01
JULIETTA SINGH: Those of us who have arrived here have made our homes on stolen land.
10:20:43:20
JULIETTA SINGH: This basic and brutal truth means that home is as much a place as it is an ongoing challenge. A challenge that summons us to uproot colonial history in service of the world that was here before and the world that will come after.
10:21:38:13
JULIETTA SINGH: Yep! Yes!
10:21:39:22
ISADORA SINGH: Wow!
10:21:40:14
JULIETTA & ISADORA SINGH: [shared laughter]
10:21:48:00
JULIETTA SINGH: Can you describe the house as it looked in 1980? What did it look like when you walked up?
10:21:53:16
CHRISTINE COMMON: It looked like a box. It looked like a box which had been disfigured. All the exterior spaces had been torn off and some windows were gone. The verandas were all gone. The dormer upstairs was all gone. So the house was structurally solid. It had beautiful interior spaces. And in fact, the way I like to describe it in a nutshell, it was dying in a sarcophagus of modern applications which were all fossil-fuel based. And in stripping off each room a piece at a time, I was able to dig out a little bit more Canadian history and trace it back.
10:22:36:13
CHRISTINE COMMON: Restoration is a creative process if you're doing it properly and for the right reasons, and for me to be able to see beautiful wood, and to be able to track where that wood had come from... I would rather try to restore it and see the beauty in it and see the artifacts produced by people's hands and people's labour 140 years ago or more, and to be able to preserve that as an example of what was, you know, at one time and where it came from. It keeps us in contact with our history, and it's-- I always like to quote John Ruskin, who said, when you move into an old house and you start working with the older houses that our ancestors have left for us, you are working in "walls that are washed by the passing waves of humanity.” So you learn about the passing waves of humanity each time you get into something that you're restoring in your house.
10:23:33:01
JULIETTA SINGH: Was restoring the house, then, a way of you becoming part of Canadian history?
10:23:40:04
CHRISTINE COMMON: [chuckles] Whether I want to or not I'm going to become part of Canadian history. But nobody's going to remember you, you know? Unless you're a significant figure like Louis Riel or John A. MacDonald or any of those characters...
10:24:01:22
JULIETTA SINGH: The people we've forgotten are often the ones who've made the most sustaining impacts. We find these lost ancestors not in the official documents of the nation, but in our private spheres.
10:24:22:21
JULIETTA SINGH: The Nest lay empty for several years in the late 1800s, before it suddenly filled with life again.
10:24:32:15
JULIETTA SINGH: A fire at the Manitoba School for the Deaf left the students stranded, and overnight, the house on the river became a makeshift boarding school.
10:24:49:20
JULIETTA SINGH: Among the new inhabitants was a Deaf woman named Mary Ettie McDermid, a devoted art teacher, a mother of hearing children, and the wife of the school's hearing headmaster.
10:25:06:18
JULIETTA SINGH: So little is remembered of Mary, a striking fact, given that she was the first Deaf teacher in Western Canada.
10:25:18:23
JULIETTA SINGH: Do you consider teaching as a kind of activism?
10:25:26:04
DEIDRE HASE: [SUBTITLE] That’s a very good question.
10:25:29:05
MARDEN KLEPKA: I would say yes.
10:25:34:01
DEIDRE HASE: [SUBTITLE] [Deidre] When somebody is born Deaf, they try to teach them how to hear, how to talk, how to have this oral system, almost making them like a hearing person.
10:25:39:17
SUPER: Deidre Hase
Manitoba School for the Deaf
10:25:53:23
MARDEN KLEPKA: I'm a CODA.
10:25:55:03
SUPER: Marden Klepka
Manitoba School for the Deaf
10:25:55:03
MARDEN KLEPKA: That means a child of a Deaf adult. Um, and my CODA experience is also very different than most CODAs because I only had one parent who was Deaf and one who was hearing. So I grew up in the Deaf community. And we've been talking about how society views Deaf people, that it's often like, "They can't do it, so don't even bother trying,” but growing up in the Deaf community and with a Deaf father, I've been able to see that, no, that's not the case. They can do just as much as anyone else can in hearing schools and find success. So just making sure that our students have, like, the supports available to them, and advocating for them, like, it in itself is activism.
10:26:59:03
DEIDRE HASE: [SUBTITLE] I was born Deaf. And actually, my family was not aware until I was maybe one year old.
10:27:09:20
DEIDRE HASE: [SUBTITLE] Growing up I didn’t socialize with other Deaf people. I was mainstreamed into a public school. I didn’t sign with a Deaf person until I was 15. Did I know I was going to teach Deaf kids? No... because I hadn’t socialized with another Deaf person using sign yet.
10:27:30:19
DEIDRE HASE: [SUBTITLE] There are students that come to class and they don’t have any sign language from their parents, and they have a lot of behavioural issues. But as soon as they find that language, they change. And that's a beautiful thing.
10:28:35:13
JULIETTA SINGH: Did you always want to be a mother?
10:28:38:20
CHRISTINE COMMON: No! I honestly didn't always want to be a mother. I thought I was going to go out with the Albert Schweitzer Foundation or whatever as a child of that era who wanted to go out and change the world. You know the late '50s and the early '60s, a whole new generation of post-war people and wartime people like ,myself um, baby boomers and pre-baby boomers wanted to go out and change the world. Anti-Vietnam War protests. All that kind of stuff. There was huge movements going on with youth of which I was a part at that time, so it was always part of what I wanted, and I thought I would never have children. Um, but I didn't think about it very much, you know? And then later on I guess I met your dad and that changed everything.
10:29:29:02
CHRISTINE COMMON: I had lots of boyfriends, loads of boyfriends, um, but never marriage in my mind. And then I met your dad, and that was very romantic. “I’m gonna marry somebody from India,” you know? “Yay! I'm not going to be a whitey!” [laughs] So that was-- In my generation, that was the thing to do, was marry somebody else from another country.
10:29:54:21
JULIETTA SINGH: To not be a whitey?
10:29:56:06
CHRISTINE COMMON: Uh, not be a whitey, yeah...
10:29:59:18
JULIETTA SINGH: Was it romantic or was it political?
10:30:03:10
CHRISTINE COMMON: I'm sure there was-- Politics emerges in everything we do, if we want to be honest with ourselves. To me, yes, it was partly a statement against what I knew about the British Empire. I thought, "Okay, I'm going to do something that would slap a British imperialist.” You know?
10:30:21:16
JULIETTA SINGH: Do you think that racism produced tension within your marriage?
10:30:27:21
CHRISTINE COMMON: Well, of course it did because I think-- I was a white person, um, from the society which imposed the racism on him. Although I wasn't individually a part of it, um, I was part of those cultural elements, the British Empire. I was born and retained a British citizenship for how long, that created havoc in India. And, of course, one of the things early on, he started to tell me about the atrocities which were committed in India by the British, and of course in my history books I'd never read that. Even at McGill we didn't read about that. And I went to my late father to challenge what he had told me, and my late father told me, "What he's telling you is quite true and you need to get more education.” One of the other incentives to me to always go seeking for the alternative route to the truth, because what I did was get British history from British colonial-written textbooks, which were handed on to the Dominion of Canada, which was part of the British Empire.
10:31:52:06
MALE NARRATOR: “WAR! It came again to Europe in 1939. It moved on to a new climax at Pearl Harbour in 1941. Within a few hours of the event, Canada was at war with Japan, and as in other nations of the Pacific, fear of attack became suddenly real. With war in the Pacific now a reality, it came to acute nationwide attention that Canada had 23,000 residents of Japanese racial descent. It was well known that a large group of these people was engaged in the fishing industry on the West Coast. But the outbreak of war brought to new prominence the fact that practically all of the 23,000 lived, worked, and had their small businesses inside the Western No. 1 Defence Zone. They were prominently settled…”
10:32:54:20
JULIETTA SINGH: Beyond the house's explicitly colonial legacy, the only bit of history I knew growing up was that just before we lived here, the house served as the Japanese Consulate.
10:33:13:03
JULIETTA SINGH: These were the decades after the internment of Japanese Canadians, when their communities were forcibly relocated in the racist name of national security.
10:33:25:16
KEIKO MIKI: I was 40 days old when my parents were moved from the West Coast, and, you know, I think for my mother, it was, like, pretty traumatizing. Yeah. But, really, I didn't feel the brunt of the dispersal, but I think for the older people, they really felt it.
10:33:49:22
SUPER: Keiko Miki
Japanese Cultural Association of Manitoba
10:33:49:22
KEIKO MIKI: So, the people who are here today, most of them are, uh, from those families. You know, most of them experienced the forced removal from the West Coast.
10:34:21:02
JULIETTA SINGH: There are bits and pieces in the old newspapers about events at the Consulate in the mid-1960s when Consular Okazaki and his family moved in to serve as ambassadors of Japan.
10:34:37:18
FILM NARRATOR: “These two young ladies are rehearsing the dance for the Obon Festival. The Obon Festival, or Bon Odori, the festival for the return of the spirits…”
10:34:48:01
JULIETTA SINGH: The Consular's wife, Mrs. Okazaki, and his teenage daughter, Masa, are mentioned only fleetingly in a single orientalist account of a backyard tea ceremony. Yet they caught and held my attention. The mother and daughter who came before us... I began to dream of their life here.
10:35:20:23
JULIETTA SINGH: Never once did it occur to me that other racialized girls and women had been here before us.
10:35:32:08
JULIETTA SINGH: The neighbourhood was too white and alienating to imagine we were not its first outsiders.
10:35:48:06
JULIETTA SINGH: And while Mrs. Okazaki and Masa remain nearly untraceable, by finding them here, something strange and beautiful was beginning to happen...
10:36:15:09
JULIETTA SINGH: The house was becoming infused with the lives of others, and the spirits that once scared me were becoming my companions. Where I used to hide and wish for elsewhere, now I could feel the resonances of other girls across time. My memories were growing and becoming more than my own.
10:36:54:22
[1960s Japanese pop blasts]
10:37:50:07
MASA: [exhales]
10:37:55:14
MASA: [echoes of breath]
10:38:21:05
JULIETTA SINGH: What I missed as a child was a strong sense of who I was in the world. My late father arrived here after the Canadian government's attempt to keep South Asians out through its unabashedly racist "continuous journey regulation.” Any person arriving from a country other than their homeland could be denied entry.
10:38:45:17
JULIETTA SINGH: In 1914, 376 men from my father's home in Punjab left Hong Kong on the Komagata Maru, a Japanese steamship bound for Canada. They were left at sea for months off the Pacific coast before being forced back to British-occupied India. Canada's thinly veiled policy was exposed-- Immigrants were welcome here, as long as they were white.
10:39:18:23
JULIETTA SINGH: My father was among the very first South Asians in Winnipeg. He was keen to belong to the white world, but no degree of assimilation would change the racism that shaped his life, or the lives of his mixed children. We never spoke with him about the racism we faced, just as we never spoke of our heritage or the people across the world who were our kin. We lived here, but we seemed to belong nowhere and to nothing.
10:40:06:02
JULIETTA SINGH: I have always, as you know, thought about you as a very unconventional mother in many ways--
10:40:11:16
CHRISTINE COMMON: I beg your pardon?
10:40:12:10
JULIETTA SINGH: I've always thought about you as quite an unconventional mother in many ways.
10:40:16:16
CHRISTINE COMMON: Yeah.
10:40:16:22
JULIETTA SINGH: And I wondered if you could talk about your maternal pedagogy. Why it was important for you to talk to your children at a very early age about serious political issues? You didn't coddle us. You didn't shield us from things. You really exposed us to things like climate catastrophe, the political history that led to Indigenous poverty and displacement, etc.
10:40:43:16
CHRISTINE COMMON: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was all part of you understanding the condition of people who manifest themselves mostly in the inner city. Why are they there? You were exposed to a society which would yell out of their cars, "Go get a job, you lazy bum!” you know, that kind of stuff, so the dispossession of Aboriginal people was very important, and I can relate that back to the dispossession of the people in my own country by the British Empire, which led to the revolution of 1916 and the emergence of the Republic of Ireland. So there was all of that. And then coming here and seeing that that same kind of injustice had played out-- injustice, dispossession, displacement had played out here also, then… and in India! What had gone on in India under the British Empire. I wanted you guys to be aware of that. Because that was all part of, you know, trying to explain to you about what racism was all about. What white supremacy was all about. And that was what I used to explain to you how there was no inferiority in having a different colour of skin than a white person, and that anything that you heard about white people being superior was absolutely false. And misleading. And damaging.
10:42:08:16
CHRISTINE COMMON: So I wanted you to know. It was all part of it. You know, that… To not be able to tell you the truth about those issues would have, in my view, been to coddle you and to, um… to shield you from what you were going to have to encounter later in your life, and what you hopefully would take up when I was no more.
10:42:35:16
CHRISTINE COMMON: Pass it on.
10:42:42:07
CHRISTINE COMMON: [emotional inhale]
10:42:51:06
CHRISTINE COMMON: Sometimes, you have to listen to your heart and listen to your intellect, and to look at what other mothers are doing in order to guard and coddle their children, and you have to make your decision as to whether you're going to go there or whether you're going to tell them the truth, and whether you'll prepare them for what's coming later. And I think I prepared you all for what was coming later as best I could. Not always perfect. And I'm sure, at times, it wasn't nice for you. But I didn't want to ever tell you that life was a garden of roses. Because it's not.
10:43:48:01
ANNIE: [SINGS] Twinkle, twinkle, little star
How I wonder…
10:43:56:06
JULIETTA SINGH: The first grand matriarch of The Nest outlived 10 of her 13 children, and when her young grand- children lost their mother here, Annie became their lifeline. I could feel that history across my life, even while I couldn't explain it. There has always been a sense of abiding strength here... an untold origin story as enduring as the house itself.
10:44:25:10
ANNIE: Goodnight. [kisses]
10:44:29:07
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Annie Bannatyne was born in 1830. And she died in my grandmother's childhood home in Cannington Manor, Saskatchewan, in 1908. And I knew that she was generous and gracious and that she entertained and that she was powerful. And I had that sense, like I knew there was something powerful and kick-butt she had done, but I do not remember being told that she was Métis.
10:45:00:10
JULIETTA SINGH: Mm-hmm.
10:45:07:13
FEMALE RADIO HOST: “…important to Indigenous groups, particularly Métis people who grew up nearby. Resistance is not new to the Métis, as we know from the Red River Resistance and the Battle of Batoche, two events that left the community defeated. What followed in both cases was a reign of terror. Whole communities were dispossessed of land, and many Métis people hid who they were, denounced their culture, in an attempt to assimilate.”
10:45:34:23
ANDREW CARRIER: “We've been in hiding way too long.”
10:45:36:18
FEMALE RADIO HOST: “That's Andrew Carrier, Vice-President of the Manitoba Métis Federation.”
10:45:41:07
ANDREW CARRIER: “We're survivors. We're very resilient…”
10:45:43:14
KAT PATERNAUE: It wasn't just the reign of terror.
10:45:44:21
SUPER: Kat Paternaue
Red River Métis Citizen
10:45:45:11
KAT PATERNAUE: It wasn't just the Residential and Day School Systems. It wasn't just Child and Family Services. It wasn't just the perpetuation of shame. It was all of those things, up to and including the education system today, which is still trying to erase our existence. So I remind myself that I didn't lose my culture because I chose to lose my culture. My grandmother didn't lose her culture because she chose to lose her culture. I don't believe anybody would give up their identity if they were given any other option. There's no chance. Why would you?
10:46:17:12
ANDREW CARRIER: “Being Métis, you can hold up your head high and understand that being Métis is about culture. It's not about being a victim to violence. It's about who we are. And people need to realize that we're here, and we're here to stay. And we're going to take our rightful place in society.”
10:46:35:10
FEMALE RADIO HOST: “Despite everything the Métis have gone through, we have not vanished. In fact, we seem to be experiencing a resurgence. Others call it an awakening…”
10:46:45:17
SIERRA HILL: We knew we were Métis, but there is… I felt shame about it from a young age.
10:46:49:04
SUPER: Sierra Hill
Red River Métis Citizen
10:46:50:02
SIERRA HILL: I picked up on that shame easy. But it's people like my dad who really tried to make sure that we still knew that we were Métis. Some of our relatives would say that they were other races, like Italian or things like that, to try to… You could tell that they were not fully white, but they would try to say something that was a little bit more accepted. But for us, we always said that we were Métis.
10:47:30:15
KAT PATERNAUE: You only find us here. You can't find us anywhere else in the world. So this is home, not just to me because I was born here, this is home because this is where my nation was born. And this is home because this is where my ancestors fought for our existence and fought for our right to be here.
10:48:02:20
JULIETTA SINGH: I was unaware when I reached out to you of how vast the archive was, this archive that has become almost unbelievable to the Métis community in the Red River. And how kind of mind-blown so many people are at how much of Annie you have.
10:48:24:04
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Mm-hmm. So, I didn't realize until we connected just how vast it is. You know, I've always known all these pieces needed to be protected and that they had meaning… um, but wow, like, the enormity of it is very obvious to me, and it's beautiful, and it’s also a bit overwhelming. And you really helped me understand that the things that are in the margins, like of the notebooks, and that… I could totally trust those. Like, that I actually have information, you know, that can be added to what's out there, right? And so not only has this archive been passed down to daughters, it's been passed down to caregiving daughters.
10:49:05:08
TAMARA VUKUSIC: With one exception, and that's the painting of Annie Bannatyne. The painting came to me from my grandmother. So when my mom and I were cleaning out my grandparents' home, we discovered the painting under a sheet with my name in my grandmother's shaky writing, "Tammy," [laughs] on the back. And, you know, I-- You look at Annie and I can-- I can see that she's Indigenous, and I have to wonder if that is why the painting was in the attic. And, you know, I'm sorry to say that out loud... because it's not right.
10:49:47:00
JULIETTA SINGH: Mm-hmm.
10:49:50:23
JULIETTA SINGH: When you received the portrait, what did it mean to you, since you had this feeling? You understood that there was something in it that was really important.
10:50:01:11
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Yeah, you know, I don't know if I realized this at the time, but I really believe that part of the reason my grandmother left it to me-- we were very close-- but I believe she thought I would bring truth to Annie.
10:50:15:05
JULIETTA SINGH: Mm-hmm.
10:50:38:17
JULIETTA SINGH: How would you describe your relationship to the house over time?
10:50:45:14
CHRISTINE COMMON: Well, it became home-- home for my children and, um, it became the place that I retreated to, um, you know, for solitude, for thought. The place that-- where a lot of activism began in this house.
10:51:06:04
JULIETTA SINGH: Here you go. Are you okay, Mom?
10:51:18:03
JULIETTA SINGH: You all right?
10:51:18:20
CHRISTINE COMMON: Mm-hmm.
10:51:19:11
JULIETTA SINGH: Okay.
10:51:19:21
CHRISTINE COMMON: [clears throat] Yep.
10:51:22:17
JULIETTA SINGH: You're not feeling well? Or just kind of stressed?
10:51:25:13
CHRISTINE COMMON: It’s a-- Getting myself into those positions sometimes is painful and makes me start to shake a little bit.
10:51:32:17
JULIETTA SINGH: Okay. Well, let's take it easy.
10:51:34:05
CHRISTINE COMMON: Yeah.
10:51:34:12
JULIETTA SINGH: We have lots of time today, so we're not in a big rush.
10:51:35:21
CHRISTINE COMMON: Yep, yep. Okay.
10:51:41:08
JULIETTA SINGH: Okay. I'll let you sit for a minute, Mom.
10:52:01:06
JULIETTA SINGH: What's the relationship between being an activist and being a mother for you?
10:52:08:17
CHRISTINE COMMON: I think, um, being an activist is part of trying to forge out part of a better existence for your children, um, and at the same time, you know that in some times you're going to be probably overlooking the needs of your children because you see the needs of your community. That was always a balancing act for me, is… Where do you baby your children and protect them, and where do you expose them? And where do you go and fight for something when you know it's going to be in the long-term interests of humanity that may deprive your children of something? So that's a big balancing act.
10:52:53:03
CHRISTINE COMMON: Being a mother, I think, and an activist, is also teaching our children that they have a power and the opportunity to make a change, by being courageous enough to speak out about something you think is profoundly wrong, immoral, unethical, unfair, unjust. Because a lot of us… we’re afraid of that because there are consequences.
10:53:40:00
JOANNA HAWKINS: [SUBTITLE] Mary lived during a time when women were in the background.
10:53:44:11
SUPER: Joanna Hawkins
ASL Teacher and Actor
10:53:44:14
JOANNA HAWKINS: [SUBTITLE] And now we have the privilege of putting her front and center. I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t know about her prior to this film. I’ve learned so much about her and I think she’s amazing. I think it’s important we tell her story, and I do resonate with her, for sure.
10:54:21:16
JOANNA HAWKINS: [SUBTITLE] When I moved to Canada at age 11, it was the first time I went to a school for the Deaf, and can I say culture shock! My eyes just opened wide open. I was like, “Everything is there. I can see people signing. I can understand what they are saying.” I immediately felt connected to the language and thought, “This is my native language.” I really wish I knew how to sign growing up.
10:54:52:03
JOANNA HAWKINS: [SUBTITLE] Looking back, I do feel like I was oppressed.
10:55:00:08
JULIETTA SINGH: Can you tell me, from your perspective and your knowledge, what was the Milan Conference?
10:55:14:15
JOANNA HAWKINS: [SUBTITLE] The Milan Conference happened in 1880. It was there that they decided to ban the use of ASL and other signed languages for all Deaf people and teach oralism. This was the beginning of a very dark period for Deaf communities. The Oralism method of teaching continued for about 100 years.
10:56:00:03
GEORGE: [SUBTITLE] Friends and fellow Deaf-mutes, As long as we have Deaf people on earth, we will have signs. And as long as we have our films, we will be able to preserve our beautiful signs in their old purity.
10:56:29:20
GEORGE: [SUBTITLE] I hope we all will love and protect our beautiful sign language as the noblest gift that God has given to the Deaf.
10:57:15:14
JULIETTA SINGH: We've represented Mary as somebody who subtly refused to abide by the rule of no ASL during the time period that we represent, 1891 to 1892. And when she became a teacher, she would have been asked not to teach her students. What do you think that experience was like for her?
10:57:40:10
SARAH RABU: [SUBTITLE] Well, I can only imagine being oppressed in that way.
10:57:41:01
SUPER: Sarah Rabu
Manitoba School for the Deaf
10:57:44:15
SARAH RABU: [SUBTITLE] To have that barrier put on you, to have the freedom originally, to have a Deaf community who’s all thriving, then to be put down, to experience that kind of oppression.
10:58:09:23
JULIETTA SINGH: You're only the second Deaf principal in the Manitoba School for the Deaf's long history. What does it feel like to occupy that role?
10:58:23:21
SARAH RABU: [SUBTITLE] It is quite impactful not only for myself, but for the students. I think it’s really important to dismantle this myth of “Oh well, you can’t be the principal.” And because I am the principal, they are now exposed to, “You can do anything you want to do.” There is no limit.
10:58:50:07
JULIETTA SINGH: The year Mary and her students arrived, The Nest became home to the school's first printing press. They constructed a shed on the property, banded together to learn typesetting, and created their first issue of a school newspaper called The Silent Echo.
10:59:20:03
JULIETTA SINGH: Reading its pages now is an embrace of their echoes from the future...
11:00:04:03
JULIETTA SINGH: The Deaf students today study the Japanese art of taiko drumming, a practice that is felt rather than merely heard. Deaf and Japanese histories converging in the present, both woven into the fabric of this place.
11:01:04:07
KEIKO MIKI: 1977 was a centennial for Japanese Canadians coming to Canada, so a book came out that was quite significant at the time, which outlined, you know, that it wasn't what we thought was an evacuation. It was a forced relocation. And our parents didn't talk about it. They kind of shielded us from it. And I think it was when the third generation, the Sansei, became involved that, you know, they were educated here. They were confident in our democratic process. They had the language, so they started to educate others.
11:01:48:20
MRS. OKAZAKI: [speaking Japanese]
11:01:52:17
MASA: [speaking Japanese]
11:01:56:08
KEIKO MIKI: When that started, the public started to question, and people started phoning, you know, from across the country, so I sort of got involved in that way.
11:02:09:22
MRS. OKAZAKI: [speaking Japanese]
11:02:11:05
MASA: [speaking Japanese]
11:02:14:19
KEIKO MIKI: And then, locally, we formed a Manitoba Redress Committee. And so we had a rally, we organized meetings, and, you know, made sure that the newsletter had important information about what's going on, especially to the Japanese-speaking people as well.
11:02:35:03
PETER MANSBRIDGE: “Good evening. Japanese Canadians will remember this as the day when Canada finally moved to right a wrong committed against them four decades ago. It was during the Second World War. Thousands of people were forced into internment camps simply because they were of Japanese descent. They've been waiting ever since for an official acknowledgement of the injustice, and today they got it. An apology from the Prime Minister and compensation for their losses. Former internees call it a ‘settlement that heals.’ Wendy Mesley begins our coverage in Ottawa.”
11:03:07:04
BRIAN MULRONEY: “I speak for members on all sides of the House today in offering to Japanese Canadians the formal and sincere apology…”
11:03:15:10
WENDY MESLEY: “It was the apology Japanese Canadians had waited more than 40 years to hear.”
11:03:21:14
ART MIKI: “Today is a historic landmark, not only for our community, but for the whole human rights issue. And thank you.”
11:03:51:21
JULIETTA SINGH: When I found Masa and Mrs. Okazaki in an old newspaper clipping, they were celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Consulate with a tea ceremony in the backyard.
11:04:25:08
JULIETTA SINGH: This was decades before the apology, when Japanese Canadians were still recovering from being made enemies of the state.
11:04:38:04
JULIETTA SINGH: The article describes the women's clothing, their mannerisms, their quiet... all contrasted against a bustling white Canadian tradition.
11:04:53:07
JULIETTA SINGH: It tells us nothing about what the ceremony meant to the women who practiced it, or what they might be offering each other through it.
11:05:26:21
YAYOI BRANDT: The tea master, Sen no Rikyū, emphasized the idea that Ichigo Ichie, meaning one encounter or one meeting, should be treasured every time because it is a very unique occasion.
11:05:34:18
SUPER: Yayoi Brandt
Japanese Cultural Association of Manitoba
11:05:48:17
YAYOI BRANDT: And he mentioned in his writing, also, harmony, respect, and purity and tranquility should be present in every ceremony. So, considering these ideas, I love my friendships in tea group, which encourage the respect and harmony. And it restores my soul and body as well.
11:07:13:07
[ambient chatter]
11:07:22:21
TAMARA VUKUSIC: No regrets.
11:07:24:14
KAT PATERNAUE: No regrets.
11:07:25:01
TAMARA VUKUSIC: So I just wanted to mention the money that we as a group have been raising through our bazaars and concerts--
11:07:34:12
KAT PATERNAUE: Mm-hmm
11:07:34:20
TAMARA VUKUSIC: --and through church collection, that the debt that the General Hospital has amassed from renting the property they rent to have their temporary hospital… They want that money, the money we've raised, they want us to pay it to them.
11:07:51:05
WOMEN: [collective scoff]
11:07:52:08
TAMARA VUKUSIC: To pay off their debt. What do you think of that?
11:07:54:22
KAT PATERNAUE: Who said this?
11:07:55:23
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Well, this is the word that's come down through Andrew, because he's been involved with chairing the meetings.
11:08:02:14
KAT PATERNAUE: Right, so it's the men who are talking. They think this is an appropriate use of the funds that we've raised through all of our efforts.
11:08:07:21
TAMARA VUKUSIC: They want us to clear their debt. What do you say, ladies?
11:08:10:19
KAT PATERNAUE: Uh, no.
11:08:12:09
WOMEN: [laughter]
11:08:14:02
KAT PATERNAUE: Listen, if you want to go and sell your guns, if you want to sell your saddles, you go ahead and do that to pay off the debt. Not what we did. Not the effort we put in. Not our sweat and our effort and all the work we put into it. Not going to happen.
11:08:25:23
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Mm-mmm.
11:08:26:10
KAT PATERNAUE: No way. No chance.
11:08:27:04
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Yeah.
11:08:27:14
KAT PATERNAUE: Mm-mm.
11:08:28:06
SIERRA HILL: No way.
11:08:29:01
KATHERENA VERMETTE: No.
11:08:29:19
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Hard no.
11:08:31:04
KAT PATERNAUE: So, you tell your husband--
11:08:33:00
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Oh, yeah--
11:08:33:10
KAT PATERNAUE: ...that that's our message.
11:08:34:22
WOMAN: Sorry, I’m not…
11:08:35:16
TAMARA VUKUSIC: [raucous laughter] You tell your husband that's our message! Snap! Sorry! I got a little mixed up…
11:08:42:16
JULIETTA SINGH: I'm popping in to say, all of a sudden you guys are like Hollywood actresses…
11:08:47:00
WOMEN: [collective laughter]
11:08:50:15
JULIETTA SINGH: ...so, you're totally welcome to break from your historical roles and be yourself again--
11:08:55:14
WOMAN: Okay.
11:08:56:04
JULIETTA SINGH: --and then as soon as you've finished food…
11:08:57:14
JULIETTA SINGH: You can't anticipate what will happen when you summon history home, when women gather to embody their ancestors. A 21st-century congregation becomes a 19th-century organizing meeting, and the gulf between time and bodies collapses.
11:09:18:10
KATHERENA VERMETTE: Ooh!
11:09:23:16
JULIETTA SINGH: Everyone, past and present, was finding their way home, including objects that once belonged here.
11:09:34:15
JULIETTA SINGH: It's awesome.
11:09:35:22
KATHERENA VERMETTE: It is awesome.
11:09:38:05
JULIETTA SINGH: It's really interesting to think about the journey of this portrait, which, as I understand it, it passed down in Tamara's family from woman to woman across several generations, but it was, like, living in an attic for a long time. And Tamara had, like, a kind of fascination and attachment with it, understanding that Annie was her great-great grandmother, but not having any sense that Annie was Métis.
11:10:06:05
KATHERENA VERMETTE: Hmm.
11:10:07:00
JULIETTA SINGH: And she carried it around, like, in the back of pickup trucks through several provinces and territories, and now it's made its way back to its original place.
11:10:21:21
KATHERENA VERMETTE: Yeah, back home.
11:10:24:01
JULIETTA SINGH: The mythical painting of Annie traveled across the country. A grand matriarch had returned, followed by her great- great granddaughter.
11:10:35:06
TAMARA VUKUSIC: [cries] Thank you.
11:10:46:03
KATHERENA VERMETTE: Miigwetch
11:10:46:21
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Thank you.
11:10:49:04
KATHERENA VERMETTE: Thank you.
11:10:56:19
JULIETTA SINGH: So how old is she in this picture?
11:10:59:07
TAMARA VUKUSIC: So, she's 52, which is my age.
11:11:01:00
JULIETTA SINGH: Your age.
11:11:01:10
KATHERENA VERMETTE: [laughter] Ahhh!
11:11:02:20
JULIETTA SINGH: Wow!
11:11:04:08
TAMARA VUKUSIC: It's a discovery I made when I was doing the timeline. I was counting from her birth date-- 1830, 1840, 1850, 1860, and then I hit 52.
11:11:13:13
JULIETTA SINGH: Wow.
11:11:14:04
KATHERENA VERMETTE: Wow. Perfect.
11:11:16:19
TAMARA VUKUSIC: But she's back home.
11:11:18:03
JULIETTA SINGH: Mm-hmm..
11:11:19:20
KATHERENA VERMETTE: It's such a great photo. It's so like… It's kept so well. You've kept it so well.
11:11:26:06
TAMARA VUKUSIC: I've closed a lot of blinds over the years.
11:11:28:03
WOMEN: [shared laughter]
11:11:32:22
JULIETTA SINGH: Should we bring her in?
11:11:33:17
TAMARA VUKUSIC: I'd love to. You take it.
11:11:35:14
KATHERENA VERMETTE: No, you do it. It's yours.
11:11:39:09
JULIETTA SINGH: It's heavier than I was expecting.
11:11:44:18
TAMARA VUKUSIC: I'd love for you to take a look at the painting of Annie, which, of course, is a painting of a photo taken in 1882, and then I would love for you to see the print of the actual photo. Yeah.
11:11:55:14
SIERRA HILL: Yeah, they almost made her look more, like, frowny and, like, submissive in the painting. Where, in the photo she's like, "I'm the one in charge here. I'm the badass."
11:12:05:07
TAMARA VUKUSIC: So here's a bit of an ode to your appreciation for the stories that photographs tell.
11:12:10:18
SIERRA HILL: Yes.
11:12:11:11
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Because this is truly her.
11:12:13:03
SIERRA HILL: Yeah.
11:12:13:14
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Whereas that is someone else has had the opportunity for artistic… interpretation, yeah…
11:12:18:20
SIERRA HILL: But it's interesting because when they take artistic freedom to do the painting, it was probably a man doing the painting. You know?
11:12:27:20
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Assumptions were made.
11:12:31:15
TAMARA VUKUSIC: She arrived in perfect shape. Strong-ass Annie arrived.
11:12:34:16
JULIETTA SINGH: And so did you.
11:12:35:14
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Right.
11:12:36:03
WOMEN: [shared laughter]
11:12:37:03
JULIETTA SINGH: You both arrived in perfect shape.
11:12:38:18
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Thanks for extending that to me.
11:12:40:04
JULIETTA SINGH: For sure, for sure. Okay, let's get you ready.
11:12:45:00
KATHERENA VERMETTE: Let’s get me ready.
11:12:45:15
JULIETTA SINGH: Just wait ‘til you see Katherena as Annie.
11:13:05:00
TAMARA VUKUSIC: So I just want to take a step back to the article that I wrote for The Globe and Mail entitled "Am I Métis Enough?" came out. And I was sitting at my laptop, and it was a few days after that, and this name, Katherena Vermette, pops up in my inbox, which is, like, seriously a thrill, like, I thought it wasn't for real. There is no person that could have reached out to me and welcomed me and encouraged me in my journey that would have held more weight than you, Katherena. That was awesome. Thank you.
11:13:40:22
KATHERENA VERMETTE: Oh, thanks.
11:13:42:11
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Mm-hmm…
11:13:42:11
WOMEN: [warm laughter]
11:13:45:03
KATHERENA VERMETTE: Cheers, girls.
11:13:49:14
KAT PATERNAUE: I did want to jump in here and say this, though. Like, I think you have underestimated the gift that you've given by letting us into this, by letting me into this. Because it's the first time that I've been able to see the transmission of this, because I've written-- I've written many times, "We're a matriarchal society, we're a matriarchal society,” and this was the first time I saw what that looks like and what the transmission of women's history looks like. So you really gave-- I personally, I can't speak for anybody else, but you gave me a massive gift by letting me into this, and letting me see it, and letting me share a little bit of your journey. So you don't ever need to thank me, 'cause, girl…
11:14:28:10
TAMARA VUKUSIC: [laughing]
11:14:30:00
KAT PATERNAUE: I'm grateful.
11:14:31:05
TAMARA VUKUSIC: Thank you.
11:14:35:10
WOMEN: [intimate chatter]
11:14:46:17
[voices reverberate and fade]
11:15:45:08
JULIETTA SINGH: Everyone loses their mothers. There's no escaping this simple, earth-shattering fact.
11:15:57:02
JULIETTA SINGH: And while the loss itself is universal, the quality of that loss is in every case unique.
11:16:11:07
JULIETTA SINGH: The deaths of our mothers mark a specific reckoning. We are left, each of us, to metabolize the ways we were loved, or wish to have been loved.
11:16:45:05
JULIETTA SINGH: When my mother dies, I will sift through the remnants of a scattershot archive, hoping to find the answer to a question without form.
11:17:06:23
JULIETTA SINGH: And what I will find in these remnants is not the self-altering truth I have been seeking across my life, but simply the profound strangeness that all these things are still here… while she is no longer.
11:17:31:23
JULIETTA SINGH: Suddenly, everything that reflects or remembers her will become her ghosts, and all of us will be left to find new homes.
11:18:14:09
JULIETTA SINGH: I think over the last few days with you, I've been thinking about how I've been trying to resurrect all these other women from the past that have been here to kind of keep you company...
11:18:26:00
CHRISTINE COMMON: Yep.
11:18:27:22
JULIETTA SINGH: Hi, Isa.
11:18:29:22
CHRISTINE COMMON: Um… how many of… even students of Canadian history know about the role of some of the women who did heroic things either in the settlement of this land or pre-settlement?
11:18:47:16
JULIETTA SINGH: I think I'm more interested in the heroics of everyday life.
11:18:50:17
CHRISTINE COMMON: Yeah.
11:18:51:13
JULIETTA SINGH: Not the people who did big huge things, but the people who did little things to make everyday lives feel more liveable.
11:18:57:14
CHRISTINE COMMON: Yeah.
11:19:02:14
JULIETTA SINGH: And you're among those.
11:19:10:00
JULIETTA SINGH: One of the things that I’ve been thinking about over these last few days with you is how… I don't know if it's conscious or unconscious, but… Are you crying?
11:19:19:20
CHRISTINE COMMON: [laughs through tears] A little bit, yeah.
11:19:21:04
JULIETTA SINGH: I'm crying too...
11:19:26:07
CHRISTINE COMMON: Well, I think about having to leave. I know I have to, eventually.
11:19:45:04
JULIETTA SINGH: My glasses are fogging up.
11:19:46:13
JULIETTA & CHRISTINE COMMON: [laughing]
11:19:48:00
CHRISTINE COMMON: Just like the windows this morning.
11:19:49:17
JULIETTA SINGH: [laughing] Exactly. Yeah. The storm that is my eyes.
11:19:54:03
CHRISTINE COMMON: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:20:00:17
JULIETTA SINGH: It's funny... every room in the house is filled with hard memories for me.
11:20:08:18
CHRISTINE COMMON: Yeah.
11:20:09:19
JULIETTA SINGH: But I still really love it.
11:20:11:06
CHRISTINE COMMON: Yeah. They're memories of life and living. And learning.
11:20:26:05
JULIETTA SINGH: Love you, Mom.
11:20:34:03
JULIETTA SINGH: I love you so much.
11:20:36:08
CHRISTINE COMMON: Me too, dear.
11:20:51:16
JULIETTA SINGH: We reach for the past because we have unfulfilled desires.
11:20:58:01
JULIETTA SINGH: And what reaches back can surprise us.
11:21:28:00
JULIETTA SINGH: By reaching for my mother at the end of her life, what I found was not a hidden version of her I longed for, but a history of women whose legacies had always been here.
11:21:47:18
JULIETTA SINGH: Our brick-and-mortar kin.
11:21:52:03
JULIETTA SINGH: Those who lived here in resistance to the oppression of their people.
11:21:58:00
JULIETTA SINGH: Those who, in subtle and intimate ways, have always been a part of us.
11:22:40:08
JULIETTA SINGH: When I leave this house for the last time, I will leave bits of myself behind.
11:22:47:13
JULIETTA SINGH: My fingerprints.
11:22:51:22
JULIETTA SINGH: My breath.
11:22:53:21
JULIETTA SINGH: The hidden notes I left as a child for some future reader.
11:23:11:20
JULIETTA SINGH: And if I return, when I return, I'll do so as a stranger to The Nest's new inhabitants.
11:24:15:11
JULIETTA SINGH: I will knock on the familiar old door, and when they open it, I'll say, "I lived here once, I lived here with a world of other women whose stories I want you to know. Because they're your stories, too. You are part of us now."
11:24:47:10
END CREDITS BEGIN
THE END
