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| "Wisdom," by Julie Tián. |
Artist's Note
This is an embroidery of a type of groundcherry that is native to north-eastern Asia. It is cultivated as an edible fruit, but is also known to grow in the wild, as it is hardy enough to survive through cold winters and dry summers. They would grow in the train tracks near my home in China, and I recall playing at the tracks, trying to find these sweet red fruits.
The Canadian Pacific Railway completed construction in 1885 and had a direct and lasting impact on the destruction of Indigenous culture through displacement of communities, claim of lands, expansion of settler colonies, and the ability to exert control over Indigenous peoples. For these reasons, it remains a symbolic site of protest to this day. My culture plays a key role in this piece of history. Roughly 17,000 Chinese men were brought over to work on the construction of the CPR, providing manual labor and dangerous work for a fraction of the regular wage. As soon as the CPR reached completion in 1885, a Chinese Head Tax was imposed on all Chinese people entering Canada. By 1903, this head tax rose to $500 which is equivalent to $17,000 today. July 1st, 2023, marks the 100-year anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act, a federal act passed in 1923 to completely restrict Chinese immigration. This act remained in place until 1947, and along with the head tax introduced decades earlier, led to nearly six decades of financial inequity and severed families, and generations of absentee fathers.
I choose to talk about this because a part of Wisdom is having knowledge of those that come before you, being receptive to seeing and understanding the world around you in a systemic way and choosing to move forward with all the other teachings in mind. As I look for the bright red fruit thriving by the tracks. Wisdom is choosing to recognize your environment, its past, the role you play in it, and then choosing to keep growing, and keep living.
This is an embroidery of a type of groundcherry that is native to north-eastern Asia. It is cultivated as an edible fruit, but is also known to grow in the wild, as it is hardy enough to survive through cold winters and dry summers. They would grow in the train tracks near my home in China, and I recall playing at the tracks, trying to find these sweet red fruits.
The Canadian Pacific Railway completed construction in 1885 and had a direct and lasting impact on the destruction of Indigenous culture through displacement of communities, claim of lands, expansion of settler colonies, and the ability to exert control over Indigenous peoples. For these reasons, it remains a symbolic site of protest to this day. My culture plays a key role in this piece of history. Roughly 17,000 Chinese men were brought over to work on the construction of the CPR, providing manual labor and dangerous work for a fraction of the regular wage. As soon as the CPR reached completion in 1885, a Chinese Head Tax was imposed on all Chinese people entering Canada. By 1903, this head tax rose to $500 which is equivalent to $17,000 today. July 1st, 2023, marks the 100-year anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act, a federal act passed in 1923 to completely restrict Chinese immigration. This act remained in place until 1947, and along with the head tax introduced decades earlier, led to nearly six decades of financial inequity and severed families, and generations of absentee fathers.
I choose to talk about this because a part of Wisdom is having knowledge of those that come before you, being receptive to seeing and understanding the world around you in a systemic way and choosing to move forward with all the other teachings in mind. As I look for the bright red fruit thriving by the tracks. Wisdom is choosing to recognize your environment, its past, the role you play in it, and then choosing to keep growing, and keep living.