Fewer hills, less rain, more ‘ connectedness’
Vancouverites’ responses to what they wished for echoed a yearning for more community — that someone else did the work of building
Anonymous people often speak the truths that they don’t want to be associated with, sometimes with good reason. What they say can range from just plain stupid to offensive. But to dismiss even those comments would be to deny that occasionally there are grains of truth within them that need to be acknowledged and even addressed.
At the end of the Vancouver Foundation’s 20- minute survey, 3,841 people were asked what they wished for.
My favourite for sheer silliness was the people who wished for fewer hills. Yes, fewer hills!
Even though they live at the edge of a rainforest, lots wished for less rain and a surprising number wished for less wildlife. Fewer skunks, fewer squirrels, fewer geese, fewer raccoons and no bears at all.
One guy wished that street lights with the yellowish glow be replaced. I hadn’t realized they make it difficult to distinguish other colours at night. But maybe he’s right.
“Not enough bubble tea places, haha,” said a Vancouver woman.
More Starbucks, wished a Surrey man. Taco Bell or Wendy’s, wished a man from Burnaby. There were no notes indicating that they meant it ironically just as there are no asterisks suggesting that the many Vancouverites who wished for more restaurants were joking.
Overwhelmingly, the wishes were for more affordable housing, better transit, less noise and less traffic.
So, on to the offensive; all of which were about immigrants and race. But, keep this in context. Added together, many more people wished for no hills, wished this were Hawaii and wished for fewer old people than wished for a return to a homogeneous, white society. For example, only one person wished for Englishonly signs.
More striking in the comments about immigration, race and ethnicity was how few people questioned diversity.
What people questioned was whether we have enough diversity, or whether what Metro Vancouver has are ethnic enclaves.
Bear in mind that the Oxford dictionary definition of diversity is the state of showing a great deal of variety.
And consider the 2006 census data. In Richmond, 65 per cent of the residents belong to an ethnic minority, with four in 10 having Chinese as a mother tongue. In Surrey, nearly 46 per cent of residents are members of an ethnic minority; 60 per cent of those are South Asian.
A young Surrey woman provides a good summary of the anonymous comments about diversity.
“I wish there was a variety of ethnicities and age groups,” she said, noting that her neighbourhood is mostly older or very young East Indians. It’s ideal for her parents, who aren’t as fluent in English, but not for her.
“I think it’s important to interact with people different from ourselves instead of hiding in our ‘ multicultural’ communities. A little assimilation and exposure are not bad things … [W]e should be focused on building up our neighbourhoods, instead of creating another Chinatown [ or] Little India.”
However, it’s important to note that in answer to the survey question about whether they have at least one close friend from a different ethnic group, nearly nine of 10 South Asians said they did. That was significantly higher than all of other groups and 35 per cent overall said they had no close friends outside their ethnic group.
Finally, the young Surrey respondent said — like many others — that immigrants need to make more effort to learn English, so “there would be one less barrier between us.”
What also bears considering in light of both the comments and the survey results is that discussion about racism should not centre wholly on white Canadians not being accepting of others.
A Surrey father said his “little, white kids are a minority and … are not invited to anything even from their closest classmates because of racist parents.”
A young woman from Vancouver’s Renfrew neighbourhood said she’d been bullied since she was 10 for “being different.” She wished that “when I went into a store I didn’t get dirty looks for being white” and that there weren’t “racist things [ about white people] spray- painted on schools.”
As importantly, any future discussion about racism must not only focus on immigrants. What the survey found is that aboriginal people are the least likely to feel welcome in their neighbourhoods.
Throughout both the survey results and comments, there’s a wistfulness, a yearning for connection.
Yet, disconcertingly, behind all the wishes for block parties, neighbourhood barbecues, neighbours who say hello and take in their mail when they’re gone, was the hope that someone else would do the work of building a better community.