Freedom from Racial and Linguistic Discrimination: English and French Speaking Canada.Pocket book of America
“A Book that made a difference to a little boy”
By Kenneth T. Tellis
During World War II, in the early part of 1943, when I was 10-years of age I met a GI and he gave me a book that was to have a great influence my life. The title of the book was The Pocket Book of AMERICA, and published in November 1942 by Pocket Books Inc., New York.
When it was given to me, I had no idea of how this book, that I still possess, though it has seen a lot of wear and tear over time would affect my life. It was that very book that gave me hope in times of despair and got me through them.
In 1990, while working for an American Food Plant, that was located in Mount Royal, Quebec, at a time when the English language was under attack by hard core Quebecois nationalists of the Parti Quebecois whose raison d’être was the total removal of the English language in Quebec and the enforcement of their national language Joual (French patois). Having to live through that period was one of the worst times in my life, so I was really at my wits end. Who ever compromises my liberty, is not my friend, but my mortal enemy. No government has the right to take away any of our freedoms, because Divine Providence hath bequeathed it to us.
But, all I could think of then was some respite from this vicious assault on my culture and language. So I got into my car and took a drive to South Burlington, Vermont, and booked into a motel there. On registering that evening I had a long conversation with the proprietor, about what was happening across the border in Quebec, Canada. That night was the first night that I had a good night’s sleep in a very long time. When I got up next morning I felt renewed and it was like a metamorphosis. It was as if this place Vermont was my real home, not that hell-hole of Quebec, where linguistic and racial discrimination was the law. Now here was a place where I could speak English freely without being having someone attack me for it. So it did feel a lot like home, rather than another country. This was the home of the brave and the free and I could savour of if without fear and that certainly was a pleasurable feeling to have.
I got out of bed and brushed my teeth, had a shower, dressed and got into my car, with a feeling of exhilaration, I went for a drive and viewed the beautiful Covered Bridges that dot the Vermont landscape and for which it is well known and spent the rest of the day taking in the breath-taking scenery.
I got to thinking about that book the GI gave me in 1943 and how the events in it that transpired had had an effect on my whole life. The struggle of a people to be free to chose the kind of government that they wanted, but more than all this, that they had taken on a world power to do battle with and won. Yes! That was a lesson on how much we value our freedoms and to what we are willing to do in order to gain not just our liberty but also the right to our beliefs. After all liberty is not something that one will ever negotiate.
It was a long way from the Magna Carta of Runnymede in 1215 to Yorktown, Virginia in 1781, a journey that people had taken to win their sacred rights from the powers that be.
Verily, I was reinvigorated and that made all the difference. As Thomas Paine that great American patriot and emancipator had said: “It is within our power to make the world anew!” That is what I had learned from the Pocket Book of America. We should never ever forget that we have to learn from the experience of those who went before us to meet every challenge that comes our way in life.
All those things make the difference when it comes to protecting our rights and freedoms that we hold dear. I became an associate member of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Charlottesville, VA and am very proud of it. But I add to this my pride in also being a member of the Thomas Paine Friends, Amherst, MA plays a very great part in my life, because there is nothing that can taste better than the flavour of freedom. It is this that makes us who we really are and where our belief in those freedoms that have come down through the ages makes us fully understand our value system.
Somewhere deep in my memory lies an important fact, the my older brother Joseph Russell had left for the U.S. in 1947, and by 1950 had enlisted in the U.S. army, and was sent to Fort Benning, GA for training during the Korean War. All those thoughts came back as I mused about my life at the time. It made me feel a lot closer to America than I ever had dared to think. Some of us from outside the U.S. overlook the fact that Americans are our closest cousins as well as out good neighbours. When my American niece Kim from Baltimore, MD contacted me, I was very pleased. Perhaps that is why I feel the way I do.
It was while in Vermont that I attended a church where for the first time I learned to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and it was something that was also in the book that the GI had given me in 1943. Had I ever learned or sung O Canada? No, I did not ever, because to me it was an insult. It was a specific hymn made for the Métis (Canadiens) of which I had absolutely nothing in common with, and because it came from an alien culture of which I do not have any respect for either.
Yes, I could sing The Star-Spangled Banner, because it was in English and besides historically it was a part of our common heritage and culture of freedom.
Finally in a sense it was a true metamorphosis and I had changed completely into something very different from what I was before it all began. Like that famous immigrant to the U.S., Israel Baline (Irving Berlin) wrote in his song a tribute to his adopted country in 1918, the words that bear remembering and which was first sung on Armistice Day 1938 by Kate Smith, let me also say: GOD BLESS AMERICA!
R.P.BenDedek is from Brisbane Australia and is the author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' at http://www.kingscalendar.com His academic articles set forth Apologetics for and results of his discovery of an "artificial chronological scheme" running through the Bible, Josephus, the Damascus Documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Seder Olam Rabbah.
He writes photographic 'Stories from China' and social editorial commentaries, both at KingsCalendar, and as a contributing newspaper columnist. He currently teaches Conversational English in China and in addition to his English Lessons at KingsCalendar, he has created specific sites for Students of English.
