Arts, Faculty of
Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, Institute for
DSpace
UBCV
James, Margaretta
Master of Arts - MA
University of British Columbia
My thesis project centres around reclamation â what it means to reclaim oneâs personal and family history, community treasures and belongings, and right to truth-telling through storytelling in a self- and co-curated exhibit. Following an autoethnographic framework, I connect my cultural heritage identity as a Filipina-Lílwat woman and my 42 years of experience living and working with the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation, within the context of migration studies, Indigeneity, and repatriation and reconciliation efforts. Through my exhibit and exegesis, I explore the notion of Coming Home through a critical-creative exploration of âhomeâ and processes of reclamation informed by my land-based knowledges and pre-existing public history collaborations with the Land of Maquinna Cultural Society and Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation. In order to bridge traditional knowledge with public history, and community with academia, Coming Home forefronts the oral history tradition of truth-telling through visual and textual forms, and emphasizes the efficacy of collaboration in public history and heritage work by mirroring community-based processes. The accompanying public history exhibit titled Coming Home, aimed to consider how museum exhibits can present cultural belongings, stories, and experiences in ways that honour their meanings and ongoing connections to family and community, and that allow for a critical-creative exploration of Indigenous-Asian relations and mobilities. This first iteration of the exhibit was on display in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre with the Chung | Lind Gallery at UBC from May to July 2025. By using photographs and treasures within my family collection in the exhibit to tell my stories, of my mother who was Stlʼatlʼimx of the Lílwat, my father who was Visayan of the Philippines, and my husband whose roots were of the Mowachaht and Muchalaht, Coming Home traced my journey of reclaiming these histories as a means of guiding the futures of my grandchildren and later generations. This research-creation process enabled me to explore an approach to collaborative co-curation that can be done with respect, self-determination, and cooperation, as well as operate as a process of reclamation in itself.
COMING HOME: CURATION, EXHIBITION AND RESEARCH-CREATION AS RECLAMATION AND TRUTH-TELLING by Margaretta James A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) October 2025 © Margaretta James, 2025 The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: Coming Home: curation, exhibition and research-creation as reclamation and truth-telling submitted by Margaretta James in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice Examining Committee: Dr John Paul Catungal, Assistant Professor, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice, UBC Co-Supervisor Dr Henry Yu, Professor, History, UBC Co-Supervisor ii Abstract My thesis project centres around reclamation â what it means to reclaim oneâs personal and family history, community treasures and belongings, and right to truth-telling through storytelling in a self- and co-curated exhibit. Following an autoethnographic framework, I connect my cultural heritage identity as a Filipina-Lílwat woman and my 42 years of experience living and working with the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation, within the context of migration studies, Indigeneity, and repatriation and reconciliation efforts. Through my exhibit and exegesis, I explore the notion of Coming Home through a critical-creative exploration of âhomeâ and processes of reclamation informed by my land-based knowledges and pre-existing public history collaborations with the Land of Maquinna Cultural Society and Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation. In order to bridge traditional knowledge with public history, and community with academia, Coming Home forefronts the oral history tradition of truth-telling through visual and textual forms, and emphasizes the efficacy of collaboration in public history and heritage work by mirroring community-based processes. The accompanying public history exhibit titled Coming Home, aimed to consider how museum exhibits can present cultural belongings, stories, and experiences in ways that honour their meanings and ongoing connections to family and community, and that allow for a critical-creative exploration of Indigenous-Asian relations and mobilities. This first iteration of the exhibit was on display in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre with the Chung | Lind Gallery at UBC from May to July 2025. By using photographs and treasures within my family collection in the exhibit to tell my stories, of my mother who was Stlʼatlʼimx of the Lílwat, my father who iii was Visayan of the Philippines, and my husband whose roots were of the Mowachaht and Muchalaht, Coming Home traced my journey of reclaiming these histories as a means of guiding the futures of my grandchildren and later generations. This research-creation process enabled me to explore an approach to collaborative co-curation that can be done with respect, self-determination, and cooperation, as well as operate as a process of reclamation in itself. iv Lay Summary Coming Home is an exhibit that shares the stories of my blended heritage, including my Filipina ancestry from my father, my Stlâatlâimx ancestry from my mother, and my Mowachaht/Muchalaht connections from my husband. Collaborative exhibit creation aligns with the community-based collaborations I have done for over four decades, such as the public history and reconciliation work with the Land of Maquinna Cultural Society and Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation. Following a similar model, Coming Home bridges traditional knowledge with academia. In both the exhibit and exegesis, I situate my parentsâ relationship within longer histories of Indigenous-Asian relations and transpacific exchange to expand on the ways their mobilities led to the encounter. By sharing my stories and expanding the ways we remember the history of the Pacific Northwest Coast by including the lenses of Indigenous oral history traditions, we paint a broader, yet nonetheless accurate picture of our collective history. v Preface I am the lead researcher for the research-creation project (Coming Home) and accompanying written exegesis that constitutes this thesis. I am ultimately responsible for all analysis that is contained in this thesis and the research-creation project. Drawing on Indigenous practices of collaborative storytelling and knowledge sharing, I worked with Victoria So to co-curate and co-design the exhibit Coming Home. The written thesis (exegesis) is composed of my own place-based, personal, familial and community stories, memories and analysis as a mixed Indigenous-Asian woman, as well as my own reflections on the exhibit design and implementation process. This exegesis was written with and supported by my co-curator Victoria So, who collaborated with me at all stages of the writing process, from the early stages of conceptualization, storyboarding and elicitation of my oral history, to the later stages of manuscript composition and editing. My co-supervisors Drs. JP Catungal and Henry Yu provided high-level advice on conceptualization and exhibit design, as well as manuscript edits. No Generative Artificial Intelligence tools were used in the research process, development, or writing of the thesis or the research-creation project. Portions of Chapters 1.1, 2.2.3, and 2.2.4 draw from and/or are modified from my previous publication, âMy Transpacific Lifeâ in BC Studies no. 204, and are reproduced here with permission. vi Table of Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... iii Lay Summary ................................................................................................................................v Preface ...........................................................................................................................................vi Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ vii List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. ix Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... xi Dedication ...................................................................................................................................xiii 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................1 1.1 Coming Home: An Introduction ......................................................................................... 1 1.2 Exhibit Overview ................................................................................................................ 5 1.3 The Project Team .............................................................................................................. 12 2 Theoretical and Creative Context ....................................................................................... 14 2.1 Migrations and Mobilities .................................................................................................14 2.1.1 Filipino Boys: The Manong Generation of Migrants .............................................. 16 2.1.2 Indigenous Migrations to Cities ...............................................................................26 2.1.3 Situating Yuquot Globally through Histories of Trade and Travel .......................... 28 2.2 Indigeneity ........................................................................................................................ 31 2.2.1 Truth-Telling ............................................................................................................ 32 2.2.2 Land-Based Knowledge ...........................................................................................34 2.2.3 Truth and Reconciliation ..........................................................................................37 2.2.4 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQ+ People .......... 40 2.3 Reclaiming our Narrative ..................................................................................................42 2.3.1 Reclamation of History ............................................................................................ 42 2.3.2 Reclamation of Treasures .........................................................................................44 2.4 Collaboration .....................................................................................................................46 3 Methodological Approach .................................................................................................... 50 vii 3.1 Creating An Autoethnographic Exhibit ............................................................................ 50 3.1.1 Project Background ..................................................................................................51 3.1.2 Exhibit Creation Process ..........................................................................................53 3.1.3 The Weaving of Stories ............................................................................................63 3.2 Exhibit Launch Celebration .............................................................................................. 66 3.3 Changes, Challenges, Turning Points and Considerations ............................................... 70 3.3.1 Curating 74 Years into 4 Cases ................................................................................ 70 3.3.2 From Treasure to Artifact to Treasure ..................................................................... 71 3.3.3 Collaborating In Situ and in Academia ....................................................................72 3.3.4 Creating Home ......................................................................................................... 73 4 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................75 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 81 viii List of Figures Figure 1.1 - Coming Home exhibit displayed in UBC Irving K. Barber Learning Centre..............7 Figure 1.2 - Close-up of treasures and photographs shown in âMy (Blended) Familyâ case......... 9 Figure 1.3 - Photo postcards and munggo beans............................................................................10 Figure 2.1 - My father in his car with my two younger brothers...................................................19 Figure 2.2 - My father and his friends fishing on a boat................................................................20 Figure 2.3 - My father in an Alaskan fish cannery........................................................................ 22 Figure 2.4 - Front and back of photo postcard sent by fatherâs friend...........................................23 Figure 2.5 - My father, Sal, Marissa, and Inday.............................................................................25 Figure 2.6 - Image of Mearesâ Voyages made in the years 1788 and 1789...................................29 Figure 2.7 - My grandmother working on a cedar basket in her Mount Currie home...................31 Figure 2.8 - Sugar bowl passed down from my great-grandmother.............................................. 35 Figure 2.9 - The only photograph I own with my mother, my half sister, and me........................ 38 Figure 2.10 - My mother (Euphemia Stager) at St. Maryâs Residential School............................ 39 Figure 2.11 - Me and my mother in front of our Seattle apartment...............................................40 Figure 3.1 - Whiteboard brainstorming session with Coming Home project team....................... 54 Figure 3.2 - Draft of âMy (Blended) Familyâ display................................................................... 56 Figure 3.3 - Draft of âfrom Zazilkwa, the swirling eddies in the Lílwat Riverâ display...............56 Figure 3.4 - Draft of âto Old Buswang Road in the Philippinesâ display......................................57 Figure 3.5 - Draft of âYuquot, âwhere the wind blows from all directionsââ display.................... 57 ix Figure 3.6 - Rendering of âMy (Blended) Familyâ display........................................................... 58 Figure 3.7 - Rendering of âfrom Zazilkwa, the swirling eddies in the Lílwat Riverâ display.......59 Figure 3.8 - Rendering of âto Old Buswang Road in the Philippinesâ display............................. 60 Figure 3.9 - Rendering of â& Yuquot, âwhere the wind blows from all directionsââ display........61 Figure 3.10 - My great-grandmotherâs woven berry basket.......................................................... 63 Figure 3.11 - Woven basket pattern motif adapted from my great-grandmotherâs berry basket... 65 Figure 3.12 - The James/Stager family coming together for the Coming Home launch............... 66 Figure 3.13 - Ginisang munggo and rice, smoked salmon and crackers, roe on kelp, kuchinta, and fried lumpia....................................................................................................................................68 Figure 4.1 - The bottom of a cedar basket I am still working on...................................................78 x Acknowledgements This project took place on the traditional, unceded, and ancestral territories of the xÊ·mÉÎ¸kÊ·ÉyÌ Ém (Musqueam) and Mowachacht/Muchalaht peoples. I have been privileged to study in xÊ·mÉÎ¸kÊ·ÉyÌ Ém (Musqueam) land, and am grateful for the opportunity to bring my Stlâatlâimx and Mowachaht/Muchalaht heritage identities to this work. I would like to acknowledge and thank the following people for helping me with my journey: For their guidance and academic support at UBC: My graduate supervisors, Drs. JP Catungal and Henry Yu, whose guidance and encouragement to challenge traditional academia enabled me to forge my own academic journey. My graduate advisors and professors, Drs. Pilar Riaño-Alcalá, Christopher Patterson, Paige Raibmon, Laura Ishiguro, Leonora Angeles, and Christopher Lee. GRSJ Graduate Program Assistant, Alicia Cairns. RBSC Archivist, Claire Malek. SJC Staff, Stacy, Yuki, Alice, Rei, and Jenny, for helping me make another home. ACRE Staff, Szu Shen and Shirley Ting. My friends who encouraged me along the way, Elder Larry and Gina Grant, and Stefan Sunandan Honisch. All of you came to know and believe that the sharing of my story had value. For the financial and administrative support in making my MA dream a reality: Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation, Nuu-cha-nulth Tribal Council, UBC Centre for Asian Canadian Research and Engagement, St. Johnâs College UBC, UBC Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice, and UBC Library Chung | Lind Gallery. For their friendship and intellect: Dr. John and Margaret Price, Robin Inglis, Richard and Kathy Inglis, John McCormick, Bruce Lund, Vivian Hermanson, Roz Latvala, Bert and Pat Parungao, Pierce Smith (& all the Parkies for the last 30+ years) and so many other colleagues who became family. To those who share their world as its part of mine: Rose Jack, Marie Lavoie-Jack, Bill and Beaulah Howard, Claretta Neuman, Suzanne Travis, Sheila Savey, Gloria Maquinna, and Verna Stager. To my children Marissa, Jordan, Jamie, Sal, Pat (mit) and Eva, for your unending love. To my siblings, Sal Jr (mit), Randy and Robert (mit). And to all of my Tirazona and Stager first cousins who are truly my siblings. xi To my grandchildren, greats and great-greats: Alexa, Quentin, Vada, Oriana, Zinnia, Billie, Ivy, Drake, Kylo, Michelle, Joni, Jaylene, Janelle, Jack, Tom, Candy, Cody, Alicia, Heather, Aimee, Caleb, Abigail, Blair, Rebecca, Jordana, Terrence, Mason, Messiah, Adonis, Drake Jr, Winnie, and River. To my mentors who have travelled on from this life whose traditional teachings still inspire me every day: Arnold James, Rosie Dickie Stager Ross, Ambrose Maquinna, Allen Stager, Sam & Violet Johnson, Benedict Jack, Jerry Jack Sr, Beatrice Jack, Tom & Veronica Dick, August Dick, Abel John, Maurus McLean, Max and Cecilia Savey, and Verna Rose Jack. And with deepest heartfelt thanks to Team Margaretta: Drs. Henry Yu, JP Catungal, and Denise Fong, Jenny Lu, Julianna Yue, Daniel Chen, and Emily Chou. A special acknowledgement and my deepest gratitude goes out to Victoria So, without whose caring skill and sincere efforts this piece would not exist. Kleco kleco, salamat, kúkwstumÌck xii Dedication To my father, Salvador Reyes Tirazona, who never let me forget the importance of education. To my mother, Euphemia Stager, whose story I will lovingly honour. To my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, may you always remember your roots â find your passion and live your dreams. xiii Chapter One: Introduction 1.1 Coming Home: An Introduction Ooâklaas ish Yakaap, tlahâoh Margaretta James. Muchalaht aahkâsoops.1 Thatâs who I am. I was honoured and given that name by Mowachaht/Muchalaht2 Chiefs Max Savey, Jerry Jack, and Ambrose Maquinna in the church of Yuquot in 1994. My husband, Arnold, and I welcomed two young boys into our family, into the community. At church that day, we fed the people with a big pot of spaghetti, bought 15 blankets to give to the witnesses, and the boys were given their traditional names â we adopted the boys, and welcomed the community to share in our celebration, sharing our family. That was the tradition. Yakaap is the first traditional name I was given. I was told by Jerry that Yakaap was remembered as a very sharing woman in the community years ago, who welcomed people into their home, gave them coffee, tea, whatever she had, whatever she could share. It is with this name that I was given, and the values of sharing passed down to me by my Stlâatlâimx and Visayan predecessors, that I share my stories, experiences, and truths. My transpacific roots originate on both sides of the Pacific â from Zazilkwa, the swirling eddies in the Lílwat River, to Old Buswang Road in the Philippines. My mother, Euphemia Stager, was Stlâatlâimx of the Lílwat and my father, Salvador Reyes Tirazona, was Visayan of the 2 For the purposes of this paper, I will be using Mowachaht/Muchalaht to refer to the people, community, and cultural heritage, and Mowachaht-Muchalaht to refer to the Nation. The Mowachaht and Muchalaht tribal groups of Nootka Sound were amalgamated into the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation political organization in 1951. Yuquot is the ancestral village of the Mowachaht people. However, the intermarriages and connections between the two communities has resulted in many claiming ancestral roots to both. Within my work, I most commonly use Mowachaht/Muchalaht to indicate this identity. 1 This is the Nuu-chah-nulth introduction I use when I meet new people. I learned the Nuu-chah-nulth language by speaking rather than writing, and although there are Nuu-chah-nulth linguists who may spell these words differently in text, I add this statement to include my self-introduction in my language as I would if I was speaking. 1 Philippines. My grandfather, Chief Alphonse Stager, lived his entire life in Mount Currie territory, fulfilling his leadership role as a hereditary chief of the nation. He was groomed for this by my great-grandfather, James Stager, one of the original chiefs to sign the 1911 Declaration of the Lillooet Tribe joining the Indian Rights Association, affirming the peopleâs demand for their rights and the return of their lands. My great-grandmother, Madeline, raised the family and wove traditional baskets, instructing my grandmother on how to use these skills. Arnâs roots were also of mixed heritage, Mowachaht and Muchalaht. In that same year that we first met, Arn brought me to Yuquot, or as the world knows it, Friendly Cove.3 It was a trip that would forever change my life and would become central to decades of my lifeâs work. His heritage became mine as our children and grandchildren would inherit our roots and that of all those who came before us. To me, home is not a singular place but is defined by the people and places who make me who I am. Home has been inherited, passed down, and shared, but it has also been contested. As such, Coming Home explores how the reclamation of memories and the past, treasures and belongings, and the right to truth-tell can be exercised through storytelling. The exhibit tells the 3 Friendly Cove and Nootka Sound refer to the Mowachaht village of Yuquot and its cove, but these names originated from European explorers rather than the Mowachaht people themselves. âNootkaâ is the Nuu-chah-nulth word for âto come aroundâ and was âused to direct Captain Cook âto come aroundâ to a safe anchorage.â These are not the traditional names for the village and cove, but has been reclaimed for its recognition of our shared history and diplomatic reputation as hospitable hosts. âNootkaâ has also been used to refer to the Nootka Sound Controversy between 1789 and 1794, in which Spain and Britain had competed over claims for control over trade and navigation on the Northwest Coast and Pacific Ocean with Yuquot being their base. Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations, Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Yuquot Agenda Paper, 1998, 13.; Meares documented the safety of the cove during his visit in 1788: âThe ship had been moored but a very short time, when it began to blow a tempestuous gale of wind, with very heavy rain; the commodious situation, therefore, of Friendly Cove, made us truly sensible of our good fortune, in being thus securely placed in a protecting haven, where neither storm or tempest could alarm our fears or trouble our repose.â From this and following descriptions, the friendliness of the cove may refer to both the safe geographical properties for docking, as well as the hospitable and diplomatic Mowachaht people. John Meares, Voyages Made in the Years 1788 and 1789, from China to the North West Coast of America, London: Logographic Press, 108. 2 stories of my trans-Pacific Indigenous-Asian heritage, rooted in stories of my mother, who was Stlʼatlʼimx of the Lílwat, my father, who was Visayan of the Philippines, and my husband, whose roots were of the Mowachaht and Muchalaht. By reclaiming the past, and exploring my cultural heritage connections through my personal and familial journeys, Coming Home deepens understandings of Indigenous-Asian relations, the interconnected impacts of settler colonialism on Asian and Indigenous people on the Pacific West Coast, and how collaborative exhibit curation can authentically, and respectfully shed light on these experiences as a means of not only acknowledging the past, but guiding our future toward strengthened agency. The accompanying exegesis situates the creative work within the broader context of migration studies, Indigeneity, and repatriation and reconciliation efforts. Namely, my fatherâs emigration from Kalibo Aklan in the Philippines to the United States of America in 1927 coincides with the broader histories of the manong generation, one of the earlier generations of Filipino men to migrate to the US who primarily partook in transitory work amidst discriminatory attitudes from the society at large â an experience that Aben notes echoes conditions faced by agricultural migrant workers in North America today.4 On the other hand, initial understandings of my Indigenous heritage were introduced to me through my Stlâatlâimx grandmother, who passed down land-based knowledge through her values and teachings. Yet, connecting with my Stlâatlâimx family members has also shed light on their personal experiences, which include the residential school system and the threats to Indigenous women and girls. Lastly, my husbandâs roots in Yuquot, a place of global encounters,5 led me to further 5 While Mowachaht people had already been keen to trade, the arrival of European explorers and traders further transformed Yuquot into âa global hub of trade and exploration.â Maxine Berg, âSmall Spaces and Multiple Contexts: Nootka Soundâs Global Locality 1774-1794,â Journal of Early Modern History 27 (2023), 125. 4 Kathrina J Aben, âHungering for the American dream: Filipino farmworker foodscape in San Joaquin County, California (1939-1965),â PhD diss., (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2024), 54. 3 consider how migration and Indigeneity have interacted, and how current repatriation and reconciliation efforts are in direct response to the histories of exploration and salvage anthropology, which displaced indigenous communities and reduced their belongings to ethnographic artifacts or objects of curiosity. It is through these contexts of the good and the bad, and the reclamation amidst loss, that I tell my truths to reflect on the past, situate the present, and embody meaningful steps toward a future of dignity, agency, and truth. Much like how my work with Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation has never solely been done by one individual, and my stories in the exhibit would not be authentic without reference to my family, this autoethnographical exegesis is written with the support of my co-curator (Victoria So) as we continue to reflect on the collaborative exhibit creation process. Together, we analyze the significance of the Coming Home exhibit â its meanings, implications, and aims, including personal reflections on telling my truth. As co-curators, we expound on the collaborative process of bringing my personal stories to the public and explore how we did so both logistically and with respect. While I tell my stories to a general audience through the exhibit, this exegesis presents the theoretical framework for storytelling, methodologies and contextual significance for academics, educators, and museum professionals. The primary aim of the project is to demonstrate how meaningful acknowledgement and (re)connection with the past through truth-telling is a means of reclamation, not only of the past, but of the present moment, and our future. My hope in telling stories surrounding my family is to provide a foundation from which visitors can connect and relate to the human experiences of evolving and adapting within their own communities, and reflect on how the connections 4 between people, their treasures, and the place(s) they come from are continually meaningful, living, and significant. The research questions guiding this exegesis are: 1. How can we deepen our understanding of Indigenous-Asian relations by paying attention to mobilities? 2. What curation and storytelling methodologies support truth-telling without reducing family treasures to ethnographic artifacts? 3. How can collaborative co-curation increase access to oral history traditions while respecting the authority and authorship of storytellers? Through my dialogical exegesis, I offer a practice-based perspective on exhibit curation and storytelling as a means of reclamation â a process deeply meaningful for me as a Indigenous-Filipina grandmother who hopes my grandchildren and generations unborn can be inspired by the resiliency of their predecessors, and see (re)connection with heritage as a guiding path to better understand who, when, and where we all are. This exegesis demonstrates how our collaborative approach to exhibit curation can enable oral histories to exist and be legitimized in academia, as well as explore authorship and equitable access to accreditation in university spaces. 1.2 Exhibit Overview Coming Home centres around reclamation â what it means to reclaim oneâs personal and family history, community treasures and belongings, and right to truth-telling. In this exhibit, I share photographs and treasures within my and my familyâs possession to tell 5 my stories: of my mother who was Stlâatlâimx of the Lílwat, my father who was Visayan of the Philippines, my husband whose roots were of the Mowachaht and Muchalaht, and my journey of presenting these histories as a means of guiding the futures of my grandchildren and later generations.6 The first iteration of this exhibit took place at the University of British Columbia Irving K. Barber Learning Centre in partnership with the Chung | Lind Gallery, and was on display from May to July 2025. My transpacific story, when featured in relation to the Chung and Lind collections, provides a narrative that is definitively personal yet runs in parallel to and at times in tension with the settler colonial histories showcased in the Chung | Lind Gallery. Mobilities and their politics are a key thematic and political focus of Coming Home, and I examine these via attention to my family histories. More specifically, the exhibit tells the story of my fatherâs journey to the United States and his migratory work practices, travelling up and down the West Coast of the continent, which echo the aspirations of social mobility for Asian settlers in North America. The exhibit juxtaposes his story with that of my motherâs: she, like many others from her community, left the familiarity of reserve life in Mount Currie and migrated to the cities of Vancouver and Seattle in search of opportunities. These multiple places and spaces of migrant mobilities are then juxtaposed to Yuquotâs unique history as a global place of encounter. Yuquot has always been the home of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht people, and its ideal location and geographical properties made it conducive to international encounters and diplomatic relations that have lasted for over 200 years.7 This connectivity is further epitomized in Comekelaâs voyage to and from China (1787-1788), and the initial arrival of the Chinese on the Pacific 7 Berg, âSmall Spaces and Multiple Contexts, 119 & 127-128.; Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations, Yuquot Agenda Paper, 3-4. 6 âComing Home â Margaretta James,â Coming Home by Margaretta James, UBC Blogs, effective October 1, 2025, https://blogs.ubc.ca/cominghome/. 6 Northwest Coast (1788), which saw the Mowachaht/Muchalaht people as âcentral actors connecting Europe with Asia via Yuquot.â8 Figure 1.1 - Coming Home exhibit displayed in UBC Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, June 2025. The ability to shed light on my familyâs histories in relation to the Chung and Lind collections expands the perspectives we can use to remember the past. The Chung | Lind Gallery website states, âMany of these records reflect a white, colonial perspective that did not value the lived experience of IBPOC peoples, and excluded meaningful contextual information, such as the names of Indigenous Peoples, their communities and Nations.â9 Hence, Coming Home provides something of a corrective: a distinctly personal lens to a âdecolonial understanding of 9 âLand Acknowledgement,â University of British Columbia Library Chung | Lind Gallery, effective August 27, 2025. https://gallery.library.ubc.ca/about/land-acknowledgement/. 8 John Price, âRelocating Yuquot: The Indigenous Pacific and Transpacific Migrations,â BC Studies 204 (2020): 22. 7 the past,â which includes my Filipino-American, Stlâatlâimx, and Mowachaht/Muchalaht histories, heritages and perspectives.10 Coming Home tells my life story thus far through four exhibit cases, titled: (1) âMy Blended Familyâ, (2) âfrom Zazilkwa, the swirling eddies in the Lílwat River,â (3) âto Old Buswang Road in the Philippines,â (4) âand Yuquot, âwhere the wind blows from all directions.ââ Sequentially, this is how I came to understand myself and my Indigenous-Asian heritage, as well as how I begin to narrate my wholeness as a human being. Organized through land-based, community and familial knowledge and the people and connections that are central to my stories, each case is rooted in the lands and how the everyday lives of my family members have been shaped and defined by where they were from. Each case can tell a standalone story that provides insight into the cultures and traditions that I have inherited, yet as a whole, my stories and experiences attest to the mobility, interactions and connectivity of the peoples and places that I present. Through curation, storytelling and design, we showcased 86 photographs and 12 treasures from my family and my collection, and displayed 5 text captions per case to incorporate my stories. We aimed to showcase my treasures and belongings as continually meaningful, living, and significant by telling stories of their meaning from the perspective of their traditional knowledge-bearer â in this case, my family and I â rather than presenting them as ethnographic artifacts in storage boxes or objects of curiosity displayed in glass cases in a museum. The belongings I possess are treasures I continue to use, plan to pass on to my grandchildren, and are 10 âLand Acknowledgement,â University of British Columbia Library Chung | Lind Gallery. 8 part of the legacy that will continue to be significant to the values held by my family, from the past, in the present, and into the future. Figure 1.2 - Close-up of treasures and photographs shown in âMy (Blended) Familyâ case in the Coming Home exhibit, June 2025. Taking a personal narrative approach similar to welcoming others into my home and my life, the exhibit embodies and uses the ethos of guided tours as a pedagogical tool in public history. Through this framework, I use tours as a mode of transformational learning in changing âoneâs frame of reference,â and to implore my audience to âcritically reflect on their own assumptionsâ through engagement with the exhibitâs stories.11 By emulating the welcoming of the audience into my home through the showcasing of my personal treasures, the exhibit also emulates a place-based learning model that engages audiences to examine the âlocal histories, 11 Wendy Cheng, Laura Barraclough, and Laura Pulido, âRadicalising Teaching and Tourism: A Peopleâs Guide as Active and Activist History,â Left History 15, no. 1 (March 2011): 118. 9 environments, cultures, political economies, literatures, and arts of [each] placeâ in relation to their own âsocial locationsâ and broaden their ways of knowing.12 More specifically, the exhibit is framed around a visual tour of my family treasures â photographs of precious memories, events, and encounters; photo postcards sent by my family in the Philippines (Figure 1.3); Figure 1.3 - Photo postcards and munggo beans shown in âTo Old Buswang Road in the Philippinesâ case in the Coming Home exhibit, June 2025. baskets woven by my maternal grandmother; and more. The textual captions serve as a narrative guide that gives context and meaning to my family treasures through stories based upon my or my familyâs experiences. By sharing my relationships to show how we live in a place thatâs ever-changing, full of encounters, and constantly developing and realizing its potential, these stories demonstrate how each place (ie. Yuquot, Mount Currie) in this place we colonially call âBritish Columbiaâ holds significance, whether it be historical, spiritual, and/or social. 12 Cheng, Barraclough, and Pulido, âRadicalising Teaching and Tourism,â 119. 10 These places are presented through the people, intangible cultural heritage, and land-based knowledge that deepen their significance. For example, the baby basket my grandmother wove for my daughter is a treasured possession of mine, but also the result of the Lílwat basketmaking traditions passed down from generations of women who learned to use cedar trees for tools, livelihood, and entrepreneurship. On the other hand, munggo beans represent the humble roots from which my father, and therefore I, originate â from my grandmother selling munggo beans on the side of the road in Kalibo, munggo beans became a household favourite as I grew up eating them in Seattle, an ocean away. As the âcentre of the worldâ, the winds in Yuquot led seafaring visitors to converge on our landscape, where Chief Maquinna and the Mowachaht/Muchalaht people welcomed guests with hospitality, food, and friendship. Since time immemorial, Mowachaht/Muchalaht people have fostered diplomatic relations across the globe, continued to welcome guests with warmth, and celebrate shared human histories through the annual Yuquot Summerfest. Since 1991, I have headed the economic development projects for the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation as the Director of Cultural and Heritage Resources. In this role, I oversaw the implementation of the first Yuquot Spirit Summerfest in August 1992. For almost every year since then, I have organized and coordinated the annual celebrations â selecting the themes, inviting guests from across the globe, arranging a traditional meal, and program. Summerfest has essentially been a special time to come together and celebrate our history, community and shared humanity. These places that I have come to call âhomeâ join together through my cultural heritage and identity to tell a more complete story of who I am. Lastly, my story would not be complete without the connections Iâve presented here â these parts allow me to tell my truth in whole and share the stories of my mixed heritage with the hope that visitors will expand their ways of knowing. 11 1.3 The Project Team Much like the community-driven projects and initiatives I have been a part of, Coming Home was created to tell my stories through a collaborative effort. The project was supported in partnership with the Centre for Asian Canadian Research and Engagement (ACRE), St. Johnâs College (SJC), Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice (GRSJ), and UBC Libraryâs Chung | Lind Gallery, with support in curation, design, project management, installation, and more. The support in all aspects of exhibit creation with my project team created an atmosphere where I felt comfortable telling my truths and exploring the bounds to share my stories with the public. Additionally, this accompanying exegesis is written with the support of my co-curator, Victoria So, with whom I have had countless conversations about my story, research and experiences. In order to be able to focus on my community work in situ as well as complete the written requirements needed to fulfill my Master of Arts, Victoria has used our conversations and my past writing to help me articulate the points I make in this exegesis. We began with preliminary brainstorming sessions where we organized stories, sources, and ideas into an outline for the exegesis. The rest of the writing process was done both asynchronously and synchronously, where Victoria adapted this content and knowledge to a thesis format, and we would review and revise the written text together over in-person and virtual work sessions spanning four months. With the support of my graduate supervisors, Dr. JP Catungal and Dr. Henry Yu, this collaborative writing process has enabled me to continue oral history traditions of storytelling and knowledge sharing that are central to my heritage, put my thoughts and words into text on paper, and work with the Mowachaht/Muchalaht community toward reconciliation 12 and repatriation each day. While this writing process is unconventional in traditional academia, I am grateful my supervisors have enabled me to continue community-oriented work alongside fulfilling my MA requirements in a way that is informed by my lived work experiences within the community and traditional cultural heritages. Consequently, I hope this project process enables more community-oriented work to be done alongside research and academia, especially if doing so allows us to rethink institutional barriers in academia. 13 Chapter Two: Theoretical and Creative Context Both the exhibit and exegesis expand upon three key themes that I examine in my work: migration and mobilities, Indigeneity, and practices of reclamation. In what follows, I unpack each of these themes, teasing out the various ways that they emerge as key political and conceptual issues in the histories that my exhibit documents. Along the way, I also situate my work in conversation with scholarship on these themes, and seek to advance these sets of scholarship through my critical-creative interventions. 2.1 Migrations and Mobilities My sojourn into academia began amidst my sharing stories of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht people, and my understandings were inevitably shaped by my own familyâs history, identity and experiences. In particular, the history around the 1788 arrival of Chinese artisans in Yuquot inspired me to research and shed more light on histories of Asian presence in Yuquot and on Mowachaht/Muchalaht traditional territories, especially as it struck a chord with my and my parentsâ history; my familyâs story is an embodiment of Indigenous-Asian interactions such as these. Accordingly, researching my fatherâs migration to the US by relating his experiences to those of the manong generation, such as Carlos Bulosan, allowed me to better understand how his experiences paralleled others within the Filipinx diasporic community. In connecting my parentsâ encounter and what led my mother to leave the familiarity of Mount Currie for Seattle, I began to situate both their movements within broader contexts of Filipino migratory patterns and practices, as well as urban Indigeneity and the circumstances that led to their meeting. The topic 14 of Indigenous-Asian encounters further emphasizes the relevance of the 1788 arrival of Chinese artisans in Yuquot and Comekelaâs, Chief Maquinnaâs brotherâs, return from China, not only in demonstrating that Indigenous-Asian encounters have occurred for centuries, but also supporting the view of Yuquot as a global place â âa strategic portal on the Pacific and an Indigenous site of arrival not only for Europeans but also for Chinese labourers, Hawaiians, and others.â13 These contexts re-situate the land where we live and study today as having a history beyond its colonial recognition as âBritish Columbia,â âCanada,â and beyond, with more inclusive representations of the people who have continuously inhabited these lands, traded, encountered, and formed relationships across the millennia. From this research-creation process, I came to learn that the term âsurvivanceâ employed by Gerald Vizenor would succinctly describe my familyâs adaptation to colonial pressures. Through his definition, survivance is âthe union of active survival and resistance to cultural dominance.â14 Vizenor writes: Theories of survivance are elusive and imprecise by definition and in translation. The practices of survivance, however, are obvious and unmistakable in native stories. The nature of survivance creates a sense of narrative resistance to absence, literary tragedy, nihility, and victimry. Native survivance is an active sense of presence over historical absence, the dominance of cultural simulations, and manifest manners. Native survivance is a continuance of stories.15 In the termâs combination of survival and resistance, my parentsâ actions are not merely a response but also an act of exercising their agency. Native stories are also evidence of endurance and resilience and it is through this context that I am further encouraged to tell my truths. 15 Vizenor, Native Liberty, 1. 14 Gerald Vizenor, Native Liberty: Natural Reason and Cultural Survivance (University of Nebraska Press, 2009), 24. 13 Price, âRelocating Yuquot,â 21. 15 My father, like many other young Filipino men, left their hometown to seek other options. Doing so was an active response to the impact of US and Spanish colonialism in Kalibo, my fatherâs hometown, and other regions of the Philippines. Ultimately, he brought his accumulated earnings back to the Philippines by building a chapel for his community and a home that became a gathering place for friends and family. On the other hand, my mother, aunts, and uncles also left the reserve: they chose not to stay on the reserve lands that were designated and âheldâ for our peoples by the Crown. Instead they left, as is their right and has been since time immemorial, but also with the knowledge that colonial conditions differentiated life on- and off-reserve, and, as a result, their chances for success were, generally, greater elsewhere. 2.1.1 Filipino Boys: The Manong Generation of Migrants My father was representative of the Filipino migration to the United States during the early decades of the twentieth century, and became part of the working class, which, in its pursuit of a better life, was challenged by discrimination, racism, and heartbreak. In the late 19th and early 20th century, Chinese and Japanese faced increasing anti-Asian racism and immigration exclusion. After the Philippines was colonized by the United States in 1898, early male migrants, often called "manongs", were able to enter Hawai'i and the continental United States as colonized subjects, but soon became the target of white supremacist political organizers as well. Between 1898 and 1946, the Philippines was a colonial possession of the United States, granting Filipino immigrants limited rights and privileges. As citizens of the Philippines, unique opportunities included the right to an American-style education and the right to migrate to the United States, even though, with the passing of the Immigration Act of 1924, other Asians were barred from entry. working class, racism, discrimination, rights16 16 âThe American Dreamâ in Coming Home exhibit, displayed at University of British Columbia Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, May to July 2025. 16 My fatherâs experience in the United States is characteristic of many first-generation Filipino men, often called manongs17, who made the long journey from the Philippines to pre-Depression America with aspirations for a better life. While my initial research into my father consisted of pinpointing his arrival in the United States to 1927, further literature reviews through novels like Carlos Bulosanâs America Is In The Heart, and Elaine Castilloâs America Is Not The Heart contextualized and paralleled his experience in regards to the sociopolitical climate impacting his decisions as well as that of later generations of Filipino immigrants to North America. American imperialism in the Philippines enabled his migration to the United States in 1927; when âChinese, Japanese, Koreans, and South Asiansâ were barred from entry with the 1921 and 1924 immigration acts, Filipinos were able to come to the US because they were considered US subjects.18 But like Bulosanâs character, my fatherâs immigrant experience in the US was characterized by racism, low-paying jobs, violence, and cruelty â an experience my father strived to minimize by never speaking his mother tongue to us, by behaving like a model âAmericanizedâ migrant and later citizen, and by succeeding through the opportunities he was afforded. He strove to belong in trying to emulate the American dream â minimize his feelings of âothernessâ by bringing us to Disneyland, driving a Lincoln, and ultimately owning his own home. He approached these experiences with enthusiasm and hope that he could find belonging in America. 18 Yen Espiritu, Filipino American Lives (Temple University Press, 2010), 9. 17 Manong is a âFilipino term of endearment for elder brother or uncle.â This predominantly male working class community is recognized for being pioneers of the Filipino community in the United States, and creating family-like bonds and spaces like Manilatowns in cities like San Diego. Estella Habal, San Francisco's International Hotel: Mobilizing the Filipino American Community in the Anti-Eviction Movement (Temple University Press, 2007), 2.; The âsecond wave of Filipino immigration into the United States from 1906 to 1934,â is often referred to as the manong generation. Ronald S. Buenaventura âSan Diegoâs Manongs of the 1920s and â30s,â Filipino American National Historical Society Journal 5 (1998): 30. 17 More broadly, my fatherâs migration to the US follows a much longer history of imperialism in the Philippines and subsequent transpacific migrations of Filipinos to Turtle Island. While he is part of what is commonly called the manong generation (late 19th and early 20th century), the Manila Galleon trade between the Philippines and Mexico enabled earlier Filipino mobilities across the Pacific. The Galleon trade began when the Philippines was under Spanish colonial occupation, and was the primary means by which commodities, resources and goods were transported across different Spanish colonies in the Pacific (including Guam), and eventually, overland and across to other colonies in the Caribbean as well as across the Atlantic to Spain. With Manila and Acapulco being the main ports, Filipino sailors came to be part of the Galleon trade and travelled to and from Mexico as early as the 16th century.19 According to Espina, âMany Filipino seamen who deserted the galleons later married Mexican women and lived in Acapulco and other regions in Mexico,â proving to be another example of Indigenous-Asian encounters that have existed for centuries.20 In turn, Filipinos, who were âbelieved to be descendants of Filipino seamen who had escaped Spanish galleons,â had been living on the southeastern coast of Louisiana âas early as 1765,â now being recognized as âhaving developed the oldest permanent community of Asian Americans.â21 This longer context of Indigenous-Asian encounters and mobilities demonstrates not only that Filipino migrants have been present in North America from before American imperialism in the Philippines, but also that Indigenous-Asian relations have long histories that are worth telling. 21 Espiritu, Filipino American Lives, 1.; Dorothy B. Fujita-Rony, American Workers, Colonial Power: Philippine Seattle and the Transpacific West, 1919-1941 (University of California Press, 2003), 12. 20 Espina, âThe Manila Galleon Legacy,â 51. 19 Marina E. Espina, âThe Manila Galleon Legacy,â Journal of Filipino American Historical Society 2 (1992): 50. 18 Figure 2.1 - My father in his car with my two younger brothers, 1968. The context around my fatherâs experience in the US as a first-generation Filipino migrant in the first half of the 20th century parallels the stories of Filipino migration in Carlos Bulosanâs writing, as well as those found in Castilloâs America Is Not The Heart, which narrates first-generation Filipina migrant experiences in the 1980s. Both novels emphasize the 19 overarching common threads: survive, succeed, and belong. Like many of the manong generation, my father and Carlos Bulosanâs main character Allos moved with the seasonal work opportunities they were afforded. Before he acquired a job at Boeing in the early 1950s, my father had worked along the coasts of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska â from Seattle to Ketchikan. In those times, the âFilipino boys,â as my father called them, would often start working in the fields of California or secure jobs as houseboys for celebrities or rich folk and then migrate up the West Coast to Alaska fish canneries in the neighbouring season, with stopovers in cities like Seattle. He became part of the working class, which, in its pursuit of happiness, was challenged by discrimination, racism, and heartbreak. However, Carlos Bulosanâs Figure 2.2 - My father and his friends fishing on a boat, ca. 1930s. 20 character revealed an active immigrant worker voice that demonstrated their agency and resilience in the face of abuse and violence. The context of Seattleâs ââAlaskeroesâ â Filipino cannery hands who toiled in the Alaskan fisheriesâ is further elaborated on in existing scholarship. Espirituâs Filipino American Lives contains a collection of transcribed and edited oral history interviews with Filipino American narrators who had migrated to the United States from as early as the 1920s, and who had worked in various industries across the country from Hawaii, to San Diego and Alaska.22 Filipino American Lives provides a broader context under which we can understand Filipino settlement in the US through diverse first person narratives â their motivations, sociopolitical contexts, fostering of community, and experiences of discrimination. On the other hand, Bachoâs âFirst There Were the Men,â and Hinnershitzâs ââWe Ask not for Mercy, but for Justiceââ elaborate on the âAlaskeroesâ who had gone to Alaska to work in canneries for salmon season each spring, and used Seattle as a formidable union base to advocate against the racism and discrimination they faced on the job, as well as basic rights and protections as US subjects.23 These testify to the mobilities of the Filipino workers in the early to mid 1900s, as well as their agency to advocate for their futures. Alongside these mobilities, we reveal homosocial and cross-cultural relations and encounters that occurred within the pre-dominantly male Filipino community in the US, a result of racial discrimination that relegated Filipino migrants to labour-intensive roles. My father and his friends maintained friendships across the country and fostered cross-cultural relationships 23 Peter Bacho, âFirst There Were the Men,â Amerasia Journal 19, no. 3 (1993): 135-141.; Stephanie Hinnershitz, ââWe Ask not for Mercy, but for Justiceâ: The Cannery Workers and Farm Laborersâ Union and Filipino Civil Rights in the United States, 1927-1937,â Journal of Social History 47, no. 1 (Fall 2013): 132-152. 22 Espiritu, Filipino American Lives, 12. 21 Figure 2.3 - My father in an Alaskan fish cannery. Following his retirement from Boeing, he returned to work as a supervisor in an Alaskan fish cannery in his late 60s or early 70s, ca. early 1990s. 22 along the way. For example, my father received postcards from his Filipino friends across the United States, showcasing their families and updating one another on their lives. One such example is shown in Figure 2.4, where my fatherâs friend Larry married a white woman and Figure 2.4 - Front and back of photo postcard sent by fatherâs friend, Larry, date unknown. lived in Texas, while miscegenation laws prohibited Filipino men from marrying white women in California.24 There are many more photos within my collections and the exhibit that showcase his enduring friendships with fellow Filipino men, and the lives they lived. 24 Leti Volpp, âAmerican Mestizo: Filipinos and Antimiscegenation Laws in California.â UC Davis Law Review 33, no. 4 (Summer 2000): 799 & 803-813. 23 On the other hand, Indigenous women were a huge part of my upbringing. The first example is my fatherâs marriage to my mother in a civil ceremony in Seattle after they met in the cafe she worked at and dated. Later, he married a Tlingit woman from Alaska who bore my half-brother, Salvador. When they divorced, my father hired a Secwépemc woman who became our house âmom.â In the context of encounters and migration studies, this aspect of Filipino-Indigenous encounters is not well-documented in academia. As Pegues notes, Asian American studies and Native studies highlight migrant Asian men and resident Native women in Alaskan canneries respectively, yet âthey are rarely put into conversation with one anotherâ despite their presence in literature and oral histories.25 However, Filipino-Indigenous relations form a foundational experience in my family and childhood upbringing, and shows how similar to Filipino migrants, Indigenous women had also been mobile during the mid 20th century, moving across the Pacific Northwest Coast and making connections along the way. Self-identifying as bi-racial, of Indigenous and Filipino heritage, has always been self-affirming, but also made my racial positioning in broader society clear. Being Indigenous and Filipino made me feel less than. My boomer-era American upbringing not only led me to appreciate the cross-cultural connections I made as a child, but also made me aware of unspoken identity issues of the time. On one hand, having gone through the early 1960s Seattle education system, my school was a multicultural hub where cross-cultural interactions were an everyday occurrence that we never thought twice about. This youthful innocence of connecting across cultural âlinesâ was a time I deeply cherished and helped me develop a value of cross-cultural 25 As Pegues points out, even though âDauenhauerâs oral history work with her husband Richard Dauenhauer includes the interaction of Native and Asian people in the canneries,â and Bulosanâs writing also portrays these interactions beyond the cannery space, Indigenous-Asian relations have not been explicitly present in Alaskan history. Juliana Hu Pegues, âRethinking Relations: Interracial Intimacies of Asian Men and Native Women in Alaskan Canneries,â International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 15, no. 1 (2013): 57-58, 60, 64. 24 Figure 2.5 - My father, Sal (my nephew), Marissa (my daughter), and Inday (fatherâs last wife) in front of his Seattle home, ca. Late 1980s. understanding that continues to inform my life today. Yet, being confronted by an elementary school classmate in Grade 3 spewing âWhat are you?â resonated as cruelly then as it does now. 25 This is the stark reality of both yearning for belonging and acceptance yet being cruelly confronted about being mixed race and thus âdifferent.â Census categories at the time required me to pick âOtherâ, as I was both Asian and Native American. I also had to select âOtherâ when I applied for jobs, including at Ma Bell in Seattle where I worked in the late 1970s. I continue to question my life as an individual of Stlâatlâimx/Philippine ancestry, as a woman of strong spirit, and as a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother living today in an Indigenous place and space. In the face of these racist and colonial histories, my identities remain powerful and worthy of reflection and pride. 2.1.2 Indigenous Migrations to Cities With rising settler colonial pressures, such as concerns around socioeconomic wellbeing and displacement from traditional lands, urban life was on the horizon for our people, and many would leave the familiarity of reserve life and migrate to the city in the late 1940s. In my momâs case, she left home to seek employment, much to the fear and angst of my grandmother. Yet, my mom, Euphemia Stager, had big aspirations and youthful energy and eagerly moved across borders as a young woman. First, she moved from Mount Currie to Vancouver and worked as a chambermaid in a Gastown hotel. Our people also used to work in the fields in those years, picking berries, picking hops. So she went, and she ended up in Seattle working as a waitress, and thatâs where she met my father. empowered, adaptation, mobility, survival, settler colonialism26 In the context of settler colonial violence, Indigenous survival has been challenged with brutality and change. In the face of such pressures, my mother decided to leave the traditional Lílwat lands that my family had lived on for millennia, in search of opportunities in the cities. 26 âLeaving Homeâ in Coming Home exhibit, displayed at University of British Columbia Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, May to July 2025. 26 Similar to Filipino men who travelled with the harvests and picked hops in Washington, my mother moved across the Canada-USA border for these same farmworking opportunities. It was amidst this movement from Mount Currie, to Vancouver and then to Seattle, that my parents met in a cafe where my mother worked as a waitress. While I am not aware of the specific circumstances around my parentsâ encounter and what led to the deepening of their relationship, their movements were both motivated by the lure of economic opportunities and the curtailing of such opportunities in their respective homelands. As two young people of colour, albeit differently racialized, on the Pacific West Coast during the late 1940s, the same seasonal farmworking opportunities drew them to the Seattle region. My understanding of urban Indigeneity in the 1940s also includes the stories of my cousinsâ, auntsâ, and unclesâ movements to the cities around this same time period. They, too, left our traditional homelands for social mobility and economic opportunities in cities like Vancouver, and are part of a larger cohort of Indigenous people who sought such opportunities away from their territories. As The Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study: Vancouver Report notes: âAmong the wide variety of reasons cited by first generation UAPS participants in Vancouver for why they first moved here, education, family, city life and employment emerge at the top of the list.â27 Living in Tsaxana 18, the Mowachaht-Muchalaht reserve where the majority of our on-reserve community live, I can understand the ease and access that city life would offer. For example, the closest clinic for me is in Campbell River, which is an hour drive away. However, remaining situated with the majority of the community is important for my ability to meet and work with the Band Council and Elders in person, and the proximity to Yuquot in conducting 27 Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study: Vancouver Report, Environics Institute, 2011, https://uaps.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/UAPS-Vancouver-report.pdf 27 tours and other heritage preservation initiatives is significant. On the other hand, my daughter lives in Vancouver with my granddaughters, yet they still remain connected to our community and return to Tsaxana for family visits, and Yuquot for the annual Summerfests. My daughter had originally moved to Vancouver to pursue a nursing program, which would not have been available from Tsaxana. Their living in an urban centre like Vancouver does not disconnect them from their community of origin and family, especially when we continue sharing food and make time for family gatherings, both in Tsaxana and in so-called Vancouver. Indeed, their urban Indigeneity is, in fact, only the latest iteration of a longer history of migrations to the city that our ancestors also undertook. 2.1.3 Situating Yuquot Globally through Histories of Trade and Travel Through my work with the Mowachaht/Muchalaht community on heritage education, I have learned a great deal about the rich history of our communityâs embeddedness in global history from the 1700s onwards. This is a history of Indigenous encounters with Asians, Pacific Islanders and Europeans through trade and travel. One key moment in this history is 1788: John Mearesâ ship arrived in Yuquot in 1788, with Chinese artisans who we remember as the âfirst Chinese known to visit the Pacific Northwestâ.28 Comekela, Chief Maquinnaâs brother, has also since come to be commemorated as âthe first known coastal person to cross the Pacific, to live in China, and to return.â29 In the exhibit, we display a copy of Mearesâ journal opened to this spread (Figure 2.6). The text summarizes Comekelaâs welcome return to Yuquot in 1788, as well as 29 Price, âRelocating Yuquot,â 21. 28 Price, âRelocating Yuquot,â 36. 28 Chief Maquinna and Callicumâs diplomatic visit to Wicananish in Clayuquot Sound, providing an example of the Mowachaht peoplesâ mobilities.30 Figure 2.6 - Image of Mearesâ Voyages made in the years 1788 and 1789 open to the spread showcasing Chief Maquinna and Callicum, and a journal excerpt covering Comekelaâs return in Coming Home exhibit, 2025. The document âA Hudson's Bay Company Contract for Hawaiian Labor (Translation)â shows how Comekela had acted as a translator between the Hawaiian Chief Tianna and Chief Maquinna, which provides evidence of Comekela and the Mowachaht peopleâs central roles in connecting Europe with Asia, as well as being diplomatic actors in their own rights, .31 Furthermore, Comekelaâs twenty-one month long voyage to China and Hawaii meant he âspoke 31 George Verne Blue, âA Hudsonâs Bay Company Contract for Hawaiian Labor (Translation),â The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society 25, no. 1 (1924): 74. 30 Meares, Voyages made in the years 1788 and 1789, 109. 29 a jargon of the Chinese, English and Nootkan languages,â and was able to converse with the Chinese, English, and Hawaiian visitors in Yuquot upon his return.32 His language abilities allowed him to speak for his and the Mowachaht peopleâs own interests, as well as ensure âall exchanges had to take place with us, according to [their] customs.â33 In this history of global encounters, Comekela âengaged in the nascent trade in sea otter furs [...] based out of Macau and Guangzhou (Canton),â and the Mowachaht peopleâs âsea- and river-based livelihood and cultureâ allowed them to trade along the Pacific Northwest Coast pre-dating the arrival of Europeans.34 On the other hand, the Chinese âwere recognized (even at the time) as skilled craftspeople, and had become essential to the operations of many vessels plying the Pacific during the fur trade.â35 In this landscape and history of transpacific exchange, the Mowachaht people were friendly hosts, earning for Yuquot the commonly used name âFriendly Coveâ. Their warm hospitality was not to be mistaken for passivity, rather, a diplomatic skillset to maintain advantageous relations in Transpacific trade. Through their involvement in these global mobilities, they positioned Yuquot within the global histories of encounters that I, with my community work, are advocating for recognition of through our efforts to have Yuquot designated as a UNESCO world heritage site with global significance. 35 Price, âRelocating Yuquot,â 41. 34 Price, âRelocating Yuquot,â 25. 33 Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations, Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Yuquot Agenda Paper, 13. 32 Meares, Voyages made in the years 1788 and 1789, 121. 30 2.2 Indigeneity Figure 2.7 - My grandmother working on a cedar basket in her Mount Currie home, ca. 1977. When we talk about Indigeneity, I first think about Indigenous creativity and ingenuity â how my grandma figured out how to use things, like making baskets (Figure 2.7). They had to figure it out. My grandma used to tell me how they had no clothes and used to get donations from white people. So theyâd bring her bags of clothes, and she figured out ways to use them, making quilts and redesigning their clothes by ripping things apart, providing clothes for all my aunties and uncles. She also learned to use a variety of herbs from my great-grandma and 31 became a nurse of sorts during the 1920s to 1940s. This knowledge was learned by doing, by adapting, and was passed on from generation to generation. Yet, there is also the undeniable truth about the residential school system that my Lílwat family underwent, including my mother and my sister, and the importance of shedding light on the harsh reality of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQI+ People that have become embedded in Indigeneity in Canada. Amidst the land-based knowledge that is a central tenet in indigenous ways of knowing is the essential need for truth to come out in accurately sharing a collective history of the place we colonially call Canada. 2.2.1 Truth-Telling I use the term âtruth-tellingâ as a mode of reclamation through storytelling in the Coming Home exhibit. I draw in particular from Cree writer and lawyer, Michelle Goodâs book, Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous Life in Canada, in which she talks about the importance of telling truths to understanding the realities of Indigenous life in the context of Canadian settler colonial nationalism. She writes: To understand the brutal circumstances Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island continue to endure, we must reach under the myth of Canadian history. We must embrace history in the way Indigenous Peoples experienced it as it truly unfolded. Only then will non-Indigenous Canadians begin to grasp the true horror of what we were subjected to and how the seeds of that horror continue to sprout and take hold in our lives today.36 36 Michelle Good, Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous Life in Canada (HarperCollins Publishers: 2023), ch. Sit with Me, by this Dialogue Fire (Introduction). 32 Truth telling is a key means to narrate history not just factually, but critically â that is, with attention to how the telling of history itself has been wielded in the service of settler colonialism. I understand Indigenous truth telling as a political practice and engage in it by elevating Indigenous knowledges, experiences and legal and political orders as correctives to the nationalist mythmaking that has been central to advancing Canada as a settler colonial nation-state. Among other things, truth telling allows me to acknowledge how past experiences of Indigenous Peoples continue to be relevant and shape the ways we live our lives today. These past experiences can also constitute important political and conceptual resources for Indigenous survivance and resurgence. As a Masters student, I situate my truth telling practice at the intersections of academic knowledge production and Indigenous ways of knowing. In other words, I navigate between worlds and engage, as Sarah Hunt does, in shapeshifting as âan important skill for those of us who occupy multiple voices, who embody supposedly dichotomous subject positions: colonizer/colonized, native/academic, and community member/scholarâ.37 My approach to truth telling is heavily influenced by knowledges I have gained through academic research, lived experiences, and oral history traditions that were passed down to me. I hope that in telling my truths, these stories can also help validate the oral histories and truths of others, especially if they find connection points with my experiences. I always say, this is my version of my truth, and however others observe and interpret the past, I am merely sharing my own truth as I experienced it. 37 Sarah Hunt, âOntologies of Indigeneity: the politics of embodying a concept,â Cultural Geographies 21, no. 1 (2014): 28. 33 In the context of my work with the Land of Maquinna Cultural Society (which I am the President of), truth-telling also means foregrounding Indigenous narratives and ways of knowing in the history of this land. In practice, this looks like engaging in advocacy work in how the histories of our lands are recognized and told. In 2002, we were able to get a Parks Canada historic site plaque to rightfully include Chief Maquinna and the Mowachaht/Muchalaht peoples in its designation of Yuquot as a significant historical site. This required correcting the original narrative that centered just the arrival of European explorers in this history.38 This truth-telling means highlighting the presence of Indigenous peoples on these lands since time immemorial, not simply from the time it was âdiscoveredâ by non-Indigenous peoples. Truth telling also looks like our community engaging in archaeological excavations in the summer of 1966, which proved continuous human habitation in Yuquot spanning the past 4300 years. As such, âThe Yuquot Projectâ volumes 1-3, which contain the archaeological studies of artifacts recovered during the excavations in 1966, were included in Coming Home to situate my stories in the Mowachaht/Muchalaht community amidst a much longer history of the Mowachaht people in Yuquot. 2.2.2 Land-Based Knowledge My grandmother, Rosie Dickie Stager Ross, grew up in Texas Creek near Lillooet. It was a farm where she learned from her mother and grandmother about food and sharing â this is one example from which I understand land-based knowledge. Growing up on a farm, they grew their own food and raised their own livestock like pigs and chickens. They lived well through 38 The plaque was erected in Yuquot in 1924 âto commemorate the visit of Captain Cook to Nootka Sound in 1778, the establishment of a Spanish military post at Nootka (1789-1795) and the terms of the Nootka Convention.â William J. Folan and John Dewhirst eds., âThe Yuquot Project: Volume 1,â History and Archaeology 39 (1980): iii. 34 self-sustenance, gardening and doing it all themselves. They also shared their food with railway workers, and through the love of life shared and provided for others â they were industrious, and respected the land. The sugar bowl (Figure 2.8) shown in the exhibit represents this aspect of land-based knowledge, as well as the Indigenous-Asian relations that occurred within colonial systems. My Figure 2.8 - Sugar bowl passed down from my great-grandmotherâs time working as the head cook for the Pacific Great Eastern Railway in Lillooet, ca. 1915. 35 great-grandmother, Nancy Dickie, was the head cook for the Pacific Great Eastern Railway when its tracks reached Lillooet in 1915. She cooked and served food to Chinese railway workers when they were building the railroad â transportation infrastructure that would replace traveling via horseback on dirt roads, and increase access to natural resources for extraction and economic opportunities in the region. This dichotomy between the building of colonial infrastructures to pave over âwildernessâ and our traditional beliefs of respecting the land are not lost on me. However, this is just one example of how my family continually adapted to changing socioeconomic atmospheres to use their land-based knowledge to their economic benefit, and continued to use their skills to share sustenance with âguestsâ. The Chinese railway workers were paid low wages, underwent poor working conditions, and had to pay for their food while white workers did not. This sugar bowl sat on my grandmotherâs table, and later my uncleâs table for many years, and came to represent the value of sharing in our family that continues to be passed down through food and hospitality. Land-based knowledge is essentially living â itâs living in line with the cultures, traditions, and practices that are passed down from knowledge-bearers, and respect for everything the land gives and provides. Leanne Simpson pursues this analysis from her Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg perspective: This procedure or practice of living, theory and praxis intertwined, is generated through relations with Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg land, land that is constructed and defined by our intimate spiritual, emotional, and physical relationship with it. The procedure is our grounded normativity. Living is a creative act, with self-determined making or producing at its core. [...] We relied upon process that created networked relationship. Our intelligence system is a series of interconnected and overlapping algorithms â stories, 36 ceremonies, and the land itself are procedures for solving the problems of life.39 Through my traditional Stlâatlâimx understandings, it is using cedar to make baskets, cedar roses, hats and clothing, but it is in how you think, carry on traditions, believing and living. The significance of cedar is covered in Hilary Stewartâs book, Cedar: Tree of Life to the Northwest Coast Indians, where a woman is illustrated giving thanks to the cedar tree â an example of the gratitude and belief system we live with.40 In these traditional practices, knowledge and beliefs all work together and guide our life. In Nuu-chah-nulth, this value is called heshook-ish-tsawalk, encompassing oneness, respect, sharing, and appreciation. As Atleo puts it, âheshook-ish tsawalk means âeverything is one.ââ41 2.2.3 Truth and Reconciliation The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada was created to shed light on what truly happened with residential schools, educating all Canadians about this experience. It affected more than 150,000 First Nation, Inuit, and Métis children across the country, including many of my family members, my husband and his family members. Sometimes I wonder how different my life would have been to have a sister, how our lives would be if she had not been taken to residential school, or if she had made it through and back to us. The painful truth is that like Loretta, many children never made it back. The effects of Canadaâs residential school system continue to harm survivors, their families, communities, and society at large. 41 E. Richard Atleo, Tsawalk: A Nuu-chah-nulth Worldview (UBC Press, 2004), xi. 40 Hilary Stewart, Cedar: Tree of Life to the Northwest Coast Indians (Douglas & McIntyre, 1995), 114. 39 Leanne Simpson, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance (University of Minnesota Press, 2017), 23. 37 Indigenous people suffered harm caused by the residential schools, not only on an individual basis but on a collective basis as well. Parents, grandparents, aunties, and uncles were deprived of their teaching relationships with children. The community at large was deprived of its roles in preparing their children to understand and take their place in the community. The tearing away of children from their parents, relatives, and communities left the social fabric of Indigenous communities in tatters.42 Figure 2.9 - The only photograph I own with my mother (Euphemia Stager), my half sister (Loretta), and me (Margaretta) together in front of our Seattle apartment building, ca. 1953. My mother, Euphemia Stager, and all of her siblings attended residential school. Of my twenty-eight first cousins, nine went to St. Maryâs Indian Residential School. While attending residential school, my half-sister Loretta died of pneumonia when a nun refused her admittance to the infirmary. She was only twelve. The profiles of so many others who shared similar traumatic experiences are mirrored in each of my family members. This is a history we share 42 Good, Truth Telling, ch. $13.69. 38 with people across the Nations, and is a truth of Canadian history that we must acknowledge in order for meaningful reconciliation. While sources from the National Centre of Truth and Reconciliation were not included in my exhibit as I had centred my familyâs truths, their archives offer a look at the children who attended residential schools across Canada, and their educational resources like âThe Witness Blanketâ include testimonies of Survivors who recall their experiences. Figure 2.10 - My mother (Euphemia Stager) at St. Maryâs Residential School, ca. 1930s.39 2.2.4 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQ+ People The events surrounding my motherâs death came to me through auntie Hilda, my motherâs sister, who at age seventeen was asked to travel from Mount Currie to Seattle to identify my motherâs body and make arrangements to return her remains to Canada. When my aunt recounted her version of the events, she emphasized the stitched neck wound she observed when identifying my mother. Official autopsy reports indicate it was an alcohol-related death, but Iâm still investigating. My mother was only twenty-seven when she died. Figure 2.11 - Me and my mother in front of our Seattle apartment, ca. 1953. The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGTBQ+ People refers to the disproportionately high rates of violence, disappearance, and murder experienced by Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQ+ people in US and Canada. In 2016, the National 40 Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls was launched by the Government of Canada with the mandate to âexamine the underlying social, economic, cultural, institutional, and historical causes that contribute to the ongoing violence and particular vulnerabilities of Indigenous women and girls in Canada.â43 Following the participation of over 2,380 people through their Truth-Gathering process, the National Inquiry wrote: The common thread weaving these statistics together is the fact that violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people is not an individual problem, or an issue only for certain communities. This violence is rooted in systemic factors, like economic, social and political marginalization, as well as racism, discrimination, and misogyny, woven into the fabric of Canadian society.44 This crisis represents the multifaceted ways in which the basic right to justice of Indigenous women, girls, 2SLGBTQI+ people and their families have been and continue to be compromised. The effects of childhood trauma mark me but do not claim me. Retelling this story is not easy, but it sheds light on the injustice and unequal treatment given to Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQ+ people and their families in the face of violence. There is a part of me that wants to get in my car, go to Seattle, and inquire about my mother at the police department. At the same time, I donât know if I want to go there. Yet, as Michelle Good writes, âthe practice of ignoring the deaths and disappearances of Indigenous women is rooted in the history of colonialism,â and âthe treatment of Indigenous women throughout our history must be recognized and acknowledged if we ever expect to be treated with the respect and dignity we deserve.â45 In sharing about my mother, I hope to bring awareness to the ongoing epidemic of 45 Good, Truth Telling, ch. Racism, Carefully Shown. 44 National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, âReclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls,â Vol. 1a, n.d., 56. 43 âOur Mandate, Our Vision, Our Mission,â National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, effective September 24, 2025, https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/mandate/. 41 missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQ+ people that continues to devastate mothers, daughters, sisters, and families across this continent. 2.3 Reclaiming our Narrative In 1923, the Canadian government officially designated Yuquot as a historic site â the Site of First Contact between Aboriginal Peoples of Canada and Europeans when Captain James Cook met and traded with Chief Maquinnaâs people, the Nootka. Other traders and explorers followed suit, coming from countries such as Spain, the United States, Russia, and France. The government of Canada, through Parks Canada, sponsored an archaeological excavation at Yuquot in 1966, revealing that there has been continuous human habitation for approximately forty-three hundred years. colonialism, exploration, diplomacy46 2.3.1 Reclamation of History In 1998, the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations submitted the Yuquot Agenda Paper to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada to formally request that Yuquot âbe commemorated as a site of national significanceâ and to narrate the significance of Yuquot through our own words.47 The previous Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada commemorations, as well as public knowledge about the area, had centred the âdiscoveryâ of the Nootka Sound area by European explorers like Captain Cook. We had only been included as âpart of the backdrop, the context for the events.â48 In the Agenda Paper, we reclaim our position of authority in interpreting and disseminating information about our part of the world, and write 48 Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations, Yuquot Agenda Paper, 4. 47 Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations, Yuquot Agenda Paper, 1. 46 âThe Centre of the Worldâ in Coming Home exhibit, displayed at University of British Columbia Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, May to July 2025. 42 our part of that history through the oral traditions passed down to us. We do so with the goal of balancing our view of history with the written records.49 In 2002, we successfully advocated for the reinscription of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada (HSMBC) plaque commemorating Yuquot as a site of historic significance. Since 1924, the plaque had read: NOOTKA SOUND Discovered by Captain James Cook in March 1778. In June 1789, Spain took possession and established and maintained a settlement until 1795. The capture of British vessels in 1789 almost led to war, which was avoided by the Nootka Convention of 1790. Vancouver and Quadra met here in August 1792 to determine the land to be restored under that convention. Today, we commemorate Yuquot through our words and values: YUQUOT To the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations, Yuquot has always been the centre of their social, political and economic world. Whaling was a vital part of the life of the Mowachaht-Muchalaht, and of all the Nuu-chah-nulth peoples. Near here stood the Whalersâ Washing House, a unique ceremonial structure and the most significant monument to a purification ritual on the West Coast of North America. In the late 18th century, Yuquot became an important site of early contact between First Peoples and Europeans. Explorers and traders were attracted to this safe harbour, which they called Friendly Cove. As a result, Yuquot, also known as Nootka, developed into an important centre of trade and diplomacy, and it was briefly the site of Spainâs only military establishment in present-day Canada. Yuquot became the focal point of the Nootka Sound Controversy of 1789-1794, when the rival interests of Great Britain and Spain brought those countries to the brink of war. I remain committed to this work of heritage education and interpretation with the Land of Maquinna Cultural Society. This includes our collaboration with the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations, and our goal to acquire a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation to recognize Yuquotâs significance in world history. 49 Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations, Yuquot Agenda Paper, 5. 43 2.3.2 Reclamation of Treasures When I write that my thesis project centers on reclamation, I include the reclamation of narratives to balance history, as well as the reclamation of community treasures such as the Yuquot Whalersâ Shrine. In the context of the Whalersâ Shrine, I choose to use the term âreclamationâ as we are not merely having our sacred treasure returned to us. Instead, we have worked for decades to reclaim what has always belonged to the Maquinna family and the spirit of the Mowachaht people. The significance of the Yuquot Whalersâ shrine and its removal by American anthropologist George Hunt in 1904 are covered in the NFB film, âThe Washing of Tearsâ (1994), and Aldona Jonaitisâ The Yuquot Whalersâ Shrine.50 Since it was taken as part of George Hunt and Franz Boasâ practice of âsalvage anthropology,â the Whalersâ Shrine had remained in storage at the American Museum of Natural History for over a century. Seeing the Whalersâ Shrine disassembled and placed in storage urged me to remember the importance of returning our community treasure back to where it belongs, especially so my grandchildren and I do not have to travel to New York again to learn about their culture. Rather, we needed to reclaim our access to our cultural knowledge and belongings. Article 12 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) stipulates that âStates shall seek to enable the access and/or repatriation of ceremonial objects and human remains in their possession through fair, transparent and effective mechanisms developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples concerned.â51 Our reclamation of the Yuquot Whalersâ Shrine has been monumental, but we continue advocating for cultural 51 United Nations, âUnited Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,â 12. https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf 50 The Washing of Tears, directed by Hugh Brody (National Film Board of Canada, 1994), https://www.nfb.ca/film/washing-of-tears/.; Aldona Jonaitis, The Yuquot Whalersâ Shrine (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999). 44 treasures to be returned from museums and other repositories (ie. private collections) around the world, yet, this effort has not been without its challenges. Firstly, the Yuquot Whalersâ Shrine and its âpurchaseâ was done in secret, and the Shrine itself had been developed for private family practice as part of whaling traditions. Similarly, the collecting, acquiring and buying of our cultural belongings that occurred under the theory of salvage anthropology in the early 1900s meant that our cultural treasures were scattered across the globe â to even begin to repatriate these pieces meant we had to first learn of their whereabouts. This learning process takes time, is ongoing, and has already occurred for decades. Next, UNDRIP Article 12 and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada both encouraged Nations to develop priorities for the return of cultural belongings, including ancestral remains. However, the onus is on the communities to initiate the discussions, and figure out how to facilitate the return process. This puts added stress on communities when political, economic, and educational development, as well as the building of organizational capacity, occur simultaneously. The multitude of responsibilities, priorities, and community needs have prevented us, the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation, from being able to quickly reclaim cultural belongings. For example, when our community needs to relocate from one reserve to another â which has occurred a couple times in our recent history â we must prioritize our economic wellbeing before we can pursue the return of our cultural treasures. Our Nation is relatively small but we have big dreams. We know we will not get everything back, but we want to learn about our cultural heritage in situ. We continue to advocate for the reclamation of our cultural belongings from museums around the world, such as the Canadian Museum of History (formerly known as the Canadian Museum of Civilization) and 45 aim to reclaim the narrative of our people and our traditional land. Since 2006, community members, council members, and Elders have been co-developing plans for Nisâmaas, a cultural centre dedicated to the passing down of knowledge to later generations in Yuquot, as well as showcasing the public history of our ancestral village. It is our hope that Nisâmaas will become a space where we can care for community knowledges and treasures on our own terms, and thus become a site for our continuing resurgence. 2.4 Collaboration The exhibit came to fruition through collaborative labour, and involved my work with Victoria So (co-curator and exhibit design) and Claire Malek (Chung | Lind Gallery archivist), with support from Jennifer Lu and Julianna Yue from St. Johnâs College UBC, and of course, my graduate supervisors, Dr. JP Catungal and Dr. Henry Yu. In this way, the creation process for the exhibit mirrored the way I work with community. I approach this work with the understanding that collaboration is necessary to make an impact and to collectivize the work of making change together. Collaborative work is not always easy. My collaborators over the years often share my love for history, in preserving and protecting heritage, but we are not always in complete agreement. One major lesson Iâve learned in this work is that collaboration requires continuous communication, dialogue, and relationship-building that takes time. A prime example of this process is the reclamation of the Yuquot Whalersâ Shrine from the American Museum of Natural History. Despite UNDRIP Article 12âs stipulations, the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation and Land of Maquinna Society could not have reclaimed our spiritual treasure without collaborating with Albert and Alex Lara in California, Peter Whiteley 46 and his team at the American Museum of Natural History, and our long-time collaborators at Parks Canada.52 A few years back, the Laras had (re)connected with the Mowachaht/Muchalaht community after investigating their family ancestry. Through his genealogical research, Albert discovered âhis bloodlines link back to Chief Maquinna (Laqualmiki) Gentiles (1760-1795), and his wife Ysocoto Gentiles (Apenas)â â meaning, they were likely descendents of ââThe Lost Children of Chief Maquinna,â two siblings separated from their tribe in the late 1700s who somehow made their way down the coast to California.â53 Their heritage connections led them to reconnect with the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation in 2022 â which could not have come at a better time. The Nation had been struggling to repatriate the Yuquot Whalersâ Shrine due to stipulations in the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990, and the Larasâ connections in California, and experiences working with Native American tribes during their careers were instrumental to the process. As stated on their website: âThe Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA) (25 USC 32) and associated regulations (43 CFR 10) governs the return of Native American remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony to lineal descendants, culturally-affiliated Indian Tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations.â54 This did not include the Mowachaht-Muchalaht âBand,â as we were called here in âCanada.â Although the âUS Secretary of the Interior can actually penalize museums that fail to comply,â âartefactsâ taken from Canada did not apply, even though the Whalersâ Shrine contained 54 âNative American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act,â U.S. Department of the Interior Indian Affairs, accessed September 24, 2025, https://www.bia.gov/service/nagpra. 53 Plummer, ââChief Maquinnaâs lost childrenâ.â. 52 Eric Plummer, ââChief Maquinnaâs lost childrenâ: Father and son from California join push to bring Whalers Shrine back,â Ha-Shilth-Sa, August 17, 2024, https://hashilthsa.com/news/2024-08-17/chief-maquinnas-lost-children-father-and-son-california-join-push-bring-whalers 47 ancestral remains.55 In 1996, our community officially voted to pursue the Whalersâ Shrineâs return. Our Nation had reached out to the American Museum of Natural History, but their response at the time was, âit couldnât be done because of the border.â This had halted the repatriation process. Yet, Albert and Alex Laraâs qualifications as âlineal descendentsâ of Chief Maquinna, and their connections with Native American tribes, organizations, and senators in California enabled us to work together and move forward with the long-awaited return. In early 2024, we invited the Laras to join the Yuquot Whalersâ Shrine Repatriation committee, composed of MMFN Council-of-Chiefs, Land of Maquinna Cultural Society, and now, the Laras. With their participation, we could resume negotiations with the museum. In the year leading up to the repatriation, the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation, Land of Maquinna Cultural Society, the Laras, American Museum of Natural History, and Parks Canada planned for the logistics of transporting the shrine back to Yuquot with cultural care. Following months of planning, the date of repatriation was set for March 27, 2025, and its return to Yuquot on April 1, 2025. The collections team at the American Museum of Natural History lended their conservation skills and packed each piece of the Whalersâ Shrine with patience and care in preparation for our arrival. Additionally, with the support of Parks Canada around transportation for the shrine and our delegation, we were able to bring over two dozen Mowachaht/Muchalaht community members to New York. On March 27, the ownership of the shrine was signed over from the American Museum of Natural History to the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation. We offered gifts, and sang Nuu-chah-nulth songs in thanks, as well as blessed the packages with cedar boughs as part of a cleansing ritual in preparation for the Shrineâs travel. This was a momentous day for our community, not only for the long-awaited 55 Plummer, ââChief Maquinnaâs lost childrenâ.â 48 return of our sacred belonging, but for the community and connections we fostered to make this possible.56 In echoing the Mowachaht peoples diplomacy in Yuquot since time immemorial, our ability to respect and work with people and institutions across our differences will remain a key value and practice we uphold in our collaborations. 56 The March 27 event and repatriation process is documented in the March 30th issue of the New York Times article. Julia Jacobs, âAfter 120 Years Stored in a Museum, an Indigenous Shrine Returns Home,â New York Times, March 30, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/arts/design/museum-of-natural-history-returns-shrine.html.; Further details are covered in the April 2nd issue of Ha-Shilth-Sa. Eric Plummer, âWhalersâ Shrine returns home after 120 years in museum storage,â Ha-Shilth-Sa, April 2, 2025, https://hashilthsa.com/news/2025-04-02/whalers-shrine-returns-home-after-120-years-museum-storage.; The repatriation process, including the packing of the Yuquot Whalersâ Shrine, cleansing ritual, March 27 celebration event, and April 2 return to Yuquot were documented by Nate Dickson from Woven Cedar Films. This documentary-style film is funded by Parks Canada and First Peoplesâ Cultural Council and will be available for public viewing in the coming months. 49 Chapter Three: Methodological Approach 3.1 Creating An Autoethnographic Exhibit In telling my truths through an exhibit, I have been able to bring my collaborative practices into research-creation and continually reflect on new realizations, connections, and practices. Although I did not previously have the word to describe this process, my exhibit and research process can be described as an âautoethnography,â where I mobilize personal experiences to inform my understanding and to advance my conceptualization of Indigenous-Asian relations, Indigeneity, reclamation, heritage education and public history. This autoethnographic work requires not just turning inward in order to tell my story, but also situating myself in larger networks of family and community. The latter enabled me to ask questions to better understand my family heritages and experiences, and experiment with different â situated, creative, collaborative â modes of truth-telling. The Coming Home exhibit creation process began in December 2024, but my desire to share my story has been years in the making. It has benefitted from relationships I have fostered through the work I continue to do at the Land of Maquinna Cultural Society and with the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations, the conversations I have with family members and loved ones from Lílwat to Tsaxana, and the sharing of stories with members of the UBC community and beyond. The goal in creating this exhibit was to bring all of these lived experiences together, and act as a reclamation process in itself through truth-telling. 50 3.1.1 Project Background While I had earned a significant number of credits toward an undergraduate degree from various post-secondary institutions, my re-engagement with academia can be traced to my work with Dr. John Price from the University of Victoria in 2015.57 Over a coffee chat, we discussed our mutual interest in sharing the history of Asian settlers in Yuquot, including the John Mearesâ incident and trade with Asia and the Pacific. This resulted in our publications in the 2019/2020 issue of BC Studies, â(Un)settling the Islands: Race, Indigeneity, and the Transpacific,â and our respective articles, âRelocating Yuquot: The Indigenous Pacific and Transpacific Migrationsâ by Dr. Price, and âMy Transpacific Life,â where I published my story for the first time. Consequently on the 230th anniversary of Comekelaâs return from China in 1788, the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation hosted the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC, the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration program at UBC, as well as St. Johnâs College at UBC to Yuquot for the 2018 annual Yuquot Summerfest. In a celebration of the shared histories between the Chinese diasporic community and Mowachaht-Muchalaht Nation, we welcomed guests to Yuquot and shared in a meal as was customary. This strengthened a bond I formed with the University of British Columbia, as well as my connection to researching Asian migration to North America. Since this celebration, I had further discussions with Dr. Henry Yu and Dr. Chris Lee at UBC to share my personal story. The first iteration of this collaborative process took place in 2022, when a group of student research assistants (Daniel Chen, Emily Chou, and Victoria So) 57 My connection with Dr. John Price began with our (Land of Maquinna Cultural Societyâs and Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nationâs) partnership on the Asian Canadians on Vancouver Island: Race, Indigeneity, and the Transpacific project. See John Price and Christine OâBonsawin, âIntroduction,â BC Studies 204 (Winter 2019/20): 15-16. 51 helped document my experiences in the form of audio and video interviews, with the goal of eventually producing a short film. Admittedly, at the time we had struggled to weave in all the parts of my life I had wanted to share: how did my fatherâs migration from the Philippines to the United States connect to my work with the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations? How could I weave in my Lílwat cultural heritage? This film project was placed on pause as a result, and also because I continued to focus on the 2023 centennial celebration of Yuquotâs national historic designation. In 2024, I began my MA studies at UBC under the supervision of Dr. JP Catungal and Dr. Henry Yu, and became Scholar-In-Residence at St. Johnâs College UBC. This enabled me to travel to the Point Grey campus mid-week to attend classes and focus on my studies, but also continue work with the Mowachaht/Muchalaht community in situ back home in Tsaxana â including meetings with the Band Council, Elders, Land of Maquinna Cultural Society, and facilitating the repatriation of the Yuquot Whalersâ Shrine from the American Museum of Natural History. Significantly, my residency at St. Johnâs College enabled me to engage with other scholars from around the world through âmulticultural education, intercultural understanding, and international exchange,â which parallels the Mowachaht/Muchalaht communityâs diplomacy with people from around the world, and enabled further reflections with my mixed heritage identity â allowing me to find a home away from home where I could bring and explore my whole self. Through the Visiting Scholar-in-Residence Program at St. Johnâs College, I was able to remain committed to community, whilst aspiring and working toward my MA program goals around the topic of Indigenous-Asian relations. 52 For my MA program requirements, I was drawn to the research-creation thesis as it would allow a creative form of presentation to educate and share. With my experience engaging with museums across the globe in the processes of repatriation, with the Land of Maquinna Society on BC Heritage Day and our Spanish exhibits58, and with Parks Canada on historic site awareness, heritage preservation and cultural interpretation, the opportunity to create an exhibit to present my existing and ongoing body of work with the Chung | Lind Gallery and the Centre for Asian Canadian Research and Engagement came naturally. Exhibits are able to engage the public in topics like history beyond the classroom and publications. By sharing the âvisualâ and âmaterial cultureâ of my life alongside oral histories (in the form of text captions), I brought my experience with conducting tours at Yuquot to a public history exhibit. In bringing together a project team for this exhibit creation, my MA research-creation thesis project allowed me to explore how cultural interpretation and truth-telling can be collaborative with the community whose belongings and stories are being shared. 3.1.2 Exhibit Creation Process Unlike the film project we had initially envisioned in 2022, the four display cases in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre offered another medium and perspective from which we could share my story. I began with key pieces that were significant to me in telling my story: (1) my baptism photo, (2) my fatherâs ship manifest, (3) my great-grandmotherâs sugar bowl and (4) my grandfatherâs sword. Our themes were initially scoped around the four cases, sorting themes into: (1) My family, (2) My father, (3) My mother and (4) Summerfest, with discussions on whether 58 See also: Robert Eberle, âReports: A Narrative From Friendly Cove,â British Columbia Historical News 34, no. 4 (Fall 2001): 29-31. 53 my father and my motherâs stories would be merged to provide more space for Yuquot, or even potentially merged with my family as we had started with just one photograph to frame this first case around. Figure 3.1 - Whiteboard brainstorming session with Coming Home project team, December 2025. Through this first stage, it felt as though we could have too much content, but also not enough, especially as we originally envisioned a more sparsely populated display case that emulated museum displays we have seen, yet wanted to represent the breadth of my experiences. Additionally, we strived to consider how to tell a broader story across the exhibit with connections between the display cases, while also allowing each case to tell its own story. This 54 desire for an exhibit that was not necessarily sequential was also a result of the IKBLCâs floorplan and how passerbys would come from all directions. Significantly, UBC Library archivists Claire Malek and Chelsea Shriver advised us that unlike other museum displays, this exhibitâs location would be better suited to think along the lines of âmore is moreâ to give pause to passersby amidst the constant movement through the foyer. With this in mind, I sorted through my personal collection and selected over 300 photographs, treasures, and mementos that could potentially be included in the exhibit as they depicted important people in my life, special moments, and the diversity of my family and experiences. My initial interviews in 2022 had a similar photo-sharing session, where photographs helped spark memories for storytelling. This collection was much broader, and elucidated aspects of my life I didnât previously have the opportunity to share. Overall, these were the photographs I treasured and that represented all the aspects of my life. While we were not able to share all of these photographs after curation, the Chung | Lind Gallery had offered the use of their interactive digital photo album, which I would have loved to use if time and capacity had allowed. From here, the scanning and digitization of these photographs allowed the reproduction of these for the exhibit in order for me to maintain their condition and secure their belonging with my family, rather than place them directly within the exhibit cases. This method allowed me to share my photographs while keeping them within my family collections, and to explore various displays without compromising the integrity of the physical photographs that Iâve spent decades maintaining. Yet, with over 300 photographs, we had to curate these photographs down to fit within the cases and tell the stories I could reasonably share within those four cases. 55 The following figures (3.2-3.9) were some of the many visual aids we created to envision the storytelling and design of the exhibit. They demonstrate our iterative process: Figure 3.2 - Draft of âMy (Blended) Familyâ display case with tentative photographs, treasures, and stories, February/March 2025. Figure 3.3 - Draft of âfrom Zazilkwa, the swirling eddies in the Lílwat Riverâ display case with tentative photographs, treasures, and stories, February/March 2025. 56 Figure 3.4 - Draft of âto Old Buswang Road in the Philippinesâ display case with tentative photographs, treasures, and stories, February/March 2025. Figure 3.5 - Draft of âYuquot, âwhere the wind blows from all directionsââ display case with tentative photographs, treasures, and stories, February/March 2025. 57 Figure 3.6 - Rendering of âMy (Blended) Familyâ display case in preparation for installation, April 2025. 58 Figure 3.7 - Rendering of âfrom Zazilkwa, the swirling eddies in the Lílwat Riverâ display case in preparation for installation, April 2025. 59 Figure 3.8 - Rendering of âto Old Buswang Road in the Philippinesâ display case in preparation for installation, April 2025. 60 Figure 3.9 - Rendering of â& Yuquot, âwhere the wind blows from all directionsââ display case in preparation for installation, April 2025. The family treasures and photographs, as well as the stories, went hand in hand in our curation process. Stories arose from the treasures and photographs, while additional photographs and treasures were later included to add colour and depth to my stories. In conjunction with mockups and storyboards of how these cases could look and the stories they were telling, we 61 went through an iterative process of experimentation, discussion, and feedback between the co-curators and with the broader project team over several months leading up to the exhibit. Through these weekly co-curation meetings, one question that kept coming up was âHow much of this would you be comfortable sharing?â From the contextual review, you can see how my stories span across time and place, and touch on topics that I am open to sharing with a small team; however, sharing family stories with the public became another consideration. For example, my motherâs passing is never easy to talk about, yet her story is tied indelibly to the larger pattern of the violence that Indigenous women have faced and continue to face across North America, and is thus highly important to shed light on. As beautiful as it is to have reconnected with my Lílwat roots through my grandmother, my motherâs passing is still an unfinished chapter due to the conflicting details in her report. These harsh truths are just as important for me to tell as the uplifting and empowering moments of reconnection. One idea we came up with to address these truths was to include keywords for each story caption. This way, visitors can read more into my stories without the explicit sharing of my traumas. In exploring how to share, I hope visitors can acknowledge the personal impacts that racism, discrimination, and violence have had and continue to have on our communities today, without subjecting traditional storytellers to reliving their traumas. In addition to drawing on my personal collections and lived experiences for the exhibit, the process also involved engaging with the Chung | Lind collections and consulting with family members and archives. For example, my great-grandfather, Chief James Stager, had signed the 1911 Declaration of the Lillooet Tribe. This declaration is significant in emphasizing the continued rights of the Lillooet tribal councils, including the Pemberton Band, from which my 62 family is descended. While I do not own a copy within my own collections, it was important for me to ask for my cousin Rosemaryâs permission to reproduce this for the exhibit. On the other hand, we had also consulted the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliationâs archives. Ultimately, we decided to focus Coming Home on the personal stories I could share about my own loved ones; however, it is a valuable resource for myself and others looking to learn about the residential school experience. 3.1.3 The Weaving of Stories Figure 3.10 - My great-grandmotherâs woven berry basket, with a small patching fix made by my grandmother, ca. 1915. 63 In exploring the themes of the exhibit, my great-grandmotherâs woven berry basket (Figure 3.10) naturally became a beautiful symbol of the weaving together of roots, an embodiment of my life and experiences. With the goals of drawing passersby to take a minute to stop, we initially considered additional visual motifs that were important to me. This included possibly adding the Yuquot Welcome as a significant visual element of the exhibit. The Yuquot Welcome Pole represents Chief Maquinna and the Mowachaht/Muchalaht people welcoming visitors to their home. For me, this welcome from the community has been so warm that I now consider Yuquot my home, an instance of home being reciprocally chosen rather than explicitly inherited. It demonstrates the warmth and hospitality that the Mowachaht/Muchalaht people have exercised since time immemorial, an aspect that helps us reflect on whose land we are on. However,, the UBC Irving K. Barber Learning Centre (IKBLC), where the exhibit was to be located, is on the traditional and unceded lands of the xÊ·mÉÎ¸kÊ·ÉyÌÉm (Musqueam) people. In planning to reproduce a near-life-sized image of the Yuquot Welcome Pole in the foyer space, we also had to consider the social etiquette and politics of âraising a poleâ in another Nation. Amidst preparing to ask for permission from the xÊ·mÉÎ¸kÊ·ÉyÌÉm Chiefs, we were made aware that we could not place images or unmanned banners outside of the display cases due to safety constraints in the IKLBC space. However, if I were to show Coming Home again, I would explore using an image of the Yuquot Welcome Pole with permission from the Nation(s) on which the exhibit takes place. We had decided on using the basketry pattern as a motif to tie the cases together visually, and the decision to use the base of the display cases came shortly after we learned that we could not use the surrounding space as we originally hoped. This basketry motif is a beautiful 64 representation of the roots that I have inherited, the weaving together of my loved ones, and the cultural heritage traditions and land-based knowledge I continue passing down to later generations. My great-grandmother had taught my grandmother how to weave baskets, and this tradition of cedar weaving continues to be passed down. The berry basket itself represents the entrepreneurship of women in my family, including my grandmother, who adapted to changing social contexts and strove to find economic opportunities for themselves for agency and independence â an aspect that demonstrates the continued adaptation and resilience amidst settler colonial pressures and changes to our traditional ways of life. Figure 3.11 - Woven basket pattern motif adapted from my great-grandmotherâs berry basket. 65 3.2 Exhibit Launch Celebration On May 30, 2025, I had the honor of celebrating the launch of Coming Home, and bringing together family, friends, and colleagues to share food, stories, and dialogue. This day was a beautiful amalgamation of the connections Iâve fostered over the years, the energy I have put into my research, and my ability to share my truths in whole. With family and friends traveling from as far as Tsaxana and Mount Currie to join me in my celebrations, I could not have been more moved by the power of the culture. Figure 3.12 - The James/Stager family coming together for the Coming Home launch celebration, May 30, 2025. 66 The event opened with xÊ·mÉÎ¸kÊ·ÉyÌÉm (Musqueam) Elder Larry Grant welcoming everyone to xÊ·mÉÎ¸kÊ·ÉyÌÉm with warm hospitality and situating our presence on his traditional lands. Elder Grantâs own ancestral background of xÊ·mÉÎ¸kÊ·ÉyÌÉm and Chinese roots also brought forth further dialogue around Indigenous-Asian relations and the prevalence of these encounters across the Pacific Northwest Coast. Next, my grandson Quentin and our youth group from Tsaxana performed our traditional Mowachaht/Muchalaht songs, while my daughter, granddaughters, and friends supported their sharing through dance. In all celebrations such as these, I consider music and dance to be an integral part of bringing everyone together, and an embodiment of heshook-ish-tsawalk, where culture, spirit, and living can bring people together in a shared moment of celebration. On the other hand, having the younger girls join in the dance is another representation of how knowledge is passed down through showing, watching, and doing â similar to how I first learned the dance from Nan Vi in Ahaminiquus many years ago. This seemingly small but powerful act of having our youth group drum and sing for us demonstrated a part of Mowachaht/Muchalaht culture that is integral to an afternoon of celebration in my circles. I had also discussed having my cousin, Vanya, join us from Mount Currie to sing traditional Lílwat songs. This would have further enriched the afternoon with another cultural representation of my roots, and what the exhibit centres, but due to scheduling conflicts could not happen. Nevertheless, in situating ourselves on xÊ·mÉÎ¸kÊ·ÉyÌÉm land, and inviting in guests from Tsaxana and Mount Currie, it was not simply a land acknowledgement but an opportunity to initiate our dialogue around who, where, and when we are â a key takeaway in Coming Home. 67 Sharing food is another quintessential part of celebrations in my Lílwat, Philippine, and Mowachaht/Muchalaht circles. The munggo bean dish, ginisang munggo, catered by Pampangaâs Cuisine was a humble representation of my Filipina roots that will always be a key part of my culture. In Kalibo, my grandmother used to sell munggo beans on the side of the road. Even after my father had migrated to America, they remained a household staple, creating one of my favourite dishes as I grew up eating them in Seattle, an ocean away. In visiting from Tsaxana, Eva and Michelle, my daughter and granddaughter from Tsaxana, provided smoked salmon and fish roe on kelp for the event to share Mowachaht delicacies. Caught and harvested locally from Tsaxana, they were another taste of home that I was delighted to share with everyone. Part of our Figure 3.13 - Ginisang munggo and rice, smoked salmon and crackers, roe on kelp, kuchinta, and fried lumpia served at the event launch celebration, May 30, 2025. 68 belief system includes taking in food as a means of taking in culture, and taking in life â allowing it all - sustenance, connection, and spirit - to become part of our being. 69 3.3 Changes, Challenges, Turning Points and Considerations 3.3.1 Curating 74 Years into 4 Cases When I say that this exhibit is my life story, it is really just an introduction to who I am and all the people, stories, knowledge, and experiences that are part of my story. Even then as we curated my family photographs and treasures, we continuously thought, perhaps we can include pieces that arenât shown in the physical exhibit in a digital exhibit instead. Encompassing 74 years of life experience and knowledge into four cases inevitably required me to omit details I would love to touch on, as well as simplify the points I made. I could likely do a full exhibit on any one of those four cases as there is so much to share. So instead, thinking of this as a first part of a larger project allowed me to curate the most foundational pieces in sharing about my life. For example, in covering such a long period of time from my great-grandfatherâs chieftainship to my uncle now, and my great-grandmotherâs passing down of basket-weaving knowledge to my granddaughterâs desire to learn now, we chose to bring in pieces that connect those timelines. The berry basket made by my great grandmother represents the entrepreneurship of the women in my family, as well as the land-based knowledge that is passed down through each successive generation. And so, this passing down of knowledge is also represented by the little woven canoe boat that serves as an example for my granddaughter to learn from. Perhaps a limitation of this is that additional storytelling and captioning may be required, but choices such as these are how we attempted to tell additional stories through the curated pieces that we could not explicitly write in text for the exhibit. 70 3.3.2 From Treasure to Artifact to Treasure Early in my discussions with my co-curator, Victoria, I elaborated on my views of the exhibit pieces from my collections, especially in the context of reconciliation, repatriation, and public history work. In museum spaces and history, exhibit pieces are often referred to as artifacts, whereas to the communities and families they belong to, they are treasures or belongings. This perspective of viewing exhibit pieces in a community-oriented lens contributed to the focus on stories and perspectives, rather than explanations about the utilitarian significance of the pieces displayed. This wording from artifact to treasure and/or belonging has also allowed me and my co-curator to regularly consider the personal meanings these pieces have in relation to who they belong to (in most cases in Coming Home, my family and I), rather than the specific uses that produce broader representations about a people and a culture as a whole. When we think back to museum pieces that have been collected by explorers or anthropologists, and taken for ethnographic studies and preservation, we might lose sight of the original creators and beholders of these pieces. In resituating these pieces back âhome,â we can consider the significance that these treasures might continue to have for those to whom they belong/ed. As such, Coming Home focused on these situated stories and meanings â in the text, through the selection of the treasures, and the creation of the exhibit. For example, the totem pole in the âFrom Zazilkwaâ case was made by my uncle, Chief Alan Stager, for the tourist trade. However, to me, it represents the first summer I spent in Mount Currie when I was 11 as he had given it to me before I returned to Seattle. That is not to say that the creation of the treasure is not relevant, instead, it shifts focus to the creation of a treasure â namely, what makes a belonging meaningful 71 and what is deemed important by our memories, values, and experiences. 3.3.3 Collaborating In Situ and in Academia As previously mentioned, my Scholar-in-Residence status at St. Johnâs College UBC allowed me to travel from Tsaxana to Vancouver nearly every week, so I could continue my work with MMFN amidst my MA program. The commute itself requires a 3 hour drive, and 1 hour 40 minute long ferry ride on top of navigating traffic from Horseshoe Bay to the UBC Point Grey campus. At times, my co-curator and I met online to continue our work together when pre-scheduled Band meetings required me to stay in Tsaxana for the week, and at others, we met at St. Johnâs College where I could keep my family treasures and photographs as we sorted, digitized and curated them together. Nevertheless, we aimed to meet twice a week so we could keep discussing how to proceed with the exhibit each step of the way, and regularly communicated over email. While this hybrid work model and the commute could be considered a challenge, it was essential to my MA experience. It enabled me to continue community work and bring my experiences to my academic research at UBC. Furthermore, I would not have chosen to pursue an MA if it meant disconnecting from my community work, so the ability to pursue both goals in seemingly different realms allowed me to instead integrate community with academia. Admittedly, this model of collaboration left us with many discussions about how to create this exhibit in an academic sphere and for my academic requirements, especially when we often focus on the achievements and contributions of individuals rather than teams and collectives. At the core of our discussions, we retained that in sharing my stories and telling my truths, and 72 basing it off of my life and lived experiences, I would retain authorship as is tradition with oral histories. This 80-page written component of the research-creation thesis had been a challenge in considering how to put and organize all my thoughts, which we had already spoken on at length into text. As such, basing it off of my previous writing and our discussions, my co-curator, Victoria, has helped me put my words and ideas on paper with regular consultations and meetings to ensure my voice and truths are accurately recorded. 3.3.4 Creating Home Lastly, certain turning points took place in the exhibit design itself. For example, our design concepts changed in accordance to the space restrictions previously mentioned, and our vision of the layouts continually evolved to further reflect me and my intentions as opposed to a general museum display. With regular discussions around which pieces represented the themes, and which stories could be further told through visual and material means, we added more elements as time went on. Cedar has always been essential to Lílwat and Mowachaht/Muchalaht cultural traditions, and as such, we incorporated artificial asparagus fern stems into the display cases. They were the most cedar-like pieces we could find in place of real cedar, as real cedar stems would dry inside the cases over the duration of the exhibit. Yet, we continued to bring in more elements like a burlap table runner, which was the same material as the curtains in the cabins in Yuquot, and munggo beans, which represent my familyâs humble roots in Kalibo. Through these critical-creative discussions around âhomeâ, we iteratively modified the exhibit to more accurately represent me and my spirit. 73 In searching for printers who could create a removable decal for the bases of the display cases, we found Brandigenous, an Indigenous-run merchandise supplier from whom we could source our custom removable wallpapers. This was our largest design expense for the exhibit, but with guidance from my supervisors, we could prioritize sourcing from Indigenous providers where possible, and adapted designs and budgets accordingly. This is all to say that the exhibit continually evolved through our discussions as a team, and ultimately supported the creation of the exhibit. Nevertheless, the collaborative nature of the creation process still produced a project that inexplicably shares my life story and my truths. 74 Chapter Four: Conclusions When I was in my 40s, I took my first trip to Kalibo in the Philippines with my 7-year-old nephew to meet up with my father, and our family. It was quite jarring for me, but my father took me to the graveyard and we saw a headstone that read âMargaretta Tirazonaâ. That was my name. I was named after my fatherâs mother, my grandmother. He said, âThis is who you are, Margaretta. This is your family.â It was eerie, but I still appreciate that my father gave me my name. Even as I have been given the traditional Nuu-chah-nulth name, Yakaap, my blended roots from Zazilkwa, Kalibo, and Tsaxana, remain a guiding force behind my public history collaborations and research. Inevitably, my heritage, identity, and experiences have become embedded in my work, collaborations and methodologies. Coming Home has been a process of reclamation, from truth-telling the experiences of my blended â Philippine, Stlâatlâimx, Mowachaht/Muchalaht â family and using broader historical contexts and a research-creation approach to elaborate on their stories, to bridging traditional land-based knowledge and community-oriented methodologies with public history and academia. Through story-telling, my stories showcase the mobilities that were conducive to Indigenous-Asian relations, and through collaborative methodologies adopted from my existing experiences with public history, the oral histories and knowledge passed down to me were translated to an exhibit and written exegesis. The opportunity to bring these elements together has allowed me to explore nuanced histories informed by my truths, and produce a research-creation project that is uniquely and wholly me. 75 My exhibit stories reveal the mobilities of Filipino settlers, and Indigenous peoples across the Pacific and Pacific Northwest, complicating the historical narratives that silo Indigenous peoples and Asian settlers in our collective memory. By refocusing the lens that we interpret the past through, we find that Indigenous-Asian relations have a longer history of the Pacific Northwest, a history that is intimately familiar to me as I embody these relations in my mixed race family and identity. From the Manila Galleon trade in as early as the 16th century, to Alaskeros in the cannery industry, and today, Indigenous-Filipino relations have existed alongside the mobilities of Indigenous and Filipino individuals. My own upbringing is a testament to this in the 1950s to 1970s, when my Filipino father had connected with my Lílwat mother, Tlingit stepmother, and Secwépemc âhouse mom,â not merely through my fatherâs migratory work practices bringing him up and down the West Coast, but also from the mobilities of Indigenous women themselves. In this case, we can see how settler colonial pressures did not only lead migrant workers like my father to move with the seasonal work he was afforded, but Indigenous women like my mother had left their traditional homes in search for work opportunities and for their personal aspirations too. Through this exploration, personal motivations can both be separate from and connected to broader societal changes, especially as colonial changes to traditional ways of life create environments of uncertainty that urged young people to consider new paths in what I now can name as survivance. In 2022, I visited the American Museum of Natural History with my two grandkids, Alexa and Quentin, and what we saw of the Whalersâ Shrine was disassembled, and stored away in their archives. The visit made it clear to me that a different approach â one that foregrounds our Indigenous knowledges, agency and desires â is necessary as a corrective to the long history 76 of extraction, exploitation and erasure that grounds traditional approaches to public history institutions such as museums. Through truth-telling and focusing on my culturally situated memories, stories, and truths, Coming Home focused on the perspectives my family treasures and photographs were shared from, rather than their ethnographic and utilitarian uses. Shifting terminology from artifact to treasure and belonging allowed storytelling and exhibit creation methodologies to focus on their situated and subjective meanings, especially in a collaborative team environment where the broader usage of these terms can shift how we discuss the storytelling, designs, and processes. The sharing of these stories through the translation of oral histories into text, and collection of family treasures, also redirected the focus to a moment of sharing and access, rather than mere preservation of the past. Consequently, people, relationships, and values shine through as we consider to whom these treasures belong, and how they continue to be important to this day. Commitments to collaborate have always guided the community-based work that I have done, and through this same model, I have been able to bring my stories to life â in an exhibit and on paper. Navigating the repatriation of the Yuquot Whalersâ Shrine from the American Museum of Natural History is just one of many examples of how collaboration is not only most effective but necessary in community work. Collaborations are how we do our work out in the world, and allow traditional knowledge to interact with various spheres outside of our own. In this way, traditional knowledge and academic access need not be siloed from each other, but instead, can inform one another in our understandings of memory, culture, and traditions. The ability to stay in both Tsaxana and at St. Johnâs College UBC fostered an atmosphere where I could continue to work with the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations on the repatriation of the 77 Whalersâ Shrine, as well as bring learnings from this experience to the ways I create and conduct academic research. In collaborating with a project team that supports both these goals, we have also shifted our collective understandings in how similar models of co-curation with traditional knowledge holders can look, as well as how lived experiences contribute nuanced understandings to public history. Figure 4.1 - The bottom of a cedar basket I am still working on. That is to say, this work is not done. There is still more to research, more to know. One of the exhibit pieces is the bottom piece of a basket I have been meaning to finish. This might best represent what is still to come and how we continue weaving new knowledge and connections into our existing foundation. In the process of the exhibitâs creation, my cousin Loretta Stager 78 rediscovered our traditional Stlâatlâimx name, QestítsÌa7. As she told me, it was our family name before it was Anglicized during colonization. This process of reclamation is ongoing, and these moments of reclamation are worthy of celebration. Additionally, I would like to continue understanding my father and the Filipino American community by reading Dawn Bohulano Mabalonâs Little Manila Is In The Heart: The Making of the Filipina/o American Community in Stockton, California as my father and brothers had lived in Stockton for a year, and research the Cordova family in Seattle to revisit my roots there. My colleague/friend, Pat Parungao, has connected me with a Filipino-Indigenous community group I am excited to connect with, and I still have yet to bring my grandchildren to Kalibo, which are on my list as well. On the other hand, the repatriation of the Whalersâ Shrine was monumental, and at the time of writing, the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations, Parks Canada, and Land of Maquinna Cultural Society are working on a 3D imaging project and returning the Whalersâ Shrine to the island from which it originated. There are still ancestral remains and ceremonial treasures across museums around the world we aim to repatriate, and more perspectives of our own history we aim to include in the collective memory and public history of the Pacific Northwest. Last but not least, I still want to continue teaching my grand-daughter Alexa how to weave cedar baskets, and passing down land-based knowledge as it was passed down to me. At the end of the day, this process of reclamation is and will always be ongoing, but it is not just for me and our community right now. We do this work for my children, grandchildren, and generations unborn. We do this so future generations have the opportunity to weave traditional knowledge into their being, see their people represented in histories, and build the capacity to guide their futures. The exhibit launch celebration was not just to celebrate and 79 promote Coming Home, but to activate the connection of community and academia, and bring youth into the space through programming the Mowachaht/Muchalaht drumming, singing, and dancing. The university is a place of power that legitimizes and challenges, and in bringing in community values, methodologies, and individuals into this space, I hope it demonstrates the potential for our youth to find belonging here that can be informed by their heritage identities and guided by their visions of the future. I also hope that it changes and challenges the university and how knowledge production is approached here. 80 Bibliography Aben, Kathrina J. âHungering for the American dream: Filipino farmworker foodscape in San Joaquin County, California (1945-1965).â PhD diss. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2024. Atleo, E. Richard. Tsawalk: A Nuu-chah-nulth Worldview. UBC Press, 2004. 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Thesis/Dissertation
eng
Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Graduate
Catungal, John Paul
Yu, Henry, 1967-
Coming Home : curation, exhibition and research-creation as reclamation and truth-telling
Text