Summary: Maria Campbell's Half-Breed

We cannot understand current social relations without understanding ethnic and race relations. Ethnicity refers to social distinctions and relations among individuals and groups based upon their cultural characteristics. Whereas race refers to peoples assumed, understood and, socially constructed significant grouping of people. I had the pleasure of reading Maria Campbell’s memoir, Half-Breed. Maria Campbell is a Metis woman who talks about the struggles and hardships she endured by society. This was an interesting read that helped me understand and grasp the lifestyle First Nations lived after being invaded and forced to restructure their world. Everyone fights to be accepted and can only wish to reach these impossible standards set by society
Status is a position that a person holds in a given social group or organization to which are attached certain rights, duties, and obligations (SOCI 1010H, 2014/15, Class 8/9). Maria’s ascribed status, which is assigned at birth, is female-Metis, which makes her in a visible minority group. During her life, Maria realizes she is a mother once her mother passed away leaving her to care for her younger sibling and later for her own children. Her other role is being a daughter, which pushes her to go back home and meet her father and grandma after leaving her family for many year; this is Maria’s achieved status. Maria had a hard time coping with her roles and developed role strain, which is when competing demands are built into one single role causing tension and stress. This caused Maria to abandon both roles completely and start back to her role as a single metis woman; this is when she found her second husband. Realizing her achieved status, she knows this is something she has a choice in and this concept allowed her to make the necessary changes needed for a better life for her children. Maria spoke with so much respect for her father, mother and grandma that it was surprising to read the scene where she had yelled at them for being poor and underprivileged. Interconnections with other patterns of inequality caused Maria to have a blur vision to who she was speaking to, as she was so dissatisfied with her current role in society. Maria, being the eldest had to endure first hand discrimination compared to her siblings whom she was able to prepare for. For example, she would save money for her younger sisters to buy better shoes and dresses whereas she had no one to do that for her. Social stratification is shown throughout the entire memoir with Maria wanting to marry outside her people as she had seen that her people only knew how to live in poverty. She