Their Spirits Live Within Us Dara Culhane Summary
My Findings: Dara Culhane designates the thesis in her article Their Spirits Live within Us, to how Aboriginal women are seen as invisible to the public on the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. Culhane then continues on to establish the basis of the annual Valentine’s Day Women’s Memorial March as a way for Aboriginal women to stand up for themselves and have a chance to be noticed and heard.
As anyone who has been to Vancouver’s downtown east side can say Aboriginals near main and Hastings are "seen" as invisible, often ignored even though they are completely over represented within that area. Currently the estimated number of aboriginals in the downtown east side is 5000+ this number says that aboriginals represent over 1/3 of the total …show more content…
They are counteracting their inequality in numbers by participating in the annual Valentine’s Day women’s memorial march. Here they urge the public to re-see them as part of the community, label them positively and help them to become publically visible. Febuary 14th has been named the day to remember those who have disappeared or been murdered from the downtown east side. Main and Hastings, a familiar area to most of the downtown east side is commonly known as pain & wastings. In this area alone since 1997 the HIV/AIDS rate has become an epidemic. Infection rates are higher in women than above men for aids/hiv and the over all rates of HIV/AIDS in this area exceed anywhere else in the devoloped world. Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside has become a spectacle of entertainment in the media, rather than concern. Media portrays downtown as an issue to Vancouver’s culture /tourism rather than an issue of individuals and poverty. Another problem is that Canadian doctors tend to over medicalize which can help lead to addiction. Society continues to enable these people's inequality by practicing forms of race blindness.Most of society chooses to ignore the social suffering carried by the aboriginal people of that neighborhood. Average annual incomes
As anyone who has been to Vancouver’s downtown east side can say Aboriginals near main and Hastings are "seen" as invisible, often ignored even though they are completely over represented within that area. Currently the estimated number of aboriginals in the downtown east side is 5000+ this number says that aboriginals represent over 1/3 of the total …show more content…
They are counteracting their inequality in numbers by participating in the annual Valentine’s Day women’s memorial march. Here they urge the public to re-see them as part of the community, label them positively and help them to become publically visible. Febuary 14th has been named the day to remember those who have disappeared or been murdered from the downtown east side. Main and Hastings, a familiar area to most of the downtown east side is commonly known as pain & wastings. In this area alone since 1997 the HIV/AIDS rate has become an epidemic. Infection rates are higher in women than above men for aids/hiv and the over all rates of HIV/AIDS in this area exceed anywhere else in the devoloped world. Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside has become a spectacle of entertainment in the media, rather than concern. Media portrays downtown as an issue to Vancouver’s culture /tourism rather than an issue of individuals and poverty. Another problem is that Canadian doctors tend to over medicalize which can help lead to addiction. Society continues to enable these people's inequality by practicing forms of race blindness.Most of society chooses to ignore the social suffering carried by the aboriginal people of that neighborhood. Average annual incomes