The Rain Review of Books

Leslie: Tell me about the title of your story.

Laurie: “Hiding in Plain Sight” is an excellent title. See, the buses come and go down here, and you see people looking. But they don’t see nothing. All they see is the dope. People can hide in plain sight: they can be about this far away from you. Like when they put that new sci-fi movie on TV, The Invisible Man—the thing is, these people they’re invisible to society. Everybody looks for one thing and that’s the dope. Not the people—the dope. They look at you but they’re not looking at you, they’re looking through you. (60)

Narrator’s Afterword June 2003

Leslie: Why do you want to publish your story?

Sara: I have a whole bunch of reasons for publishing this. For once, I get to say my piece. I’ve done a lot of interviews on this and that around my life, around things from downtown like the missing women. A lot of stuff that I said was taken out of context or wasn’t portrayed properly, and in the end it looked like non-truths. So this is finally my chance to say something and for it to be accurate. If it helps people who are in my situation, or who have somebody in my situation, of if it just helps them to understand a little better about people in general, without misconceptions and stereotypes, then I’ve accomplished something. But my main thing is if it’s going to be said, it’s going to be true. (125)

Sara: I did a TV interview with --------- on the missing women. They should’ve done a lot of things they didn’t do. I wasn’t very happy with it in the end. They cut out PHN (PACE Health Network), and anything about PACE (Prostitution Alternatives Counselling Education). They showed people full-face who had asked not to be shown, and they called them “ex-hookers”. They even showed us in [another] piece on harm reduction, but I didn’t want to be on TV. I’m the only one who voted no, because automatically people associate harm reduction with using. I  didn’t want my son to see that on TV, and that’s exactly what they did. What did they do before they showed us? They showed skid row and people working and people dealing. So I thought that was really rude. In a way, they took something positive and made it negative.” (122-3)

Laurie: The first trafficking charge I got was not here in B.C. My lawyer at that time said, “Well, the prosecutor is asking for two years and up and the best I can do for you is two years less a day.” I said, “Well, the best I can do for you is fire you!” So I fired him. I represented myself and got four months. (43)

Pawz (for a moment): I got a letter from the government telling me to go to work or I’ll get cut off social assistance. I believe it. It states that welfare’s only temporary and that there are jobs available. Look! My hand is itchy. Money’s coming! Oh, wait, that’s the left hand. It’s right receives, left leaves. (30)

Sara: I’ve had three dates that were bad enough they had to be reported to the cops. Not that I had any faith they were going to do anything, but they were actually really good with me. They took me to a quiet spot and they gave me the benefit of the doubt. It wasn’t, like, “Well, we’re here to listen to you,” but they basically told me—“We believe you, and if you help us, we’ll do our best to help you back.” I believe one or more people are targeting women in the Downtown Eastside. A couple of these women on the missing women list I’ve know for many years. They weren’t dope simple; they would turn people down if they had second thoughts. They had to have felt comfortable, and they would have been taken off guard because they just weren’t dope simple, they wouldn’t overlook things like the guy acting strange. Near the end, the girls that have gone missing were very street smart. What’s worse it they have no idea; they’ve got no evidence. They’ve got nothing, and nothing to build on. (122) 

Leslie: Why do you want to make your story public?

Laurie: Everybody’s been stereotyped to hell!

I’m a person that has HIV—that has hep C and a lot of other things that go with it. I have to learn to deal with it. I want people to know that I come from a broken home, that my mother abused me, but that things don’t always have to go that way. Things can change. It took me getting HIV and actually getting right down—sick, to actually take a look and say “Hey, not everything is bad.” Things that happened in the past, you can’t let go of, but there is a brighter future out there. There is. Some people look for it forever and some don’t. I think I found it. I’m still here and, technically, I should be dead. Each person, I want them to know that they’re here for a purpose. They’re here for a purpose. Some are learning, some aren’t.

I’m mostly getting sick and tired of kids coming down here and thinking it’s okay. They come from a broken home—and this and that. I want those kids to know that I have a Grade 12 education; I hold two jobs; I have four beautiful kids; I have two beautiful grandchildren. I could have got married but I had a different calling. My calling may not have been the best, but, at the same time, it has taught me so much. Some will make it out of here; some will go down to this pit. Some will crawl out and some won’t. I want them to see that it’s not a bleak as it looks.

If there’s a wall there, you’re the ones who can take the stones out one by one. When you’ve got a big enough space to go through, you go through. It may scare you, but the thing is; you know it’s there and then curiosity will grow, everything is new. That’s what I want them to know. Life doesn’t end just because somebody branded you an addict or an AIDS victim. It’s not an ending. That why I want to publish my story.” (60)

Leslie and Dara: Compiling the stories was complicated not only by the editing process, but also by the daily realities of the women with whom we worked. Their seven accounts emerge from under very particular regimes of silence that the narrators well understand; their speech is constrained by official and unofficial systems of surveillance; by sanctions governing how information circulates in the courts, through the media, and on the street; and by social stigmas attached to certain taboo topics. The storytellers are dependent on diminishing and fragile public services for basic subsistence: food, clothing, shelter, and health care. They live in a milieu significantly ordered by health and social services, wherein their narratives provide cues for diagnoses or for the implementation of policies that greatly influence their lives. By speaking of certain events, they risk legal repercussions as witnesses to or participants in illegal activities, and further risk the withdrawal of services and support from families, agencies, and government offices. Telling is a courageous act for women so vulnerable to the (mis)judgments of public and professional power. (9)

Leslie: Who do you want to read your story?

Black Widow: Well, I don’t really know my daughter because—whatever, whatever, because—but maybe she can sit down one day and read about her mom’s life. (77)

Leslie: Who do you want to read this?

Pawz: I want someone with curiosity to read this, hopefully somebody who’s never been through this and never will go through it. But if they do have to, then maybe they will remember that I survived and so they can, too... I got introduced to pain medication after an accident. When I came here, I was introduced to something that was “pain enlightening” and I ended up getting caught in it.

I could never foresee any of this happening to me.

Speaking as someone who’s now lived both sides of the coin—rich and poor, wearing both shoes—you are treated so differently when you have no money. God forbid you ever have to walk on the other side.

A lot of people, when they get down here, they start thinking suicide. I wouldn’t cop out that easily. I thought about it a couple of times, but I knew I was better off to fight than to give in. I think I’ve withstood the test of time (laughing).

Being here has made me stronger, and it’s made me more in touch with myself, more aware of other people and their plight. I’m not the only one in this position, and I won’t sit in a corner going, “Poor me, this shit happened to me.” Down here a lot of crap happens to a lot of people, it’s not just me.

If this story applies to you, don’t lose hope. (33-4)

Dara and Leslie: We understand that ineffective presentation by we editors or failed witnessing on the part of some readers may result in further recriminations. In ultimately deciding to publish, we—editors and narrators—returned to the women’s motivations, their desire to be heard and seen, to tell their own truths in their own words. Now that this book has been published, will telling their stories put women at greater risk of local reprisals, of further stigmatization, of increased social exclusion? Will speaking frankly about hard times and hard choices reinforce rather than challenge negative stereotypes? Will the narrators’ courage in acknowledging their mistakes be used as evidence to hold them responsible for poverty, the legacies of colonialism, and the denigration of women, all of which shape their lives but are not of their own making? Is publishing this book yet another act of voyeurism, no different, really, from the media sensationalizing we criticize? How do we responsibly present and understand narratives about lives not typically valourized by history, biography, or community memoir? These questions will remain open and troubling.  (169-70)

Laurie: For Aboriginal people, okay. “You’re Native, you’re drunk, you’re lazy. You’ll never amount to anything.”

And you know what? You’re actually considered the lowest of the low. With white people, society still will help you because of [your] colour. Okay, you’re an addict, but that’s only one of the problems. They don’t think of other things that go with being Native. They have a lot of issues, like always being told you’ll never amount to anything, always being told that you’re nothing but a dirty Indian or a drunk. People will take advantage of you because of the colour of your skin—guys, white guys. The things you see on TV don’t help you either, and some of them are close to home, and it really makes you think. And if your parents are alcoholic, you want to hide the fact that they are. So you hide in your own world, and when you get in that little world the things that really shouldn’t be bothering them, they let bother them. I just said, “Okay, I’m Native. It’s not going to change just because I do a fix. I’m still going to be Native.”

All the way through, as far as I can remember, as far as I’ve seen—like, Saskatchewan is a very racial province, very racial. [Natives and whites] have got this big racial thing between them. “You’re an Indian; I don’t like you! You’re a white; I don’t like you.” But you know what? You get another colour in there, and you see these two combine, and they go against this other, this other race.

I was totally blown away! I saw it when the Spanish came. There was a group who came here and nobody wanted to serve them, nobody wanted to rent to them, so they were more or less getting pushed out of here. I’ve seen that big time. When you’re a kid, especially in the seventies, basically they wanted to stick you with your own kind. There are also different issues because there’s so many different nations and Native cultures here.

They’ve got more agencies that are willing to help the one race than the others. The Aboriginal agencies [didn’t] really start popping up until a couple, three years ago. Every counsellor that an Aboriginal person had to deal with was white! “Why should I be talking to you? You don’t know what it’s like being me! You haven’t walked in my moccasins, so how can you tell me you know how I feel?” You can’t tell a black guy, “Okay, I know what it’s like to be a slave,” I seriously can’t. Of the Japanese people, when they got stuck in those little camps, you can’t say you know what they felt like! You can probably try, but you don’t’ know what it’s like, and so everything has basically been sent on from generation to generation to generation.

We’ve got our grandfathers’ burdens; each one of us. (55-6)

Black Widow: I really like --------- [Centre]. It’s only for women, but it’s nice because people talk about things. People, like, they’re for real; they talk about things. They have a little newsletter. They did a newsletter on me. I didn’t even know they did it (laughing). It was cool. I volunteer once a week. They give me two bus tickets and a ten-dollar gift certificate for Safeway. I’m saving them up and I’m giving them to my mother-in-law for Christmas. I just do the dishes, clean the floor and stuff; for three hours, ten bucks—not bad. You have to work for five hours just for a pack of cigarettes when you volunteer somewhere else. That’s almost like the joint, because if you work in the joint you have to wait for canteen days, which are Wednesday and Sunday.
But I’m not going back to jail! I’ll volunteer!

I like VANDU too, VANDU’s cool (Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users). The first time you get a job there, it’s always an office job. You just putt around this office for four or five hours, answer the phone, whatever you have to do. Then the next week you go on alley patrol, where you go with the nurse from Victory Park and you do all the alleys all up around Oppenheimer [Park], all the way back to the office. It’s about three or four hours. You’re picking up the rigs in the alleys, and you’re giving people new rigs and if they need medical attention, the nurse is with us so she will patch them up along the way.
It’s all right; it’s okay.

Tonight I’ll work under the tent in front of Carnegie, and that’s from eight to twelve—hand out water and some condoms and syringes, band-aids, stuff like that. It’s all free. I don’t know, I just figure I don’t want to be too greedy so I don’t take too many shifts. (69-70)

Dara and Leslie: In the midst of war or extreme hardship, for instance, parents sometimes surrender their children to the care of others who can offer peace, food, and the possibility of a secure future. Stories about such tragedies often move more fortunate people to lament the painful choices faced by parents who are victims of human cruelty and avarice. Sara’s mothering is not impacted by bombs, troops, or famines. Rather, the options Sara chooses concerning the welfare of her children are shaped by being poor, female, and troubled in contemporary Canada. (103)

Anne: My name is Anne. I live on the east side of Vancouver. I am a survivor of incest and sexual assault and a consumer-survivor—of the mental health care system. I have lived in poverty most of my adult life and hope that this part of my life story will help you to understand what it’s like to recover from trauma, cope with mental illness, and raise a child—all while living in poverty. I am now in my mid-forties. (80)

Anne: I’ve been poor most of my adult life, but it’s harder as a parent. You can go without but you want your kid to look nice, to go to a movie now and then and have a bike. To play at an outdoor camp. So many things are beyond poor parents now. No dental care, no money for medication. I know a mother who had to borrow someone’s inhaler for asthma because she couldn’t afford to pay for the hundred-dollar prescription. It’s tough, and the cuts keep coming. They are cutting back essential services like funding for mental health advocates who help you with welfare and other services. I feel like it’s a litany of complaint. I love my kid. I didn’t think I’d have to fight just to get the basics for her.

I think single mothers living in poverty don’t exist in the consciousness of the world. We need a bigger presence. We do exist, and we are struggling to raise healthy children who will grow up and be a credit to our society and our community. At this point we’re trying to do this with the most minimal resources imaginable.

Single moms who would be better off going to school part-time, being on social assistance, and raising children are now being forced to work at menial jobs just so the system doesn’t have to pay them social assistance. That’s a Victorian concept, not a twenty-first century concept. (97-8)

Narrator’s Afterword June 2003

Leslie: Why do you want to make your story public?

Anne: I hope people learn that poverty and mental illness are just factors in people’s lives; they don’t define human beings. They define what I can do sometimes, but they don’t define who I am as a person; they don’t define my child. That’s what people do; they define me. They say you can’t possibly be a good mother. Who says?

We know what’s safe because we know what’s out there. We know the drug addicts; we’ve been sexually abused. We know the dangers. I think we’re much more aware of what can happen, yet we’re the ones that are looked upon as fucked up. I know people who are no longer my friends who believe I don’t have the right to raise a child that I can’t financially provide for. I believe I have that right. I believe that’s a human right. It’s a right. It’s a choice, and people get to make those choices.

I think this whole book of our stories is saying, “We might be recovering addicts, we might be recovering alcoholics, we might be recovering from a number of different things. That doesn’t take away anything from our ability to be great mothers.” That’s what I want people to know. I want people to know that we’re intelligent, thoughtful, and insightful people who care for our children. That we’re careful with our children. That we do our best to allow them to grow and develop to the extent that they can, even when our growth and development is stunted because of our resources. There’s only enough resources for one of us, either the child of the parent, to develop, so it’s the child that’s going to get the resources and I’m just going to have to live with the fact that this is where my life stops in some ways. I think these are important concepts, important values.

I think single mothers living in poverty don’t exist in the consciousness of the world. We do exist. As a society, do we accept that children are valuable? If we accept that children are valuable, then we have to value their mothers. There’s a big push to value children, but if they come home to an unhappy mother—someone who isn’t cared for and who doesn’t have the resources to be a good mother—then it’s not going to work. (100)

Leslie: What do you think is the value of telling these stories?

Anne: What happens is that they fund group by group. Like, a whole lot of attention is going to people who suffer from cancer—and that’s great—but you don’t pay a whole lot of attention to people who are suffering from mental health issues, which may or may not be life-threatening. Mental health can be a life-threatening issue if a parent is suicidal. Put these things into perspective; get us on the map.

One of the things that I saw was significant with the Four Pillars was that it changed Mayor Owen’s attitude to drug addicts. Prior to that he had no association with those people, had no understanding of those people. He didn’t see how those people were anything like him. Somehow he made a connection with those people. I think that if we can do our stories and that somehow somebody can make a connection with us, then maybe they can also provide us with the resources to really evolve as people and to provide for our children so that they can really evolve. 

I don’t know if our stories will help, but that’s my hope. I need to leave my child a better place to live in. if I don’t actively work in my community to change things and make them better, even to some small degree, then I believe that, as a parent, I’ll have failed. (101-2)