Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 8. Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 28)

Studies - Judit Molnár: The Spatio-Temporal Dimension of Diasporic Discourse from the Carrebian on the Canadian Literary Scene

at the sight of white faces." (18-9) (emphasis added) The train ride becomes a racial and cultural space, where racial differences are not suppressed. She tries to create a dialogue with a hippie-like young man who seems not to be interested in politics at all. "And besides who suppported us in Africa? The United States never gave us any weapons. It's them that we're fighting." And he, "I abhor violence of any kind. I don't care which side you're on." (20-1) She is frustrated for disclosing her views without being understood by a fellow-traveller: "She reprimanded herself for talking to him. She felt she had been duped into revealing her opinions. It would have been best to keep quiet instead of giving this white boy so much effort." (23) During the journey her sense of fear deepens; her emotional space is becoming darker and darker. She hears children singing ironically about Montreal's two largest ethnic groups the French and the Italian: "Wops and frogs, Montreal is full of frogs." (24) Wop means "without official papers", describing the Italian community, and "frog" refers to FrenchCanadians. She thinks: "She should stand up before they did, before they started singing about 'Wops and niggers'". (24) She is frightened with good enough reason. When she gets off the train she is shouted at: She would be safe among other passengers. Finally, she met the escalator, then "Nigger whore!" a rough voice behind yelled hoarsely. She kept walking, slightly stumbling onto the clicking stairs. "Whore! Nigger! Whore!" (27) The racial hegemony is voiced in a very distressing way. Her sense of belonging is utterly deranged. The main character in "Blossom" has a telling name. Having been humiliated by serving white people, she decides to change her life and "bloom": "She look at she face in the mirror and figure that she look like an old woman too. Ten years she here now, and nothing shaking, just getting older and older, watching white people live." (37) (emphasis added) To achieve this end she returns to her own past. Brand explains the need for rootedness to Hutcheon: Yes, each time I write, I find that I've got to go back. I have to go back five hundred years to come again. Blossom had to go back to come back again to make everything beautiful, to understand anything about the world that she was living in. She had to dig into 213