Dionne Brand

In Dionne Brand’s novel, What We All Long For, the struggles and hopes of four racially diverse characters – Tuyen, Jackie, Oku and Carla – are narrated through a multicultural lens by Quy, a Vietnamese man separated from his family at a young age. The novel attempts to analyze the issues regarding race, gender and sexual orientation for racialized minorities in Canada while examining the generational shift between their respective families.

Race and gender have no biologically legitimacy. They are a social construction that has been determined by the culture surrounding Canada. Through this social construction, the concepts of whiteness and heteronormativity have evolved into becoming the social norm and anything straying from this path is deemed inferior or wrong. The hierarchy of race in Canada remains central to the daily interactions and the institutions that frame this country. The concept of white privilege is taught to not be recognized by the ‘white’ community. Schooling does not teach one to realize they are the oppressor or a participant in a damaged culture. What We All Long For investigates these issues that damage the culture of Canada. It shows the resistance of racialized minority groups in order to break down this corrupt structure.

This paper will critically analyze and discuss chapter four of Dionne Brand’s novel, What We All Long For, regarding the key concepts present in the chapter –stereotypes, discomfort, whiteness and heteronormativity – in relation to the significance of the novel’s title, What We All Long For.

Stereotypes can be conceived with positive or negative connotations. The positive stereotype is one that represents an idea that may have been lost, or a desire one cannot obtain. The negative s...

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...ly existing, and being somewhere that is associated with crime and violence. They strive for a future where the generational gap can say they are able to lead a regular Canadian life, no matter their racial background. They do not want a feeling of discomfort as they encounter whiteness, a feeling of unease as they know they are being judged and looked upon with negativity and fear. Tuyen envisions a future that does not revolve around a socially produced heterosexual dystopia.

“Most days they smoked outside school together, planning and dreaming their own dreams of what they would be if only they could get out of school and leave home. No more stories of what might have been, no more diatribes on what would never happen back home, down east, down the islands, over the South China Sea, not another sentence that began in the past that had never been their past.”