Written by guest author Esther Kok, @stherkok on Instagram

Canadian author Casey Plett’s essay, On Community [1], feels like a chat over a cup of coffee with an insightful acquaintance. The writing style is conversational, and Plett meanders through critical ideas while conveying the message behind her work: community is complicated. Informational and friendly, Plett’s essay asks, what is community? And what do we owe each other? The book is the eighth installment of Biblioasis’ series, “Field Notes,” which includes eight short books developed and published with the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. 

In the first few chapters, Plett discusses the meaning of the word community, its context, and its implications. She writes about how she has seen the word used, what constitutes the correct usage of the word community, and asks if there even is a correct, or true, definition. A theme of the essay is transgender women’s sense of community. Plett offers a number of examples of the compassion and goodwill that this commonality brings to herself and her trans friends. One particular story involves letting a friend crash on her couch as she was passing through town, and Plett consequently wondering if her cisgender co-workers would have the same experience. She says, “The next day at work, after the girl left, I wondered about my cis co-workers. How translatable my experience might be to them, how they might find themselves in similar scenarios, and how they might not. […] Did the transness really lubricate this interaction of putting up my friend? I do think so, yes.” (pg. 34) and “all with bodies like mine, a kind of body I thought was shameful and wretched and isolated.” The latter of these quotes is in reference to being surrounded by other trans women, but I believe it rings true in many contexts. How many times has any one of us been put at ease when we realize we are not alone in this existence? 

Another consistent theme is Mennonite culture, specifically in Manitoba. The essay has undeniable proximity to Manitoban culture, as does much of Plett’s writing. Plett discusses the strength of this community, its hospitality, and even its shortcomings. She speaks to her experience of Mennonite families taking in strangers, because that was what community meant to them – unbridled compassion. Community can also mean protecting one’s own. For example, Plett cites a phrase she hears when one member of the Mennonite community brings harm on another – “We’ll handle it in the church,” bringing forward the reality that communities are flawed, and don’t always use their power for good. To this end, Plett also discusses the Freedom Convoy of 2022 – a community that used their numbers and the power of their community for their own, arguably inconsiderate, interests (One thing that I appreciated about the essay was its Canadian throughlines. It was definitely nice to hear references to events or spaces that I have lived in and through). 

In Plett’s article for the Walrus, “Rise of the Gender Novel,” [2] she criticizes popularized literature surrounding transgender or transsexual characters. Plett observes a pattern in such novels that paint transgender characters as victims- abused, bored, tortured, and eventually freed as heroes having conquered their parent’s expectations. She calls for a different type of story to be written, which she accomplishes in her novel, Little Fish [3], a story about a Manitoban transgender woman who faces real, statistically probable challenges, no matter how unsettling they may be to the reader. Being a transgender woman herself allows Plett to give her transgender characters flaws, put them in the real world, and watch what they do. Published in 2018, Little Fish is simultaneously a love letter to Winnipeg and a curse to the cold. It follows a young woman through one tumultuous winter. I loved the book because it was thoughtfully written and had compelling characters, however, I got the feeling that this book would mean more to me if I was from Winnipeg. The book is filled to the brim with references of locations in the city. Not only this, but there is a general bleak and bitter nature to the northern environment in which the novel is set that I simply have not experienced. There is one particular length of prose that describes Wendy (the main character) fighting a storm in the middle of the night with a numbing desperation that will have you shivering on the edge of your seat, praying for the community to pull through. The fear of a storm like this is not something that I have built into my memory, but Plett had me feeling viscerally. 

My Manitoban roommate often speaks of Winnipeg with a melancholic glimmer of recognition and affection. From her description, her childhood was spent underneath several feet of snow, with the sound of the rivers and crime shuffling in the background, and an eclectic neighbor on every corner. The city is described as the land of Niel Young and his legion of one thousand hipsters, but has a grittier, darker, more violent side that doesn’t take much digging to unearth. This past fall, it was discovered that several bodies belonging to Indigenous women were thought to be located in a garbage dump near town, but the City didn’t want to spend the money to search for them [4, 5]. The town celebrates its rivers by skating on them through the winter, then dragging them for the bodies of missing and murdered Indigenous women when the ice melts in March,- a complex and challenging expression of community, which Plett alludes to and demonstrates in On Community and Little Fish. 

My favorite chapters from On Community are “Contributions” and “Strangers.” “Contributions,” to me, is a challenge. The chapter opens with a story about messages written in chalk on Lennox Ave in Harlem. When prompted, the creator of these drawings (which read, “Think better to be a better person,” “Give more and hate less,”) said that he was “just trying to make his contribution, something that we all have to figure out how to do.” (emphasis mine). It prompts the reader to ask, what is my contribution? What am I giving to my community? The chapter reads as a call to action. 

“Strangers” also prompts reflection and initiative. In the chapter, Plett challenges the reader to talk to strangers. She cites her own personal experience and the studies of others saying that speaking with strangers improves quality of life. Though she herself has had traumatic encounters with strangers, speaking with those she does not know is a practice that Plett takes on every day. bell hooks says, “Enjoying the benefits of living and loving in community empowers us to meet strangers without fear.”[7], Casey Plett says, “I began to walk around with a wary-yet-open attitude towards strangers, in the tired, balanced fashion that marks many a peaceable adult life learned the hard way. And that’s how I’ve chosen to live and I don’t regret it, including through my own shitty encounters since.” (pg. 147) She continues, “It is so easy to grow insular, suspicious, bitter. But even when divining protection, the solution cannot be to seal oneself off from people you have not met.” Silence in streets, on buses, in coffeeshops, is isolating and unsettling. The importance of expanding one’s community in this way cannot be understated. 

I recently watched a TVO documentary, “Big Fight in Little Chinatown,”[8] which featured stories from Chinatowns in Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, New York, and San Francisco. Filmed while our cities were almost unrecognizable due to the pandemic, director Karen Cho focused in on a few locations that were struggling during this time – not only struggling to stay open because of a dramatic decrease in foot traffic, but also struggling with morale. Many said that the customers were a source of great joy, and that they miss the public dearly. Chinatowns are an example of a place where community is not only a group of people and location, it’s also a history. Wing on Wo & Co is one such establishment with five generations of owners that have successfully run and upheld the storefront- a true family business, and the oldest in New York’s Chinatown. 

The documentary also depicts the Family Associations, organizations that sought to bring men together during a time in which exclusionary immigration and the head tax made bringing women and children to North America “punitively expensive.”[8] These associations (Cho Association, Wong Association, etc) were meant to be a ‘found family’ of sorts for Chinese immigrants in the neighborhood. Even though not every Wong was technically blood related, it created a sense of family and community in an existence that was, at the time, quite isolating. They brought protection, employment opportunities, and other social services to Chinatown – providing newcomers with the opportunity to put down roots in the neighborhood and make community. But these buildings are now targets for new development projects which seek to push Chinatowns into insignificance – an ongoing process that is systematically eradicating this considerable source of community for Chinese people in New York and across North America. 

In 2023, New York’s Chinatown saw a particularly troubling turn of events. New York City set out to tear down the jail located in Chinatown to rebuild it even taller- a construction process that would take 10 years, and a building that would leave the community in its literal shadow. [9] The building is set to be the tallest jail in the world (an accomplishment to which one can only speculate why the City of New York would be proud of). One protest was filmed and featured in the documentary, in which the chant was called out, “This is what community looks like!” The people have been fighting the City, unfortunately to no avail. As of August 2023, demolition of the current Manhattan Detention Centre is underway [10].

“Big Fight in Little Chinatown” emphasizes place as a mechanism for community. It holds importance for a group of people to be surrounded by language and architecture that they recognize and feel at home around. These places are invaluable, not only to the heritage of Chinese people, but also to the health and identity of a city. It is essential to our society that these neighborhoods prevail. 

Chinatowns are not unique to the impacts of COVID-19. A January 11 article in the Hamilton Spectator titled, “Hamilton businesses at ‘breaking point’ as pandemic loans come due,” speaks to the impacts of COVID-19 on Hamilton businesses. Joanne Lindsay, owner of Woodward Restaurant, told the Spectator, “With costs going up and now this loan in front of us, it’s impossible to do business.” [11] This is in reference to the CEBA program, which is demanding of the loan repaid by January 18. This past fall, Cafe Limoncello, an Ottawa Street landmark closed its doors for good after not being able to financially recuperate from pandemic losses. This is a bleak and heavy-handed reminder to shop locally. 

If shopping locally is your way to contribute, I would encourage you to do so. Engage in the community! Know your neighbors! Talk to storekeepers! Talk to strangers! Go to events! Make a community for yourself that extends beyond McMaster’s campus. Or, participate in McMaster’s campus! Join clubs, talk to people in your classes. Find a community for yourself. 

On Community is an incredibly important essay in today’s increasingly disconnected age. Our modern society is isolating, even in its attempts not to be. As members of said society, we should be asking what we can do to change this. 

Thanks for reading. Go forth and build community! 

References 

1. Plett, C., & Ontario Arts Council. (2023). On Community. Biblioasis. 
2. Plett, C. (2023, September 13). Rise of the Gender Novel. the Walrus. 
3. Plett, C. (2018). Little Fish. Arsenal Pulp Press. 
4. Gowriluk, C., & Ferstl, R. (2023, July 5). Manitoba grand chief shocked after province says it won’t help pay to search landfill for remains. CBC. Retrieved January 11, 2024, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/prairie-green-landfill-search-province-1.6898205
5. Taylor, S. (2023, July 7). Searching landfill for remains of Indigenous women too complex for police: RCMP. CBC. Retrieved January 11, 2024, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rcmp-indigenous-women-remains-1.6900594 
6. Cecco, L. (2019, June 9). Canadian volunteers scour river for missing Indigenous women. The Guardian. Retrieved January 11, 2024, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/09/canada-indigenous-women-report-violence-drag-the-red 
7. hooks, b. (1999). All About Love. Harper. 
8. Cho, K. (Director). (2023). Big Fight in Little Chinatown [Film]. TVO. 
9. Chan, W. (2023, August 21). New York is building the world’s tallest jail in Chinatown. Can anyone stop it? The Guardian. Retrieved January 11, 2024, from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/21/new-york-jail-chinatown-rikers-island
10. Young, M. (2023, August 7). Demolition Progresses for 45-Story Manhattan Detention Complex at 124-125 White Street in Chinatown, Manhattan, New York YIMBY. Retrieved January 11, 2024, from https://newyorkyimby.com/2023/08/demolition-progresses-for-45-story-manhattan-detenti on-complex-at-124-125-white-street-in-chinatown-manhattan.html 
11. Hewitt, F. (2024, January 11). Hamilton businesses at ‘breaking point’ as pandemic loans come due. Hamilton Spectator, Business.