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Mother Tongue speaks about female heroes
by David Silverberg, The Canadian Jewish News, 2/11/2004
Growing up, Susan Poizner attended United Synagogue Day School in Forest Hill, and soon became frustrated that only white Jewish culture surrounded her. Wanderlust gripped her and she left Canada at 18 to live in Israel for six years.
"I needed to experience different people," she says in an interview at Yonge Street’s Mars Restaurant. Living with Yemenite and Dutch flatmates instilled in Poizner a passion for myriad cultures.
That desire is now part of her "dream job," she says – producing a 13-part series on Canadian history told from a female perspective. Poizner also directs, writes and hosts Mother Tongue: The Other Side of History, which first aired Feb. 1 on TVOntario, but is slated for broadcast two more times later this month.
Mother Tongue’s premiere – appropriately dotting Black History Month – tells the story of a fugitive slave who fled to Buxton, Ont., near Chatham-Kent. The half-hour documentary chronicles Eliza Parker’s quest to abolish slavery, and describes how the freedom fighter influenced her descendant, 16-year-old Toni Parker.
Poizner sums up Toni's sentiments, which apply to any race or religion: "In the end, knowing your history makes you a stronger person."
In a month, Poizner, 37, plans to visit Winnipeg's Jewish community for an upcoming episode, due to air in early 2005 (as will the other 12 parts). An ancestor of Roz Usiskin sought to organize a national union while working as a dressmaker, and Poizner believes the story is compelling.
"There's the perception that women just did the dishes and washed the floor," she explains. "But they did more than people think – they kept the culture and the family unit intact."
Fleshing out the nation's untold tales is also the show’s raison d’être, she says.
"In school, textbooks told me Canada was very multicultural, but it was never brought to life. I hope that Mother Tongue encourages people to meet their neighbours and break down barriers."
Poizner has led by example, studying international relations and Russian at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She began to write for the Jerusalem Post and later moved to London, England, where she freelanced for the Guardian and the Times. She filed reports for Associated Press Television News and London Radio News, often travelling to Austria, Turkey and Moscow to find stories.
Living away from Canada for 17 years altered her cultural identity, she says.
"When someone referred to me as Canadian, I said, 'No, I’m Jewish.' I then realized that a range of ethnic communities thrive in Canada, and that I had to explore my own country like I explored Europe."
When she returned to Toronto and started to research under-reported, culturally rich areas, Poizner discovered that "within Canada, you can feel like you’ve gone abroad."
Each episode of Mother Tongue aims to educate viewers on a specific female hero within a community by retelling the story through archival footage or text, and by visiting local heritage sights. Besides profiling a Jewish labour unionist, Poizner plans to cover an Acadian mail-order bride in Caraquet, N.B., and an Icelandic suffragette in Gimli, Man.
"This is my dream job because I’m giving people a voice that deserves to be heard," she says, relating the example of Russian Doukhobors in British Columbia who were labelled an extremist group in the 1930s for protesting naked. One misleading chapter in the Doukhobors’ history need not taint the whole book, she believes.
"There is so much beauty and spirituality in that culture that I felt enriched by learning about it," Poizner says.
Within Mother Tongue’s look at different cultures, Poizner focuses on stories of female strength and perseverance. As she relates in the series' opening sequence, history has always told "his story" and the series seeks to tell "her story."
The content of the remaining episodes is still unconfirmed, and Poizner is looking for interesting family tales that would best suit Mother Tongue's mandate. She can be reached at info@mothertongue.ca.
A repeat of Mother Tongue's premiere will air on the digital channel Book TV on Feb. 17 at 9 p.m. and Feb. 22 at 6 p.m.
For more information, visit www.mothertongue.ca.
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This series of educational videos was made possible with funding from
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Mother Tongue: A woman's history of ethnic Canada is a 13-part TV series that documents Canada's multicultural history from a female perspective. Each program tells the story of a notable woman in one of Canada's communities, including a Black fugitive slave, an Acadian mail order bride, and an Icelandic suffragette.
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