IncorrigibleWilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 2006 M01 1 - 172 páginas On a May morning in 1939, eighteen-year-old Velma Demerson and her lover were having breakfast when two police officers arrived to take her away. Her crime was loving a Chinese man, a “crime” that was compounded by her pregnancy and subsequent mixed-race child. Sentenced to a home for wayward girls, Demerson was then transferred (along with forty-six other girls) to Torontos Mercer Reformatory for Females. The girls were locked in their cells for twelve hours a day and required to work in the on-site laundry and factory. They also endured suspect medical examinations. When Demerson was finally released after ten months’ incarceration weeks of solitary confinement, abusive medical treatments, and the state’s apprehension of her child, her marriage to her lover resulted in the loss of her citizenship status. This is the story of how Demerson, and so many other girls, were treated as criminals or mentally defective individuals, even though their worst crime might have been only their choice of lover. Incorrigible is a survivor’s narrative. In a period that saw the rise of psychiatry, legislation against interracial marriage, and a populist movement that believed in eradicating disease and sin by improving the purity of Anglo-Saxon stock, Velma Demerson, like many young women, found herself confronted by powerful social forces. This is a history of some of those who fell through the cracks of the criminal code, told in a powerful first-person voice. |
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... leave the other car and move toward, then up the stairs. They are partly hidden by the hulking figures of two men. During the drive from the Home, we three girls squeezed into the back seat sat unmoving, still absorbing the shock of ...
... Having completed their task, our escorts are impatient to leave and eager to turn us over to a tall older woman in a white uniform, who says tersely, “Come with me.” She leads us to a room, holds the door open, 2 INCORRIGIBLE.
... leaves floating in it. An older inmate pours the tea from a chipped enamel jug. We eat standing up. A matron unlocks the door and says, “Get into an orderly file.” She directs us toward the open door, then walks behind, ferrying us ...
... ornate backrest. A girl whispers to me that this is Miss Milne, the superintendent. I decide she's the same person who admitted me to the reformatory. A matron standing at the entrance watches the women leave 8 INCORRIGIBLE.
Velma Demerson. A matron standing at the entrance watches the women leave the line and go to their regular tables ... leaving Chapter Two 9.
Contenido
CHAPTER 12 | 111 |
CHAPTER 13 | 121 |
CHAPTER 14 | 127 |
CHAPTER 15 | 135 |
CHAPTER 16 | 141 |
CHAPTER 17 | 149 |
CHAPTER 18 | 159 |
AFTERWORD | 165 |