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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... 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 along the wide corridor to the hallway where we came in. She seems annoyed at our confused ...
... standing outside my cell, looking at me. She knows I'm a new girl by the clothes I'm wearing. I go into the corridor. Girls are standing around talking in the corridor. Why don't they take the chairs out of their cells to sit on ...
... the high 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.
... standing. The superintendent rises from her seat to say grace and we rise accordingly, then follow her actions as she sits down. Immediately, girls scurry about bringing plates of food that they place before us. My table is on the ...
... a week and we're having our half-hour exercise time in the yard. Because we're in separate wards and at different dining-room tables, this is the only time we can speak to one another. Some of the girls are standing grouped 12 INCORRIGIBLE.
Contenido
CHAPTER 12 | 111 |
CHAPTER 13 | 121 |
CHAPTER 14 | 127 |
CHAPTER 15 | 135 |
CHAPTER 16 | 141 |
CHAPTER 17 | 149 |
CHAPTER 18 | 159 |
AFTERWORD | 165 |