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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... walks behind, ferrying us along the wide corridor to the hallway where we came in. She seems annoyed at our confused behaviour and is relieved to pass us over to another matron who is standing at the foot of the stairway, monitoring the ...
... walk down the corridor, peering into each cell. At the very end, not far from the toilets, I find Victoria sitting on the chair in her cell. I wouldn't think they could send a fourteen-yearold to a reformatory. Victoria looks like an ...
Velma Demerson. The yard is surrounded by a high fence and the women walk around the oblong dirt path. I look up. Framed in a window just below a turret is an emaciated creature who looks like a witch. She's wearing the old Mercer ...
... for security. It's noon when I leave school and go to the restaurant for dinner. I pass the long gleaming soda fountain on the right, the display cases of chocolates and cash register on the left, and walk up Chapter Three 27.
Velma Demerson. chocolates and cash register on the left, and walk up an aisle to an empty booth. I always take my meals alone. The canaries can be heard singing in their three individual cages hanging from the ceiling. They're brought ...
Contenido
CHAPTER 12 | 111 |
CHAPTER 13 | 121 |
CHAPTER 14 | 127 |
CHAPTER 15 | 135 |
CHAPTER 16 | 141 |
CHAPTER 17 | 149 |
CHAPTER 18 | 159 |
AFTERWORD | 165 |