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Bala, Sharon. The Boat People. Emblem Editions, 2019.

Canada. Department of Immigration. "Newsclipping - Japan Advertiser: Manila Indians take holy book to Canada." Komagata Maru Journey. N.p. 29 April 1914. Web. 6 March, 2020.

Innes, Jack. "Such is life." Komagata Maru Journey. N.p. 5 June 1914. Web. 6 March, 2020.

Raeside, Adrian. "[Are you sure you want to immigrate here?]." Komagata Maru Journey. N.p. 1 January 1992. Web. 6 March, 2020.

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I think these memes and artefacts work nicely together because when you see them side by side they seem very similar in the discourse they are promoting regarding asylum seekers. However, memes are generally designed to make light of certain situations. They are exaggerated in a satirical sense, to make fun of human reaction almost. The artefacts however, are designed to promote fear in the public. They are designed to make light of the situation, but at the same time underline the threat/discourse they are promoting. As a society, we tend to disregard memes as nothing more than a joke, but seeing the artefacts and memes together we can see that they aren't far off from real methods used by governments and media to promote an agenda.

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This artefact I found important because it shows some of the more subtle discourse surrounding immigration. In this article it states, "they have a scheme of their own, by which they expect to get by any Canadian barriers". Here, the use of the word 'scheme' gives off a dubious and negative denotation to the Indians. This is just a small example of the power of discourse the media has.

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This artefact was found in the Komogata Mura archive on the internet. This cartoon was published in a Vancouver B.C. newspaper. Here we see the rhetoric around the securitization framework. The media is promoting the fear that if they let these asylum seekers on their shore they will take all their food and jobs. This cartoon makes the British Indians look scary, intimidating, and a tad ridiculous. This cartoon tries to make fun of the British Indians by mocking their hunger strikes, but still works to instill fear into the public about the security of their own borders and jobs.

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Much like a lot of the discourse surrounding migration in the media, this artefact took me by surprise. It is interesting to see how blatant Canada is about it's racism. In this cartoon, there are racist terms used and the message they are trying to portray is "why would you want to immigrate here when you have seen how racist we are to all the other immigrants". They are saying "we are racist and we will be racist towards you." I feel like this relates to discourse because that is how a lot of discourse is. Everyone trying to migrate here is called a terrorist, and no one disagrees. Everyone buys into the media and the discourse surrounding immigrants and then they start to spout those same racist sentiments.

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In this meme, I wanted to highlight the "voluntary repatriates" that the government aims for when dealing with migrants. This meme shows that the government does not take their life endangerment in their homeland seriously. Migrants beg not to be sent back home, and the government sees it as a joke and even mocks them in terms of making them relive their traumatic experiences in the trials.

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In this meme, I wanted to focus on the securitization framework that the media uses to create fear among the public. Here Robin is saying we have plenty of room for refugees, and Batman slaps hims because Robin is stupid and doesn't realize that they pose a security threat to their jobs. I created this meme to also reflect on the first artefact from the Komogata Maru Incident.

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This meme is the only one I did not create. Although this was made to poke fun at the coronavirus, I think it adds to the conversation about the power of discourse and media in general. In relation to immigration I feel this is important because the government does awful things to asylum seekers in terms of how they detain them, and treat them in general. They rip families apart, cause mental illnesses, even cause people to commit suicide; the government wants the media to create a distraction by using the criminalization framework so instead of focusing on the inhumane treatment of refugee seekers the public is focused on their own safety from "terrorists".

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In this meme, I wanted to show the irony of some of the deterrence policies some governments use. For instance, some governments emphasis the dangerous the boat ride to their country can be, and how a lot of people die at see because of this danger, and that asylum seekers shouldn't risk the boat journey. Yet, their immigration laws pose more of a risk to asylum seekers than the boat ride. If they are deported back to their country, it is as good as a death sentence. We see this in the boat people when Ranga is determined to be deported and Grace talks to Steve about how she is his executioner (262). I wanted this concept to be reflected in this meme.

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In this meme, I wanted to emphasis how hard it is to change the negative discourse surrounding migrants when the public latch onto every word the media says. Even when trying to educate people it is hard to even get someone to have an open-minded conversation about it in the first place. This meme underlines the stubbornness of people and underscores the dangers of ignorant behavior the media is spreading when using these discourses.

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Hello all, welcome to my padlet about negative discourse surrounding migrants in Canadian media. In The Boat People by Sharon Bala, we follow the refugee process of a few asylum seekers who entered Canada on a Boat from Sri Lanka. Throughout this text, we see a lot of fear mongering from Public Safety Minister Fred Blair through his discourse surrounding migrants in the media. Blair uses the power of discourse combined with the power and reach of the media to promote racism, xenophobia, and fear within the Canadian public in regards to the Tamil asylum seekers. The effect of this discourse can be seen in the beginning of the novel when Blair is giving a speech about public safety in regards to the arrival of the boat from Sri Lanka. The novel states, “Tarps lined the walkway to the entrance. A half-dozen people stood in a row holding homemade signs that they lifted up and down while chanting in unison. A man in a television news jacket panned his camera from right to left…Send the illegals back! Go home terrorists! (16).

Throughout the novel Blair refers to the asylum seekers as terrorists multiple times since he has a public platform to spread this discourse, these negative sentiments soon take place within not only the public, but the people Blair interacts with closely. In the novel, Grace is often overtaken by her fear of terrorism, and harm coming to her families. This fear is the cause of Grace’s inability to make decisions on deportation in her job of being an adjudicator. Every time she seems to make progress on overcoming this fear, Blair’s discourse surrounding migrants causes her to panic all over again. Early in the novel Blair talks about how The Godfather came into Canada illegally and how he has caused a lot of the gang violence, and he uses The Godfather as a reminder for Grace to make the “right” decision in deporting Tamils. She often buys into that rhetoric, and in an argument with Mitchell she finds out The Godfather was never even a refugee like Blair led her to believe. “That mobster wasn’t a refugee. He bought a million-dollar house a month before he got here” (175). Overall, this padlet aims to connect the theme of discourse in the media surrounding asylum and refugee seekers between The Boat People, two Canadian cartoons and a news article from 1914 during the Komogata Maru incident, and the memes I’ve created. I hope you enjoy!