Many people can relate to the concept of having European ancestors who made sacrifices so that their children and grandchildren may live a more privileged life as Canadian settlers. As new generations succeed them, these stories can blur with time, be taken for granted, and appear abstract aside from a photograph or a few possessions of said ancestor(s). My ethnicity is entirely rooted as a Doukhobor settler: the ethno-religious group of Christian pacifists composed primarily of Slavic origin who immigrated to Canada in the beginning of the twentieth century. The deep homogenization of my heritage manifested itself in my life through traditional foods, the Russian spoken in my grandparents’ house, and the stories of what my relatives did to survive once settled in Canada.
My mother's first home was within a communal village, and I am the first of my direct bloodline to receive a college diploma or university degree. Although unconfirmed in recorded research, it is possible that I have Turkish,the locations of the nineteenth-century Doukhobor villages where my ancestors once settled, and also the colour of my skin. As a White-passing individual, I've never experienced any inhibition of privilege based on my ancestry, though my suspiciously dark-tanning skin highlights my potentially transcaucasian or south-cau-casian blood.
