#romanian immigration to canada

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"GIRL, 25, BEATEN TO DEATH, STEPFATHER'S THROAT SLIT," Toronto Star. October 29, 1943. Page 1. ---- Ann Ukroenz Slain, Fred Solotski Near Death in Hospital ---- Miss Ann Ukroenz, a 25-year-old optical plant worker, today was found dead from head injuries in the kitchen of her Alexander St. home.

Fred Solotski, also known as Zuluski, her stepfather, is in Toronto General hospital with head injuries and a gashed throat. Authorities say he may die. Police say they picked up a claw hammer which was used to kill the girl and a straight razor with which the man's throat was cut.

Solotski's wife said that her husband had chased her out of the house after hitting the stepdaughter with a hammer. She ran for help.

George Sweeting, 50, night shift worker, told what happened when he entered the house: "The girl was lying on the floor. She didn't move. The man was sitting on a chair by the kitchen table, blood streaming down his face. There were marks on his head. It looked as if he had hit himself with the hammer.

"It was on a table. He picked it up and came after me. He raised it above his head and swung. I warded off the blow with my left hand. The hammer struck my fingernails. He swung again. I struck him on the face with my right fist. He called me names and shouted: I'II kill you, too."

Sweeting ran for the police. By the time they arrived Solotski's throat was gashed.

"IN THE KITCHEN of this Alexander St. home, Ann Ukroenz, 25,was found dead today by neighbors.

MOTHER OF the slain girl. Mrs. Annie Solotski, left, with Mrs. Joseph Sweeting, who sent her husband into the Solotski home to investigate the noise of the struggle in the kitchen." - from the Toronto Star. October 29, 1943. Page 2.

[rotzaprachim]

the thing about “secret israeli restaurants” is americans are generally more positive to israelis than arabs so a vague restaurant is more likely to be hiding arab origins than israeli

pretty sure the og tweet poster was Canadian but yeahhhhh I read it and blinked about the antisemitism but I also read it and blinked about the fact that like bro… are you…. are you that fucking unaware about the extent of anti-Arab and anti-middle eastern racism in the us&canada? Are you that fucking obtuse? Oh my god. It literally doesn’t fucking matter what “origins” the restaurants are “hinting at” but I couldn’t fucking process how a white Canadian would think that “people who simply describe themselves/their business establishment as “middle eastern” or “Mediterranean” are inherently sketchy” is in any way a productive idea to have for literally anyone

a) a restaurant/establishment describing themselves as “Mediterranean” or “middle eastern” would be inherently sketchy and suspicious (as loaded as “middle eastern” itself is, “Mediterranean” can often be taken more positively in the west and anglophone/francophone worlds, after all nutritionists have been going on about the “Mediterranean diet) for a while) but also

B) that those people would inherently be (in his opinion) Zionists and/or Israelis

also feel this person has big “have never interacted with middle eastern person in my life” because as much as xenophobia and various other issues pushes people to go for either the “Mediterranean/middle eastern” marker, there’s plenty of other reasons why establishments go for those identifiers like.

1) a lottttt of Mediterranean diaspora families, due to immigration and intermarriage, really are franco-lebanese, or palestinain-Greek, or Ashkenazi Jewish and Algerian, or Moroccan Spaniards, or something like that, (check the Arabs, Jews, and Italians of the greater nyc area lol) and

2) in diasporic situations one (1) grocery store or deli often services OR competes with others for a broader market share, I’ve lived places where I regularly shopped at a Turkish/greek/arab grocery store (Labelled itself “Mediterranean”) and a Persian/armenian/arab grocery store (Labelled itself “middle eastern groceries”) because it would be dishonest to say that these grocery stores are for any one “nationality!” Walk into many a Mediterranean or middle eastern grocery store or deli and you’ll see Turkish products from Germany, maghrebi Jewish products from France, halal versions of jamón and chorizo, and labneh from lebanon next to Greek and Persian yogurt. My favorite local market once had an entire NOT HALAL!!!!! Fridge Labelled in three languages to store the frozen pork products for the Greek and Romanian markets next to the general halal cheese boreks.

I’m not saying this is the case everywhere or like it’s all peachy perfect in diaspora but this just comes across as someone who has a lot of political Ideas about Mediterranean & middle eastern people but haven’t met them in real life. Also it’s a love letter to the diaspora grocery store with 6+ ethnicities inside them and an entire wall of tomato pastes. If there’s one in your city you should patronize them! (Also note the fantastic phenomenon of the “Black Sea” grocery, the mass halal Mart, and the particular greater London “Indian Bangladeshi Sri Lankan Persian Pakistani polish” mart

Also lol gonna have to lol at the “I’m so angry these diaspora Israelis would hide their nationality in order to avoid harassment because I want to boycott and harass them”

[justforbooks]

With her book The Return of Martin Guerre (1983), the historian Natalie Zemon Davis, who has died aged 94, attracted a wide readership and inspired future historians. It came out of working as a historical consultant on a film of the same name released the previous year, starring Gérard Depardieu and Nathalie Baye, and directed by Daniel Vigne.

Martin Guerre, a peasant farmer in the 16th-century Pyrenees, left his wife Bertrande to go on a journey, only to have his marital role usurped by an impostor who “returned” pretending to be him. After some years of cohabitation, Bertrande denounced the impostor, her testimony seemingly confirmed by the return of the real Martin Guerre. The impostor was duly tried and executed.

The film-makers’ questions about period detail and behaviour intrigued Davis. But other aspects of the movie genre troubled her, so she went back to the archives and wrote up her own compact account of 120 pages.

A gripping narrative and a lesson in method, Davis’s book raised questions about the reliability of evidence and the motives and worldviews of peasant men and women from a faraway place and time. It is an example of a microhistory, where historians turn away from the big canvas of kings, queens and battles to understand ordinary lives, often through a highly localised case study.

The Return of Martin Guerre was one of a series of works including Society and Culture in Early Modern France (1975), Fiction in the Archives (1987), Women on the Margins (1995) and The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France (2000). Davis’s trademark was the longer essay or biographical study, often focused on marginal or misunderstood personalities, all spiced with a sharp attention to issues of religion, gender, sex, class, money and power. Historical records for her were never dull: she once described them as “a magic thread that links me to people long since dead and with situations that have crumbled to dust”.

Born in Detroit, Natalie was the daughter of Helen (nee Lamport) and Julian Zemon, a textile trader, both children of east European Jewish immigrants to the US. While studying at Smith College, Massachusetts, at the age of 19 she fell in love with Chandler Davis, a brilliant mathematician and socialist activist; they married in 1948 and went on to have a son and two daughters. Her first degree, from Smith (1949), was followed by a master’s at Radcliffe College (1950).

Her life with Davis was productive and fulfilling but also complicated her early career, as his principled stances against McCarthy-era restrictions on political expression led to both him and her being barred from a number of posts, and from travelling abroad. This she needed to do for her doctorate on 16th-century France.

After finally gaining her PhD at Michigan University in 1959, Davis went on to hold positions at Toronto, moved in 1971 to the University of California, Berkeley, where she was appointed professor, and in 1978 to Princeton, retiring in 1996. She became only the second woman to serve as president of the American Historical Association (1987), and the first to serve as Eastman professor at Oxford (1994). In 2012 she was appointed Companion of the Order of Canada, and in the US was awarded a National Humanities Medal.

Davis helped establish programmes in women’s studies and taught courses on history and film. Her AHA presidential address, History’s Two Bodies (1988), summed up her thinking about gender in history. It was also the first such address to be printed with illustrations. Her book Slaves on Screen (2002) was one of the first in-depth treatments of this topic by a professional historian.

In her last two books, Davis returned to the exploration of mixed identities. Trickster Travels (2006) was about the 16th-century scholar Leo Africanus, whose complicated Jewish and Muslim roots in North Africa she expertly unpicked. Listening to the Languages of the People (2022) focused on the 19th-century scholar Lazare Sainéan, a Romanian-Jewish folklorist and lexicographer who published one of the world’s first serious studies of Yiddish, but had to abandon his Romanian homeland for Paris in 1901.

At the time of her death, Davis was completing a study of slave families in colonial Suriname: it is hoped this will appear under the announced title of Braided Histories. In this way she continued to explore unconventional topics, going against the grain of Eurocentric history and looking instead at the boundaries of identity and belonging in very different settings.

Visiting many universities and research centres in her retirement, Davis encouraged younger scholars by conveying the potential of history to inspire empathy and hope for change. While at my own institution, the University of Amsterdam, in 2016, she made it her main aim to talk to students rather than to other professors. In 2022-23 she presented her latest work in online seminars, and wrote and corresponded actively until shortly before her death from cancer.

Chandler died in 2022. Natalie is survived by her three children, Aaron, Hannah and Simone; four grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and a brother, Stanley.

🔔 Natalie Zemon Davis, historian, born 8 November 1928; died 21 October 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[someonedm]

Please do point that difference out, i literally cannot see it.

Is it the fact that european settlers have settled in northern america for generations, having close and inseperable ties to their homes? Like my friend who's 4 generations in Haifa, or my family who's 3 generations near Ramat Gan?

Is it the fact that due to immigration and slave labour, north america is full of ethnodiversity? Like my friends who are Russian, Ukrainian, Uzbekistan, French, Yemeni, Iraqi, Persian, Polish, Romanian, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Danish, I even have one south korean friend.

Is it the fact that Israel is an apartheid? Like how native americans who live in reservations have no voting rights?

Here are some *actual* differences:

Israeli people do not have anywhere to go to *not only* because they haven't been there for generations and decades, but because those places don't exist anymore for a reason. They've been raided and destroyed. If you think those of us with European roots still have jewish communities in those countries, you must not be able to conceive the Shoa and the pogroms.

There are at least 80 times more Polish Jews in Israel than in Poland. There were more than twice as many polish jews who were murdered in the Shoa than there are polish jews in the world. Their homes, if not completely destroyed then, were seized by the communists. In 2021, the Polish Parliament passed a law that limited the claims of property by jewish polish Holocaust survivors.

Another difference is that if you were to expell all white people from US and Canada, and they *somehow* all found places to live and work and study, they'd be fine. But we fucking wouldn't. Shall the people who lived in Eretz Israel for centruries after the spanish inquisition, go back to spain, the same spain that celebrated the October 7th? Shall french jews who immigrated to Israel only one or two decades ago because of antisemetic violence, return to the people that hate them? Even the safe places hold significant trauma.

For most of us, it was never a choice. For all of us, there is no going back.

btw if you accuse Jews who don't want the total destruction of Israel of "wanting an ethnostate" while also advocating for the mass exodus of Israelis to Europe to create a united Palestinian nation...you support an ethnostate.

[gloryholegalleryto]

Queer Virus | Solo Exhibition by Dee Stoicescu

10 August - 3 September, 2019

Glory Hole Gallery is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of works by artist Dee Stoicescu, Queer Virus: Radical Sick Queer Softness and Romanian Diasporic Identity. Through the use of superimposed and layered imagery of the artists home, the hospital, medical terminology, and Romanian language Stoicescu affirms and asserts their own individualized experience as a queer person living with HIV, and in doing so questions and de-centres the pathologization of HIV/AIDS by society and medical professionals in both the past, and present. About the Artist Dee is a queer emerging artist living in Tkaronto, Ontario. Their photographic work plays with(in) the entanglement of their embodied identities: HIV+, AIDS survivor, chronically sick, mad, gender-fluid, non-binary, and Romanian diasporic subjectivity. Their multi-media practices include collage-making, curating, photography, jewelry-making, and creative writing. The methods featured in the Queer Virus exhibit include sentimental material objects found in/around their familial homes in Canada and Romania, free photo editing software, online translation tools, online searches for microscopic HIV viruses, and playfully phantasmic shadows cast by the setting/rising sun. They hold a Bachelor’s (Hons.) Degree in Women and Gender Studies from York University. Dee is the author and content creator of Viral Tendencies (viraltendencies.wordpress.com), a literary blog dedicated to their intimate experiences as a queer, intersectional feminist living and loving with HIV. Their writing grapples with, overlaps, and contemplates themes of immigration, living at/crossing borders, ‘lost’ ancestral language, reclaimed ‘infectious’ queer sexuality, poverty, and living with anxiety and depression. Dee is also the curator of Ruse Dream Vintage (est. 2012), an online vintage collection featuring finds ranging from the 1930’s to the early 2000’s. Follow Dee on Instagram @viraltendencies and Facebook at Dee Stoicescu This exhibition is made possible by generous funding contributions by Toronto Arts Council.

[singing-planets]

👨‍🚀 The Spaceman in the Space with Lyric 🚀 NEW episode 🌞 Singing Planets 🌞 Solar System 🌍

This is a story about the Spaceman who went into space and visited various planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. He even wanted to visit the Sun, but it was so hot that the Spaceman had to return to Earth. This children's song is written based on the famous English singing game, nursery rhyme, and children's song – "The Farmer in the Dell". It probably originated in Germany and was brought to America by immigrants. From there, it spread to many other nations and is popular in a number of languages. It is Roud Folk Song Index number 6306.

LYRIC:

1 The Spaceman went to Space, The Spaceman went to Space, Heigh-ho, the derry-o! The Spaceman went to Space!

2 The Spaceman in the Space, The Spaceman in the Space, Hi-ho, the derry-o! The Spaceman in the Space!

3 The Spaceman on the Moon, The Spaceman on the Moon, Hi-ho, the derry-o! The Spaceman on the Moon!

4 The Spaceman on the Mercury, The Spaceman on the Mercury, Hi-ho, the derry-o! The Spaceman on the Mercury!

5 The Spaceman on the Venus, The Spaceman on the Venus, Hi-ho, the derry-o! The Spaceman on the Venus!

6 The Spaceman on the Mars, The Spaceman on the Mars, Hi-ho, the derry-o! The Spaceman on the Mars!

7 The Spaceman in the Space, The Spaceman in the Space, Hi-ho, the derry-o! The Spaceman in the Space!

8 The Spaceman on the Jupiter, The Spaceman on the Jupiter, Hi-ho, the derry-o! The Spaceman on the Jupiter!

9 The Spaceman on the Saturn, The Spaceman on the Saturn, Hi-ho, the derry-o! The Spaceman on the Saturn!

10 The Spaceman on the Uranus, The Spaceman on the Uranus, Hi-ho, the derry-o! The Spaceman on the Uranus!

11 The Spaceman on the Neptune, The Spaceman on the Neptune, Hi-ho, the derry-o! The Spaceman on the Neptune!

12 The Spaceman went to Sun, The Spaceman went to Sun, Heigh-ho, the derry-o! The Spaceman went to Sun!

13 The Sun is weary hot! The Sun is weary hot! Heigh-ho, the derry-o! The Spaceman went to home!

One UK variant has "The nurse takes a dog"; it ends by clapping [patting] the dog.

Origin and dissemination.

The rhyme was first recorded in Germany in 1826, as "Es fuhr ein Bau'r ins Holz". It was more clearly a courtship game, with a farmer choosing a wife, then selecting a child, maid, and serving man who leaves the maid after kissing her. This was probably taken to America by German immigrants, where it next surfaced in New York City in 1883, in its modern form and using a melody similar to "A-Hunting We Will Go". From there, it seems to have been adopted throughout the United States, Canada (noted from 1893), the Netherlands (1894), and Great Britain; it is first found in Scotland in 1898 and England from 1909. In the early twentieth century, it was evident in France ("Le fermier dans son pré"), Sweden ("En bonde i vår by"), Australia, and South Africa.

Variations

Like most children's songs, there are geographic variations. In the United Kingdom, the first line is frequently changed to "The Farmer's in his den". The rhyme progresses through the farmer being in the dell or his den, his desire for a wife, hers for a child, its for a nurse, a dog, then a bone, and ending in: "we all pat the bone". Every player then pats the one picked as the bone.  The "Hi-Ho, the derry-o" lyric is variously replaced with, "Ee-i, tiddly-i", in London, "Ee-i, adio", "Ee-i, andio,", "Ee-i, en-gee-oh" or "Ee-i, entio", in Northern England, and "Ee-i, ee-i", in the West Country.

The Romanian language version is "Țăranul e pe câmp" ("The farmer is on the field"), but the "Hey-o" is replaced with "Ura, drăguţa mea" ("Hooray, my sweetheart"), and the last verses are: "the child has a nurse, the nurse has a cat, the cat catches a mouse, the mouse eats a cheese, the cheese is in a cask, the cask is in the garbage, the farmer to choose."

_________________________________________________________________

👶 👦 👧 Dear children and their parents! 👩 👨 👴 👵 Listen, sing, dance and fingerplay funny traditional English language folk songs with Singing Planets on YouTube!  

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwYlUPSZFUMbcSDZw6km3jw?view_as=subscriber?sub_confirmation=1

Follow us! Singing Planets on facebook: https://web.facebook.com/kids.youtube.tv/ Singing Planets on Vk: https://vk.com/kids__tv Singing Planets on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/kids_tv Singing Planets on twitter: https://twitter.com/KidsTV87311154 Singing Planets on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kids_youtube_tv/ Singing Planets on Ok: https://ok.ru/group/54144789905543 Singing Planets on blogger: https://kidstv-1.blogspot.com/ Singing Planets on Google: https://singing-planets.business.site/

© All rights reserved. Singing Planets 🌎

#singingplanets #spaceman #solarsystem

[internationalnewz]

Indians among eight migrants found dead near US-Canada border

Police say the deceased, believed to be two families of Indian and Romanian descent, were trying to cross into the United States from Canada.

TORONTO: Police in Canada have said they recovered the bodies of two more migrants who drowned in the St Lawrence River while attempting to enter the US from Canada illegally, taking the death toll to eight, including members of an Indian family.

The bodies were found on Friday in a marsh on the riverbank near Akwesasne, a community that straddles Quebec, Ontario and New York state.

One other person is still missing.

Police say the deceased, believed to be two families of Indian and Romanian descent, were trying to cross into the United States from Canada. Among them were two children under the age of three, both Canadian citizens.

"Unfortunately, these situations happen. It's not something new," Akwesasne Mohawk Police chief Shawn Dulude said of people trying to cross.

"We've seen it happen in the past, and hopefully as we move forward, it's something we can one day eliminate," the officer was quoted as saying by the Montreal Gazette newspaper.

Akwesasne police are working with Immigration Canada to assist with identifying the victims and notifying the next of kin.

They are also increasing surveillance on the river, it said.

Authorities located the first body in the marsh around 5 p.m. on Thursday during an aerial search conducted at the request of the Canadian Coast Guard.

Throughout the day on Friday, search crews could be seen wading through a marshy area near the local marina with the help of a light airboat. A helicopter also scanned the river. The last two bodies, of a second infant and another woman, were retrieved from the water during the day.

Police recovered two more bodies from the river on Friday, after discovering six bodies and an overturned boat during a missing person search Thursday afternoon, CBC News reported.

They are believed to have been an Indian family and a Romanian family who were attempting to cross into the US, police said, adding, that an Akwesasne resident remains missing.

According to police, there has seen an uptick in human smuggling into the U.S.

Ryan Brissette, a public affairs officer with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, says the agency had seen a "massive uptick in encounters and apprehensions" at the border.

The agency saw more than eight times as many people try to cross from Canada into the U.S. in 2022 compared to previous years, he said.

Many of them — more than 64,000 — came through Quebec or Ontario into New York.

"Comparing this area in the past, this is a significant number," Brissette said.

"There's a lot of different reasons as to why this is happening, why folks are coming all of a sudden through the northern border. I think a lot of them think it's easier, an easy opportunity and they just don't know the danger that it poses, especially in the winter months," the officer said.

Akwesasne police say there have been 48 incidents of people trying to cross illegally into Canada or into the United States through the Mohawk territory since January, and most of them have been of Indian or Romanian descent.

In January 2022, the bodies of four Indians, including a baby, were found frozen in Manitoba near the Canada-US border.

In April 2022, six Indian nationals were rescued from a sinking boat in the St.Regis River, which runs through Akwesasne Mohawk Territory.

In April 2022, six Indian nationals were rescued from a sinking boat in the St Regis River, which runs through Akwesasne Mohawk Territory.

[cserea]

Friends, if you didn't get the chance to see Diana Manole and me reading our poems earlier this week, you can watch the reading on YouTube at https://youtu.be/RmM3ymzT65U. Many thanks to the organizers, Romanian Cultural Institute in New York / ICR New York, Bucharest Inside the Beltway, and Cristina A. Bejan, who created this terrific reading series celebrating women immigrant writers, Romanian Women Voices in North America. To everyone who tuned in to see us, our heartfelt thanks.

[starstuffandalotofcoffee]

The Jewish Cookbook (Leah Koenig) on Pastrami

"And yet, without meat there is no deli - this is particularly true of pastrami (in New York and across America) and smoked meat (in Montreal, Canada, where a smaller, but analogous deli culture emerged at the turn of the 20th century. Both meats have roots in the Ottoman Empire. Turks cured mutton and fish with salt and spices, creating a jerkylike dish called basturma. That technique made its way to the Balkans, where Romanians changed the pronunciation to pastrama and used it to cure geese, beef, and other meats.

When Romanian Jews immigrated to New York City in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they brought pastrama with them. There, in the hands of skilled kosher butchers and deli men, it evolved into the heavily spiced, smoked, and steamed brisket-based pastrami people enjoy layered onto sandwiches today. At some point, pastrami methods also took root in Montreal, but the recipe changed again. Montreal smoked meat is rubbed with salt and spices and dry-cured (unlike pastrami, which is wet-brined), then smoked over hardwood, creating a meat that is certainly kin to pastrami, but also entirely its own thing.

Pastrami and smoked meat and unarguably central to delicatessen cuisine, but they are not traditionally dishes people cooked at home. Brisket, tongue, pot roast, and even corned beef were manageable for home cooks, but pastrami and smoked meat were so time consuming and required such a repertoire of spices and special equipment, people left it to the pros. Everyone else should patronize their local delicatessens as often as possible to help keep these Jewish institutions alive and thriving."

[twistdfirestarter]

BASICS

FULL NAME: ALIN SORIN DALCA

» MEANING: Alin [ Romanian meaning “to soothe.”]; Sorin [ Romanian meaning “sun.”]; Dalca [ Romanian, meaning “uncertain.” ]

NICKNAME: Everyone calls him Alin; he uses his full name for formal documents. When he was little, Alin was called ‘Tiny” because he was short.

AGE: 33 in appearance; 114-years old.

DATE OF BIRTH: 1907 February 4th, Monday.

PLACE OF BIRTH: Centralia, Pennsylvania.

OCCUPATION: Business owner.

RELIGION: Raised Catholic.

ORIENTATION: Pansexual.

GENDER: Cisgender Male.

SPECIES: Vampire.

PERSONALITY

STRENGTHS: Emotional, Uncompromising, Intelligent, Loyal, Quirky.

WEAKNESSES: Coward, Sarcastic, Emotional, Detached, Possessive.

APPEARANCE

FACE CLAIM: Sebastian Stan.

HEIGHT: 6′0″ [i82 cm.]

WEIGHT: 171 lbs. [78 kg.]

BUILD: Athletic.

GAIT: TBA

HAIR COLOR: Dark brown.

EYE COLOR: Blue.

BIRTHMARK: TBA.

OVERVIEW: » SCARS: TBA. » TATTOOS: None.

BACKGROUND

HOMETOWN: Centralia, Pennsylvania;  Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

RESIDENCES: Sanguine, Louisiana; Centralia, Pennsylvania; Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

NATIONALITY: Romanian-American.

ETHNICITY: Caucasian.

FINANCIAL STATUS: Upper-class.

EDUCATION LEVEL: High-school graduate.

DEGREES: None.

SPOKEN LANGUAGES: English, Romanian, some French and Spanish, German and Austrian.

RELATIONSHIPS

PARENTS: Adam and Sorina, both deceased.

SIBLINGS: Two siblings, Aurel and Anca.

CHILDREN: None.

PETS: None.

SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIPS: » TBA.

FAMILY HISTORY: Born on the 4th of February, 1907 in Centralia, Pennsylvania, Dalca Alin or Alin was the eldest son of Adam Dalca and wife Sorina Dalca, both came from families of rich Romanian immigrants that arrived in the state of California back in the  early 1800s. Seeking good life and fortune in America, the Dalcas traveled across the country and settled in Pennsylvania where the clan bought a coal mining companies all throughout. The Dalcas also mined in the town of *Centralia until the coals underground the town burned in the 1960’s throughout the 70’s making the town uninhabitable for humans. The family managed to stay afloat and grew their richest after investing in many businesses including orchards and later on, shares in tech companies.

Alin was sent to an exclusive vampire colony in Canada by *Thomas, son of Alin’s trusted confidant and childhood friend, John. Thomas feared for Alin’s life after his family suspected there was something wrong with the Dalca’s primary heir. 

Alin has two younger siblings, Aurel and Anca. After Alin was turned vampire on his 33rd birthday by a traveling Roma woman he’d meet at his own lavish party. After realizing the changed the encounter brought to him,  Alin tried his best to hide it with the help of his bestfriend John whom he grew up with. Alin who then was living by himself somehow got away with only coming out at night, and excuses after excuses and lies upon lies were sewn by him and his confidant John. 

 After 10 years, Alin’s family and relatives couldn’t be convinced anymore of his true nature, so with John’s help, he traveled to Urani, Romania, where his ancestors are originally from, settling to start a new life. During these years, Alin sent updates to his family, telling them he had married and will soon have a son, a lie he and John formulated together not wanting to lose control over the family business in America. After a little over 30 years, Alin came back to Centralia in Pennsylvania with John and a new born boy, John’s son Thomas. They settled in a huge mansion in the ghost town inhabited by only a few people, passing himself to his family and relatives as his own son. 

Not everyone of course was convinced. Alin lived in Centralia for the next 40 years with John who was aging and Thomas who was being trained to be Alin’s company. Centralia and the surrounding town claimed that since Alin and his companies’ arrival, strange things started to happen. People missing, animal and properties vandalized… And Alin was once again staying away from his relatives, not being able to explain, why, like his ‘father’ before him, he couldn’t explain the youth he possessed. 

His family and relatives suspected that he was the original Alin and that he never died like John had told his clan. They wanted Alin and his friends out of Centralia and they wanted the whole business given back to them. They said that he was no longer the same man they knew. He was the devil and must die. This brought Alin so much pain and anger that he attacked his own brother’s and sister’s grandchildren. Realizing what he had done, he quickly stopped and saved the children’s lives. Alin was then caught by his brother’s eldest child and put a knife in his throat. He survived the attack and fled with Thomas to the west coast. John had by this time died of old age. Thomas who is about 40 years old now, had done his research and found out about Sanguine Society in Vancouver where he placed Alin. Thomas encouraged Alin to take part in the society, and perhaps find his place within the colony in the process. But Alin is stubborn. Although he recognized that the colony is a safe haven for him, he refused to follow its rules. 

Alin caused a lot of troubles during his stay in the colony; burned buildings and made pacts with resident vampires as he grew restless, realizing his suicidal tendencies. The stay in the colony did not work for Alin at all and Thomas became too focused making sure Alin didn’t do anything harmful to himself that the human companion neglected many aspects of their relationships including producing a successor to his title as Alin’s right hand man.

Alin grew erratic and had convinced another vampire to kill him but the plan changed when Thomas disappeared... Alin set to search for his human companion and learned of his friend’s death which brought another wave of erratic behavior from within...

Alin not sure what to do next, wandered around for an answer or even a clue as to what truly happened to his friend Thomas. He hired a private investigator that reported to him his friend was murdered... With this new information, Alin sought to find the people who committed the crime but first, he had to take care of his family whom he was accused of robbing their wealth. Could be they are behind Thomas disappearance and murder?

ROMANTIC HISTORY: Alin had many lovers in the past but he easily got bored of them.

PLATONIC RELATIONSHIPS: Alin had great fondness towards John, his bestfriend whom he grew up with in Centralia and later on became his companion when he turned. John took care of him and loved him in return so much so that he trained his only child to be Alin’s companion after he was gone. Then, there was Thomas who was John’s son, Alin’s second human companion who took great care of him. Like John, Alin had great affection towards Thomas as well and took good care of Thomas until his death... Alin never took another human companion after Thomas passed. Somehow he believed that his friend will come back to him in some shape or form...

THOUGHTS ON LOVE: None.

HEALTH

PHOBIA(S): Living forever alone.

HANDICAP(S): None.

MENTAL DISORDER: Depression, alcoholism.

PHYSICAL DISEASE(S): None.

PREDISPOSITION(S): None that he is aware of.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Hi there! I've learned quite a lot about Greek culture from this blog and honestly some of it has made me re-examine my view on certain issues. Instead of saying this is what things are like I now feel the need to specify that's what they are like in my own country (I'm a Scot) Tumblr is very US centric and I didn't mind because I love American cultures but it is important to realise Western Europe/the US and Canada doesn't always equate to the rest of the world. For example about 95% of Scots are white but since the 1970s and maybe even before we have had immigrants of South Asian, East Asian, Mediterranean, Eastern European and African origin who have since settled and had children and are now just as much a part of Scottish society as those of us whose families were here centuries before. I'm white myself but a lot of the understanding of racial dynamics on this site stem from the US which isn't a bad thing because I like to be informed but had I not seen this blog and spoken to more Greeks or Europeans in general I wouldn't have known about the Pontic and Assyrian genocides (I was aware of the Armenian one.) Thankfully we were taught in schools that oppression was not always based on skin colour, but nationality, religion and ethnicity too. I wouldn't say I had a hard time or felt oppressed in any way but my own country has felt oppression. I've heard nasty slurs used against Irish, Welsh, Polish and Romanian people as much as I have the idiots who use horrible slurs against Pakistanis, Indians and Nigerians. And I'd never actually given much thought about the changing ethnicities of certain deities. I don't normally care if someone racebends a fictional character but I can understand why it might cause confusion doing it to mythological figures who were painted in the way the majority of the culture they came from looked. I strive to tell stories with a diverse cast. I guess it's me understanding that a diverse cast in the US/Britain would be different to what a diverse cast in Greece, Turkey or Italy would look like. As for PJO well, I was never a big fan as I was HP but I always assumed it was good. But not even showcasing Greek people in a Greek story feels weird? Come to think of it I couldn't think of many mainstream Greece set stories that actually have Greek people in them (except the ones from Greece obviously) That's like watching Mel Gibson as William Wallace to me.

I'm sorry for rambling I guess I just feel like I need to rectify my own understanding of the world. I try my best to be just the right ammount of politically correct, I don't stand for bigotry and I always try to show respect to another world view even if it's different from my own upbringing. Thank you for your blog, it can be confusing sometimes to try and understand all complicated parts of history and race but I like learning!

Oooh, a Scot!! *waves excitedly* Haha I don’t mind the rumbling xD I rumble a lot here, too! I hope that I provide a somewhat balanced view of things but if you have any questions don’t hesitate to send me a dm.

I am happy to know how my blog made you think about the diversity in your country and how to best express it - and, at the same time understand other parts of the world outside of the US-centric view.

Most Europeans understand oppression can come from many things (and ofc that doesn't stop us from acknowledging racism and fighting against it). As you noticed there are some conventions about certain things from country to country. And yes, the diversity - and its percentage - may differ depending on the location.

Greece (as all countries xD) also has “native” diversity on its own, with the different “tribes” - one of them being the Pontic/Pontiac Greek people. So those must be taken into account as well if someone wants to showcase the various customs.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“MIKE TKACH HANGED AT TORONTO JAIL,” Kingston Whig-Standard. April 3, 1933. Page 10. ---- Pays Supreme Penalty for Murder of Mrs. Fanny Robulock ---- TORONTO, April 3 - Mike Tkach was hanged at the Toronto jail to-day for the murder last fall of Mrs. Fanney Robulock, New. Toronto. The trap was sprung at 7.59 and Tkach's body cut down at 8.10 a.m.

The woman whom Tkach shot to death on a street in New Toronto, was known as the "Queen" of the foreign colony there. Jealousy was said to have prompted the shooting.

After his conviction Tkach went on a hunger strike and was forcibly fed for several days. He then gave up the "strike' 'and maintained he was ready to die. Efforts to have sentence commuted were unavailing.

[kittybellestark]

Ok, talking about what you said about Sebastian and Romania, I just want to say that I am from Romania, and the situation is not so bad. Maybe it was then, but that was 30+ years ago, things have changed. I know it was hard for him because he was a kid and it was totally different in America. But, I must say, it becomes annoying ... he was not the only child who lived that period, many of them did not go anywhere and have a decent and beautiful life in Romania. Yes, there is a lot of corruption but other than that, is a normal and free country.

Hi, I’m not trying to invalidate Romanians or what Romania is currently like. I just want to push people to educate themselves especially when I see comments like I summarized in the previous post which romanticize the trauma that Sebastian Stan went through. And I’m only speaking about him now because of the interview he gave the other day talking about his experiences with Alexander and about Romania then and now and the discourse that has come from that. (Calling Seb a bad boy because he had to steal as a child, etc)

Yeah, so my points about Sebastian Stan and the interview is more about the reaction to him sharing his trauma. He spoke very openly about the trauma he had from his time in Romania and immigrating, and we see now that he is very very proud of his nationality.

But I still stand to the fact that no one should be romanticizing that trauma because he is famous. I don’t want to discount the experience people have had growing up and living in Romania.

Yes it was 30 years ago, but that’s still fairly recently in the gran scheme of things. Romania is still working through the effects of being under communism which we see in other countries such as Poland (where my grandparents had to leave the country due to similar issues).

In the interview, which I linking in my post, Sebastian and Alexander talk about how there are many people who stayed in Romania and had very happy lives.

So many people have romanticized what he had to go through. And that shouldn’t happen. Doesn’t matter whether his trauma was 30 years ago or not.

I’m in no way trying to say in my previous post that Romania is a poor country, with civil unrest where communism is still happening. But it is important to recognize that the recent history of Romania, and how that affects today.

I’m a second generation Canadian, but because of the trauma’s that my grand parents went through (living through wwii, being in a communist country, being forced onto a boat the make it to Canada to get refuge), my brother and I never learnt Polish traditions, or how to speak Polish. We couldn’t get our EU passports because our grandma wouldn’t get the paper work we needed to try and keep us safe. We’d have people make fun of our last names and my brothers first name (because they aren’t English names), Holocaust jokes were regularly, people have refused to accept service from me at my previous job because I looked to Polish (I’m 22). Obviously I’m not an immigrant, and the Polish experience vs the Romanian experience aren’t then same. But I’ve grown up listening to stories of what it was like to try and fit in and hiding apart of yourself, and being told if I ever traveled to certain places to give a fake last name if I’m asked. But there is trauma that my grandparents have experienced this is going to be similar to Sebastian’s, but if talk about my grandma’s experience people just won’t care bc they don’t have a connection.

And we see Poland (and many other Easter European countries) heading back towards authoritarian governments, which is only being escalated due to covid.

Obviously this isn’t everyone’s experience. I don’t want to say it is, but acknowledging history of other countries and understanding not to romanticize a persons trauma shouldn’t be a difficult thing or something I should have to say.

But yeah basically, romanticizing trauma is horrible. Being fans of Sebastian Stan we shouldn’t invalidate his experiences and his pain because others didn’t have the same experiences. If we’re going to be talking about Sebastians experiences we need to continue to educate ourselves in was happening back then. And we need to understand what is happening now. Eastern European countries aren’t in the greatest place politically. It sucks that people who don’t have a connection to these countries don’t understand what has happened or is currently happening in Romania or Poland or the rest or Eastern Europe. And it’s unfortunate that a lot of people will choose to not make the active decisions to educate themselves if I doesn’t affect them personally or a celebrity they love (in this case Sebastian Stan) lived through it.

My point is we shouldn’t take someone’s trauma and make it into an idea we have of Sebastian or any other celebrity. Everyone should keep an open mind about the immigrant experience and shouldn’t make mindless jokes about what that person went through.

People (specifically America/Canada) often don’t consider Eastern European people’s experience when they’re forced to move away for their safety because there’s a lack of education about it. None of these countries are brought up in history after WWII.

Anyways I hope that makes sense it’s like 2am so my thought process isn’t really all there. I’m sorry if I got things wrong but I just think these are really important things that need to be discussed and people need to educate themselves on and be more sensitive to it. I really don’t mean to invalidate your experiences, I just see that people are invalidating others experiences and that’s not cool. So sorry if I overstepped and got these things wrong

[detective-with-one-arm]

Frontier Verse Headcanons

Yeehaw, it’s Western brainrot time, here we go.

It’s the 1800s, British colonies have settled in Maritime Canada and the Americans have divorced themselves from the British empire.

Before she was even born, Rachel’s parents made the hard trek from their home country to Britain to stow away on a ship to the New World.

Somehow able to get by without much trouble, the family had moved into New Brunswick to become fishers and farmhands, having their own small land.

They were able to make a decent living and live a comfortable life, raising their livestock and catching and selling namely cod.

Rachel was born two years after her family’s successful immigration and had grown up in this life, looking after the animals alongside her older sister and having a rather special connection to them.

Over time, she grew into a strong, independent, and very capable young woman. One who caught the heart of a young Maritime sea trader named Frank.

Their family had been apart of New Brunswick’s lifeblood and life for generations since before the British settled in the colony. Rachel and Frank fell in love and eventually married, seemingly set to have their own child and for their households to merge.

But one fateful night, the unthinkable happened. The British authorities, jealous of and coveting the young woman, murdered her spouse seeing them as a traitor to the colonies by their French heritage.

There was nothing Rachel could do but mourn her late spouse.

Soon after, both of her parents fell ill and they had to sell their property in order to get by.

Rachel and Bianca agreed that they needed to find a new life, so Rachel offered to travel to the Americas by horseback in order to find a new life for themselves while Bianca worked for someone else’s land or ship.

Upon the back of her beloved Canadian Horse, Nightrunner, Rachel traveled inward towards the Great Lakes, searching for a new life for what was left of her family.

Many days and nights were spent, walking from town to down until she reached the Great Lakes.

Until she happened upon Detroit. A city much bigger than she had ever known, but felt strangely familiar. A city of immigrants, just like her.

In Detroit, she came to know the Sheriff named Hank Anderson. The two hit if off very well, but when unsavoury men tried to cause trouble, the man very quickly came to her aid, claiming her to be an adopted daughter due to a recent family tragedy.

Appreciative for his help, Rachel posed as such and began to live with him, taking the name Rachel Anderson so she could work with him.

In time, she became his loyal deputy.

This is what her pistol looks like. She also really knows how to use a whip and a lasso.

She also speaks with a rather unique accent. A strange combination between Maritimes French and American South.

Because of her heritage and her upbringing, she can speak Romanian, French, and English.

[etherealacademia]

Are you romanian?

yeah, my parents immigrated to canada so i was raised in canada but i’m a dual citizen and have worked/lived in romania

[thelanguagecommunity]

“what language should I learn?”

“is it better to learn [x] or [x]?”

“is it worth learning [x]?”

I get this type of question a lot and I see questions like these a lot on language learning forums, but it’s very difficult to answer because ultimately language learning is a highly personal decision. Passion is required to motivate your studies, and if you aren’t in love with your language it will be very hard to put in the time you need. Thus, no language is objectively better or worse, it all comes down to factors in your life. So, I’ve put together a guide to assist your with the kind of factors you can consider when choosing a language for study.

First, address you language-learning priorities.

Think of the reasons why are you interested in learning a new language. Try to really articulate what draws you to languages. Keeping these reasons in mind as you begin study will help keep you focused and motivated. Here are some suggestions to help you get started, complete with wikipedia links so you can learn more:

Linguistic curiosity?

For this, I recommend looking into dead, literary or constructed languages. There are lots of cool linguistic experiments and reconstructions going on and active communities that work on them! Here’s a brief list:

Dead languages:

Akkadian

Egyptian (Ancient Egyptian)

Gaulish

Gothic

Hittite

Old Prussian

Sumerian

Older iterations of modern day languages:

Classical Armenian

Classical Nahuatl (language of the Aztec Empire)

Early Modern English (Shakespearean English)

Galician-Portuguese

Middle English (Chaucer English)

Middle Persian/Pahlavi

Old English

Old French

Old Spanish

Old Tagalog (+ Baybayin)

Ottoman Turkish

Constructed:

Anglish (experiment to create a purely Anglo-Saxon English)

Esperanto

Interlingua

Láadan (a “feminist language”)

Lingua Franca Nova

Lingwa de Planeta

Lobjan

Toki Pona (a minimalist language)

Wenedyk (what if the Romans had occupied Poland?)

Cultural interests?

Maybe you just want to connect to another culture. A language is often the portal to a culture and are great for broadening your horizons! The world is full of rich cultures; learning the language helps you navigate a culture and appreciate it more fully.

Here are some popular languages and what they are “famous for”:

Cantonese: film

French: culinary arts, film, literature, music, philosophy, tv programs, a prestige language for a long time so lots of historical media, spoken in many countries (especially in Africa)

German: film, literature, philosophy, tv programs, spoken in several Central European countries

Italian: architecture, art history, catholicism (Vatican city!), culinary arts, design, fashion, film, music, opera

Mandarin: culinary arts, literature, music, poetry, tv programs

Japanese: anime, culinary arts, film, manga, music, video games, the longtime isolation of the country has developed a culture that many find interesting, a comparatively large internet presence

Korean: tv dramas, music, film

Portuguese: film, internet culture, music, poetry

Russian: literature, philosophy, spoken in the Eastern Bloc or former-Soviet countries, internet culture

Spanish: film, literature, music, spoken in many countries in the Americas

Swedish: music, tv, film, sometimes thought of as a “buy one, get two free” deal along with Norwegian & Danish

Religious & liturgical languages:

Avestan (Zoroastrianism)

Biblical Hebrew (language of the Tanakh, Old Testament)

Church Slavonic (Eastern Orthodox churches)

Classical Arabic (Islam)

Coptic (Coptic Orthodox Church)

Ecclesiastical Latin (Catholic Church)

Ge’ez (Ethiopian Orthodox Church)

Iyaric (Rastafari movement)

Koine Greek (language of the New Testament)

Mishnaic Hebrew (language of the Talmud)

Pali (language of some Hindu texts and Theravada Buddhism)

Sanskrit (Hinduism)

Syriac (Syriac Orthodox Church, Maronite Church, Church of the East)

Reconnecting with family?

If your immediate family speaks a language that you don’t or if you are a heritage speaker that has been disconnected, then the choice is obvious! If not, you might have to do some family tree digging, and maybe you might find something that makes you feel more connected to your family. Maybe you come from an immigrant community that has an associated immigration or contact language! Or maybe there is a branch of the family that speaks/spoke another language entirely.

Immigrant & Diaspora languages:

Arbëresh (Albanians in Italy)

Arvanitika (Albanians in Greece)

Brazilian German

Canadian Gaelic (Scottish Gaelic in Canada)

Canadian Ukrainian (Ukrainians in Canada)

Caribbean Hindustani (Indian communities in the Caribbean)

Chipilo Venetian (Venetians in Mexico)

Griko (Greeks in Italy)

Hutterite German (German spoken by Hutterite settlers of Canada/US)

Fiji Hindi (Indians in Fiji)

Louisiana French (Cajuns) 

Patagonian Welsh (Welsh in Argentina)

Pennsylvania Dutch (High German spoken by early settlers of Canada/ the US)

Plaudietsch (German spoken by Mennonites)

Talian (Venetian in Brazilian)

Texas Silesian (Poles in the US)

Click here for a list of languages of the African diaspora (there are too many for this post!). 

If you are Jewish, maybe look into the language of your particular diaspora community ( * indicates the language is extinct or moribund - no native speakers or only elderly speakers):

Bukhori (Bukharan Jews)

Hebrew

Italkian (Italian Jews) *

Judeo-Arabic (MENA Jews)

Judeo-Aramaic

Judeo-Malayalam *

Judeo-Marathi

Judeo-Persian

Juhuri (Jews of the Caucasus)

Karaim (Crimean Karaites) *

Kivruli (Georgian Jews)

Krymchak (Krymchaks) *

Ladino (Sephardi)

Lusitanic (Portuguese Jews) *

Shuadit (French Jewish Occitan) *

Yevanic (Romaniotes)*

Yiddish (Ashkenazi)

Finding a job?

Try looking around for what languages are in demand in your field. Most often, competency in a relevant makes you very competitive for positions. English is in demand pretty much anywhere. Here are some other suggestions based on industry (from what I know!):

Business (General): Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Korean, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish

Design: Italian (especially furniture)

Economics: Arabic, German

Education: French, Spanish

Energy: Arabic, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish

Engineering: German, Russian

Finance & Investment: French, Cantonese, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish

International Orgs. & Diplomacy (NATO, UN, etc.): Arabic, French, Mandarin, Persian, Russian, Spanish

Medicine: German, Latin, Sign Languages, Spanish

Military: Arabic, Dari, French, Indonesian, Korean, Kurdish, Mandarin, Pashto, Persian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu

Programming: German, Japanese

Sales & Marketing: French, German, Japanese, Portuguese

Service (General): French, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Sign Languages, Spanish

Scientific Research (General): German, Japanese, Russian

Tourism: French, Japanese, Mandarin, Sign Languages, Spanish

Translation: Arabic, Russian, Sign Languages

Other special interests?

Learning a language just because is a perfectly valid reason as well! Maybe you are really into a piece of media that has it’s own conlang! 

Fictional:

Atlantean (Atlantis: The Lost Empire)

Dothraki (Game of Thrones)

Elvish (Lord of the Rings)

Gallifreyan (Doctor Who)

High Valyrian (Game of Thrones)

Klingon (Star Trek)

Nadsat (A Clockwork Orange)

Na’vi (Avatar)

Newspeak (1984)

Trigedasleng (The 100)

Vulcan (Star Trek)

Or if you just like to learn languages, take a look maybe at languages that have lots of speakers but not usually popular among the language-learning community:

Arabic

Bengali

Cantonese

Hindi

Javanese

Hausa

Indonesian

Malay

Pashto

Persian

Polish

Punjabi

Swahili

Tamil

Telugu

Thai

Turkish

Urdu

Vietnamese

Yoruba

If you have still are having trouble, consider the following:

What languages do you already speak?

How many and which languages you already speak will have a huge impact on the ease of learning. 

If you are shy about speaking with natives, you might want to look at languages with similar consonant/vowel sounds. Similarity between languages’ grammars and vocabularies can also help speed up the process. Several families are famous for this such as the Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Romanian), North Germanic languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish) or East Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian). If you are a native English speaker, check out the FSI’s ranking of language difficulty for the approximate amount of hours you’ll need to put into different languages.

You could also take a look at languages’ writing systems to make things easier or for an added challenge.

Another thing to remember is that the languages you already speak will have a huge impact on what resources are available to you. This is especially true with minority languages, as resources are more frequently published in the dominant language of that area. For example, most Ainu resources are in Japanese, most Nheengatu resources are in Portuguese, and most Nahuatl resources are in Spanish.

What are your life circumstances?

Where you live with influence you language studies too! Local universities will often offer resources (or you could even enroll in classes) for specific languages, usually the “big” ones and a few region-specific languages.

Also consider if what communities area near you. Is there a vibrant Deaf community near you that offers classes? Is there a Vietnamese neighborhood you regularly interact with? Sometimes all it takes is someone to understand you in your own language to make your day! Consider what languages you could realistically use in your own day-to-day. If you don’t know where to start, try checking to see if there are any language/cultural meetups in your town!

How much time can you realistically put into your studies? Do you have a fluency goal you want to meet? If you are pressed for time, consider picking up a language similar to ones you already know or maintaining your other languages rather than taking on a new one.

Please remember when choosing a language for study to always respect the feelings and opinions of native speakers/communities, particularly with endangered or minoritized languages. Language is often closely tied to identity, and some communities are “closed” to outsiders. A notable examples are Hopi, several Romani languages, many Aboriginal Australian languages and some Jewish languages. If you are considering a minoritized language, please closely examine your motivations for doing so, as well as do a little research into what is the community consensus on outsiders learning the language.