Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2018

The Current Transcript for June 18, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: And they were saying things like there's no evidence that this ever happened, Jefferson would never be involved with a slave girl and I sort of wondered you know why was it so important for people to so vociferously deny that this was possible.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: It's been framed as an improbable compelling love story, much denied and later painstakingly documented. The relationship between Thomas Jefferson who would become the third president of the United States and Sally Hemings, one of his slaves. She would give birth to six children, fathered by him, but of course she was owned by him. So what was that relationship? The unveiling of new rooms for public display this weekend at Jefferson's famed Monticello resort in Virginia opened a new window for discussion. Her room, by the way, was windowless. And in the story of her life, Americans are confronted by the contradictions of what a history of slavery in the U.S. has really meant. We're on those uncomfortable truths, in half an hour. Also today, he was a young boy in a Shanghai orphanage at the time of the Second World War, when a man named Adler fleeing the Nazis arrived and taught him the violin. That boy was later a founding member of China's National Symphony Orchestra and his teacher:

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The name Adler has been in the back of my mind for many years. Without Mr. Adler, my father wouldn't become the kind of professional musician as he is.

AMT: All these decades later, the CBC's Sharon Wu joins the musician's Canadian son in search for the elusive Mr. Adler. You won't want to miss this story, it's in an hour. But we're starting with questions over the long wait times and legal limbo of LGBTQ individuals hoping to receive refugee status in Canada.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Who wants to live in somewhere where every day you get up you have to be wondering who's going to kick down your door, if police is going to come and arrest you or if someone's going to burn you alive.

AMT: I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Helping refugees becoming a 'popularity contest,' says

Guests: Leila, Kimahli Powell, Janet Dench

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We've seen in the last couple of years the number of LGBTQ refugees, particularly from countries like Iran where they face extreme persecution drop, actually the number is by eighty five percent, so we feel that the LGBTQ community are some of the most persecuted people in the world and in need of Canada's protection and we'd like to see that protection increase.

AMT: That is Michelle Rempel, the Conservative immigration critic, calling out the governing Liberals last week for not supporting her motion on LGBTQ refugees. It was the Conservatives who first established the Rainbow Refugee Assistance Pilot Project and the Liberals extended its funding for two more years. But Ms. Rempel wants the Government to extend the program permanently and increase the number of refugees admitted to Canada from this group. With the number of refugees worldwide at the highest level since the end of the Second World War, we're asking how best to decide who to admit and how politics can come to bear on those life and death decisions. Our first guest is a gay Iranian refugee, currently awaiting resettlement. She was granted refugee status by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in 2016. Since then, she has been told that Canada is not able to take any more cases. For her own safety we've agreed not to use her real name, we are calling her "Leila" and we have reached her in southwest Turkey. Hello.

LEILA: Hello. How are you?

AMT: I'm curious to know why did you decide you had to leave Iran?

LE: Unfortunately because of the rules in Iran, that LGBT have no rights in Iran and they are you know, easy way I have to say, we are perverts, that we lose our way and we are not, you know, able to have a family or living in a family. We have to be straight in Iran and rules, Islamic rules in Iran, do not allow us to live in the way that we're feeling, you know.

AMT: What was your family's reaction in Iran when you told them you were a lesbian?

LE: They start to take me to psychologist and you know by the rules, psychologists in Iran cannot tell you that you are gay or lesbian. You know in Iran you have to be a man or a woman and straight and married to another one. So you can ruin your life and the other people life.

AMT: Even your family would not accept you, you're telling me?

LE: You know, even if they want to accept me, they can't because there is a problem here. You know I'm living in a country that is not acceptable. So if they want to accept me, how they can react to you know, how can they do that. You know, they have a girl that she doesn't get married. And this is not something acceptable in my country.

AMT: What would have happened to you if you stayed?

LE: The other people understand my situation in Iran. And the thing is they start to you know bother my family and my how can I say that, they started to push my family. They started to say if you cannot do something about your you know girl, we can do for you. And then it get to this point, you know this is not just about family anymore, it's about your society, it's about your government, it's about your police, it's about everything. You know, we have a society that we cannot live like that. If you live, even if you wanted to run away and go to another city, a woman live with another woman, it means not friendship. It means you have a home for, I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I have to say that, it's like your prostitution, they call you that.

AMT: So in 2016, the UNHCR said you did qualify for refugee status. What were the next steps you took to try to find a country to take you?

LE: That moment they said you have to wait till we call you for resettlement in a country. When they called us they said unfortunately there is no open country for you, but we can put your case, your documents, for America to see what's going to happen. But the problem was that I asked them what is that supposed to mean. They said there is no country who would accept you because America had you know, situation with Iranian people as stuff that happened during those years. So they said as a Canada we cannot tell you can go or not. You have to wait.

AMT: So your understanding is that you're on a list to come to Canada, but you don't know when you can come here.

LE: Yes sure. They said there is no exact day or exactly even a year when you can go to Canada.

AMT: So you are waiting indefinitely in Turkey, you don't know.

LE: No yeah, actually we don't know anything. You know the painful thing is we don't know nothing. You know we just need even if there is a possibility, just tell us. OK this is the exact answer. You have to stay five years more. You know if we know this is the five years, we actually started living like five years, but we living like every day. I think everyone's feel it before. When you wait for a friend in a street, after ten minutes you get you know, frustrated, you get an anxiety. Do you want to go or you have to stay? What do you have to do? And then getting as a two years to stay in a street for someone.

AMT: Leila, what do you want the Canadian government to understand about LGBTQ refugees such as yourself?

LE: The thing is, we are not that much. You know, we want to live our life. We can do good. We are not, I don't know how to say that, just so sad. When you ask that, it's just so sad. Just help us. It wasn't our choice.

AMT: Leila, thank you for talking to me today.

LE: Thank you.

AMT: Well we can't use her real name, we are calling her "Leila." She's an Iranian refugee waiting resettlement and we reached her in southwest Turkey. Kimahli Powell knows all about the difficulties faced by LGBTQ refugees. He is the executive director of Rainbow Railroad, an organization helping LGBTQ people escape violence and persecution. He's in our Toronto studio. Hi.

KIMAHLI POWELL: Good morning.

AMT: How unique is her story?

KP: Unfortunately, it's not incredibly unique. We hear cases like Leila's all the time. What's rare is that she's a woman that was able to resettle. Sometimes, women are not even able to flee their own country persecution. And so, what we see Leila's case is an example of individuals facing persecution in countries like Iran having to flee to countries like Turkey, but also facing persecution there. That's why the system is not necessarily designed for members of the LGBTQ community and why Rainbow Railroad exists.

AMT: And is there data on the numbers of LGBTQ claimants and refugees in Canada?

KP: There's no fixed numbers around the world, mainly because there's not enough safe conditions for individuals to self identify, whether it's in their country persecution or even here in Canada.

AMT: And so, but how many people have contacted your organization this year for example?

KP: This year we've had over 600 requests. In 2017, over twelve hundred.

AMT: These are people outside the country trying to get in?

KP: That's correct.

AMT: The government defeated a Conservative motion last week that would have provided permanent funding for the LGBTQ refugee program. That's the Rainbow Refugee Assistance Pilot Program, which is a Vancouver I think, it's not your program. Am I right?

KP: That's right. So the Rainbow Refugee Assistance Program was a program with the government and civil society, started with the Rainbow Refugee Society in Vancouver, but there are communities across the country that are settling LGBTQI refugees including Capital Rainbow Refuge in Ottawa, Rainbow Refugee in Nova Scotia and the Metropolitan Community Church in Toronto. Rainbow Railroad got involved in 2015-2016 where we helped five gay Syrians come to the country and we are continuing with that program because it's a really good complementary pathway. We focus on emergency protection with people facing immediate conditions. We've helped relocate over 400 people since we started, but this is a good program designed to help communities across the country resettle LGBTQI people in Canada.

AMT: So you're surprised the government defeated that motion?

KP: I'm not surprised. I think there's, we've been advocating certainly for the program to be permanent, the current government has been extending it and it's time for it to become permanent. We've had good conversations and there are certainly a number of conversations we're having. And so timing-wise, we're not sure when, we want to make sure that when the program is permanent that it's a program that will last.

AMT: The original Harper government program was specific to LGBTQ refugees from Iran and Ms. Rempel's motion, made specific reference to Ira, but as that went forward were there claimants from elsewhere as well, using that program, that was brought in.

KP: Yes absolutely. The biggest advantage of the rap is that it allows us to help locate individuals from a variety of very dangerous spots. We are currently concerned for example with Ugandans who have fled to camps in Kenya like Nairobi, Kakuma, who are facing really grave situations there. And so this program allows us, allows communities across the country to help identify individuals and help relocate them to Canada.

AMT: Now we did reach out to the federal government and received a statement from the Office of the Minister of Immigration Refugees and Citizenship on this issue and it reads in part and I'm quoting here, "We recognise that members of the LGBTQ community are amongst the most vulnerable in the world. As Ms. Rempel knows, we continue to work with the Rainbow Refugee society and LGBTQ stakeholders to increase the resettlement of refugees in Canada and to develop a longer term strategy to support the resettlement of this vulnerable group. Consultations for this long term strategy will take place this summer and will involve Minister Hussen" and that's the end of the quote. Are you confident that the government is actually looking for solutions? Are they reaching out?

KP: We're hopeful. We have reached, we have had conversations and consultations with Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada and Minister Hussen's staff. We want the government to work a little faster than they currently are working. What's evident is that civil society has a role to play. LGBTQI groups across the country have expertise in helping identify these individuals we receive, these requests on an ongoing basis. And so what Ms. Rempel's accurate is that, the government's program needs to be robust, it needs to move quickly and because the members, this is a very vulnerable population. And so we're hopeful that the consultations will bore real constructive policies that will last.

AMT: Are there people who have felt that they were encouraged to leave their home countries because Canada was open to them, who are now in limbo?

KP: Certainly, I think Canada has been taking a leadership role on LGBTQI rights and I think when there's stories of programs like the RAP or where individuals hear about the work Rainbow Railroads able to do, helping emergency situations, people get hopeful. That's certainly why we've seen a spike in requests once you hear about the work you do, you want to reach out. We do need to make sure that our policies and our response matches our rhetoric. And so while it's great that Canada is promoting itself as a leader, we need to make sure that their program is designed to back it up.

AMT: OK. Kimahli Powell, thank you for coming in.

KP: Thanks for having me.

AMT: Kimahli Powell is the executive director of Rainbow Railroad. He's with me in our Toronto studio. Janet Dench is listening in. She's wary of the singling out of individual groups, when it comes to those claiming refugee status. She's the executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees and she joins us from Montreal. Hello.

JANET DENCH: Morning.

AMT: Do you have any concerns about the current rate of LGBTQ refugees being resettled in Canada?

JD: Well I think we have a concern about the low number of refugees being resettled, particularly by the government. I think that Canadians heard from the Liberals when they were elected that they were going to be more open to refugees and we certainly saw a large number come with the Syrian response, which was great, but after that the government reverted to a government assisted level of 7500 refugees resettled by the government, which was what we had before the Liberals came in. So that is very disappointing. We're calling, many other groups are calling for the Canadian government to resettle 20,000 a year. And if Canada was to resettle 20,000 there would be a much better chance for the UNHCR to be able to tell women like your guest Leila, that yes they could be referred to Canada because there would be more spaces available in Canada for refugees, LGBT and other to be resettled to Canada.

AMT: So since the Liberals came to power in October of 2015, Canada has opened its doors to Syrian refugees. How has that affected the other refugees waiting to come to Canada?

JD: Well there was a large focus on the Syrian refugees for a while and that did mean that other refugees, notably refugees in Africa, many of whom have been waiting for a very, very long time that they waited even longer. Right now, the government's focus is on clearing the backlog of private sponsorship applications. So that's the part of the Refugee Resettlement Program, which allows Canadians to respond and I think this is a great aspect of the Canadian program and it's what means that Canadians who want to respond to LGBT refugees for example, if that's their particular concern and it's a very important one, because these are among the most vulnerable refugees and can be in situations of asylum where they continue to be extremely at risk. So it's a priority population. So there is an attempt by the government to clear the backlog. But in the meantime they are still putting in a lot of blocks to private sponsorship so that even if there are groups in Canada that want to respond, there's a lot of hurdles to jump through and that makes it also more difficult to respond.

AMT: I'm looking at some statistics here last year the International Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans and Intersex Association found that 72 countries and territories worldwide, criminalize same sex relationships. Should Canada be waiting for private sponsorship or should Canada be acting more proactively for that specific vulnerable group?

JD: Our concern is for Canada to be open to all refugees who are at risk and not to be kind of creating special categories of who we are responding to. So refugees that are resettled by the government are referred by the UNHCR and for the UNHCR to be as effective as it can be in responding to those most vulnerable, they need countries of resettlement like Canada, to not be giving specific requests, kind of a menu of what they want, but rather to be saying, send us whoever is most vulnerable. And so unfortunately, a lot of countries like Canada have tended to get into micromanaging it and say oh well we want more of this or we want this group or we, you know, this particular category is popular with us so please send us more of these and that means it makes it much more difficult for the UNHCR. The UNHCR has to go around looking for people to fill the order of the countries like that, but it also means that other refugees who maybe don't particularly meet that kind of category or don't have advocates in countries of resettlement, to bring to the light their situation that those refugees may be neglected.

AMT: Are you saying that governments and politicians are politicising the list?

JD: We've seen a distinct politicization of refugee resettlement. Ten years ago, 15 years ago, the refugees that were going to be resettled that was something that the civil servants did consultation with. They looked at that, they consulted with the UNHCR. It wasn't something that was decided at a ministerial level and it wasn't something that was being debated in the House of Commons and in the last few years we've seen a shift in that direction and that's very worrying to us when you see a minister say, well this group, no I don't want this group. Another group, yes I'll say yes, they should be a priority. That's a very dangerous situation to get into.

AMT: Spell it out for me, why is that so dangerous?

JD: Because it makes refugees then you know, it becomes like a popularity contest or it's you know do you have advocates in Canada who can organize to get a meeting with the minister? It also leads to discrimination, if you have certain groups that are more popular based on their religion and that's what we've seen for example in the focus on religious minorities, where in many cases for certain groups the people that might be most at risk could be could be Muslim, but because that was not the preferred group that they might be left aside.

AMT: Janet Dench, thank you for your thoughts today.

JD: Thank you very much.

AMT: Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees. She joined us from Montreal. Let us know what you think about what our guests had to say. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. And stay with us because after the news, bringing an important part of the U.S. presidential history out into the open. Thomas Jefferson's Monticello estate finally acknowledges a slave who gave birth to six of his children. We're talking about Sally Hemings and how Americans think about race in our next half hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

What Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings had was not a 'love affair,' new Monticello exhibit reveals

Guest: Gayle Jessup White, Carol Anderson

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, a group of orphans in Shanghai, China, went on to become the backbone of China's National Symphony Orchestra, thanks in large part to one man. His name was Ferdinand Adler, an Austrian Jew who had at Jew who escaped from Dachau. But how did he end up in Shanghai teaching music to orphans and what became of him. That story is coming up in half an hour, when we bring you Sharon Woo's documentary, "Finding Mr. Adler." But first opening the doors of an historical estate to her story too.

SOUNDCLIP

Sounds from gathering at the Monticello plantation.

Well, this was a big weekend at the Monticello plantation outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. The estate of the former U.S. president Thomas Jefferson hosted a large gathering for a group of people with a close and complicated relationship to the place. It was a gathering for descendants of the men, women and children who once toiled in bondage for a founding father of the United States.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I'm David Fisher. I'm from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. I'm 26.

VOICE 2: I'm Zach Fisher. I'm 25, also from Pittsburgh. We are six generation descendants from Jefferson and Sally Hemings through their son Madison Hemings. It's beautiful honestly, it's very personal I gotta say, seeing our relatives and the family in there, it's very interesting.

VOICE 1: It just shows how far we've come. I remember coming here and there were just, I think they were bathrooms before, they were just. They didn't know what they were and now it's something important, it's something special. It creates an intimate experience where you can actually catch a glimpse of what life may have been like back then.

VOICE 2: I almost cried yesterday just watching all the pictures and the frames on the walls on there, the new exhibits. I was like wow it's really, not that it's sad, it's very heartwarming and tear-jerking you know, it's very intimate and personal.

VOICE 1: And it's great to see the kids who are growing up here and coming and how already knowing their history, knowing that so many of these people here were laughed at when they were children or couldn't speak about it.

VOICE 2: Even my mom, as a kid for herself, she told her classmates oh I'm a descendant from Jefferson and Hemings. They all laughed at her and said no way, you're black, you're anybody, you're nothing. Look at us now like we have all this heritage right here in Virginia. You know.

VOICE 3: My name is Calvin Jefferson and I'm living down in Fluvanna County down near Monticello.

VOICE 4: I'm J.C. Jefferson Jr. I live in Washington D.C.

VOICE 3: We are descendants from three Monticello families: the Hemings family, the Granger family and the third family is Evans. I like the exhibits. I think what Monticello has done is put together the truth and it's telling the truth from a slave person's point of view.

VOICE 4: We're really dealing with the contradictions and the complicity of how America was founded. What I hope is that more Americans will come here and not just see as Mr. Blumenstein said today, not just thinking about this being the back of a nickel, right. But think about this as being a part of American legacy that was complicated and these stories that are coming out through the new exhibits, adds to the complexity of America.

AMT: Well, there you go, some visitors to Monticello this past weekend. There was a special gathering held for descendants of slaves of the U.S. founding father, Thomas Jefferson. Of course, the name of one former Monticello slave is known above all others in the world today, Sally Hemings. She gave birth to six children fathered by Thomas Jefferson. Many of the descendants were on hand this past weekend and they were there to see the Monticello estate finally acknowledges Sally Hemings and her place in history with the unveiling of a new exhibit exhibit called, "The Life of Sally Hemings." Gayle Jessup White has a strong bond to Monticello. She is a descendant of Thomas Jefferson. She is also related to the Hemings family. She is Monticello's Community Engagement Officer and Gayle Jessup White is in Richmond, Virginia today. Hi.

GAYLE JESSUP WHITE: Good morning. How are you Anna Maria?

AMT: Did you have a great weekend there with this exhibit opening?

GJW: I had one of the best weekends of my life. It was significant on so many levels, not only because I work at Monticello and it's a huge achievement for us, moving the foundation in a different direction, in a more inclusive direction, but we were also talking about my ancestors, my family. And it was a gathering of my family, 300 of us were there, 300 strong. And it was, my son was there, my nieces, my brother and so many cousins including the voices you just heard. They were also my cousins. So it was really an extraordinary weekend.

AMT: The restoration of Sally Hemings bedroom is part of this exhibit. Let's start there, what's that room look like?

GJW: So the room, as our curators have interpreted it, is not typical. It's not a re-creation of that period. It is in fact, a space that's almost empty. When you walk in that room, you walk in a dark, dank, small space. Windowless space. And what you'll see projected on the wall as you walk in, are the words of Sally Hemings' son Madison. You just heard Madison's descendants. And he describes his mother and his father and what his life was like and what it was like for his siblings on the plantation. And then you also see projected on the screen or on the wall I should say, images, animated images that we hope convey a feeling about Sally Hemings, about who she was. And then you also have a mannequin in the other corner, that also has on it projected images of who she was as a woman. And that is what we want people to understand as they see this new exhibit, that Sally Hemings wasn't just an appendage of Thomas Jefferson or a name that many people have known throughout history as scandalized. But she was in fact, a mother and a sister and a caregiver and a daughter and a seamstress and a world traveler. Excuse me I've been talking a lot. And she was also inherited property. It's important to remember that as well.

AMT: She inherited property.

GJW: No, no, no, no. She was inherited property.

AMT: She was inherited. She was inherited. That's right. In fact, she was a child, an infant really, when she was transferred to the Jefferson Plantation as a slave. Was she not?

GJW: She was. Her mother was Elizabeth Hemings and owned by Thomas Jefferson's father-in-law.

AMT: And that brings us to and I know there's more to the exhibit that goes beyond her room, but here is this woman who had six children fathered by the man who becomes the president of the United States and her room, you describe as dark, dank, small, no window.

GJW: That's right.

AMT: That's a reminder that she was owned by him.

GJW: Well she was enslaved. And the children she had with him were enslaved until they were 21-years-old. That is also part of the explanation of the exhibit, a part of Madison's memoir, the words you'll see on projected on the wall. In fact, when Sally Hemings accompanied Thomas Jefferson's youngest daughter Mariah to Paris when he was ambassador there and that's when their connection began. And Thomas Jefferson wanted Sally Hemings to come back to Virginia with him and she was free in Europe and Paris, France. And so she demurred, according to her son. However, she negotiated, Sally Hemings negotiated with one of the most influential men of his time, in order to work out a bargain with him, where she would return to the States. One of the terms of that agreement was that their children would be free, upon the age of 21. And that's exactly what happened. They had six children, four of whom survived into adulthood and they were all freed. Two were allowed to walk away from the plantation, two were free to his will.

AMT: And so when you speak to African-Americans and other Americans, but African-Americans let's talk about that right now, about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, what do they say when you fill in some more of the blanks of that story? How is it perceived?

GJW: Well what they say is I didn't know. I didn't know that part. I didn't know that about her. I didn't know that his first wife was her half-sister. And they say, after having seen this exhibit, we had some people come to look at it for a preview and their response was stunning, courageous, informative, thank you. Thank you for telling us the truth. We got those blanks filled in.

AMT: What are the misconceptions that you've been trying to clear up as well?

GJW: Well, one of the misconceptions is and I'll speak as a descendant now, is that Sally Hemings, what their connection was. We're not clear on what their connection was. Some people think it was a love relationship, some descendants believe it was. Many people believe because there was this huge power imbalance that she was raped. So what we want people to have are the facts, as we know them, as much as we know. And the facts are based on her son's memoir, which were given to a newspaper reporter in 1873. He was a free man of course, living at this point, living in Ohio. And the facts were this, as I said earlier, she negotiated with one of the most influential men of his era, special privileges for herself, freedom for her children and at the end of his life, she was given her time. She was not freed, but she was given her time, which means that she was allowed to live as a free woman. So it's important for people to know that for a brief period in time Sally Hemings had her own agency, for a brief period of time. She decided the fate of her children. And that gave her children a leg up so to speak to use today's contemporary language on other enslaved people. They were freed years before the Great War ,the great civil war that freed 4 million enslaved people. So their family had a head start. She did that and it's really important for people to understand who she was.

AMT: Before I let you go, I have to ask you, when you walk around Monticello, do you feel the presence of your ancestors?

GJW: I feel the presence of my ancestors every moment I'm there. I'm related to Thomas Jefferson through one of his great great grandsons. I'm related to Sally Hemings through her brother. Her brother Peter was my great great great grandfather. I'm also related to a lesser known enslaved family, they're called the Hubbert's. So my ancestors really dominated that space. That was their space. That was their home. Sure they were held captive there, but they did the best they could under those constrained circumstances and made a home for themselves and for their children. So when I'm there, I feel their presence all the time and I have to tell you, this weekend I felt their joy. They were happy.

AMT: It's good to talk to you Gayle. Thank you.

GJW: Thank you so much.

AMT: Bye-bye.

GJW: Bye-bye now.

AMT: That is Gayle Jessup White. She's a descendant, as you just heard, of Thomas Jefferson and the Hemings family. She is Monticello's Community Engagement Officer and she joined us from Richmond, Virginia. While the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings has been an important part of U.S. history, but it's also often been surrounded by myth, some of which you just heard. We've reached Carol Anderson to talk a little bit more about whether this new exhibit gets closer to the reality. Carol Anderson is a professor of African American Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She's also the author of "White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide." And she joins us from Atlanta. Hello.

CAROL ANDERSON: Hello, Anna Maria. How are you?

AMT: I'm well, thank you and I'm just wondering how you are. How are you processing what happened at Monticello this weekend?

CA: I see it as a major step forward, not just the acknowledgement of Sally Hemings, but the transformation of the space, the public history. And that is because so much of what we know as a society about our history comes through these public spaces. And America has for too long been, I would say trapped, in these very heroic narratives that erase slavery, erase the enslaved and has this nation being built by these strong men, strong white men. And that becomes the alpha and the omega of what people know as this nation's history and it is so far from the truth. And so what Monticello did was to begin to resurrect that truth.

AMT: And so this idea that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings' relationship was a love story, has had staying power in appeal, how do you see it?

CA: I see that as part of the kind of necessary balm that people used to explain away the myth of Thomas Jefferson. So here you have, how do I get to this, is that to have a man who is one of the nation's founding fathers, one of the nation's heroes and so if you have to deal with the fact that you have a very powerful man and a teenager who was owned by him and this young woman he has six children with, then how do you reconcile that kind of debased violence with this kind of heroic narrative of Thomas Jefferson. And the way that you can make that work, make that palatable, is to call it a love affair. But a love affair in a dark, dank, windowless room, a love affair with a 16-year-old, a love affair with someone who is property, then that is why the issue of love affair becomes absolutely essential in that. And this again is not to in any way undermine the kind of agency that Sally Hemings exhibited, many of the enslaved had to find ways to resist, find ways to carve a way out of no way. I know my own great grandfather was enslaved and he negotiated with his master that eventually led to him being married to the woman he loved and eventually being able to buy his own freedom and her freedom. But that is part of the kinds of the agency that you saw the enslaved having to work out on a daily basis in order to survive in an absolutely horrific environment.

AMT: Well it's interesting too, our last guest made the point too that the first wife of Jefferson, was the half-sister of Sally Hemings.

CA: Right.

AMT: Because she and her mother were gifted to them when they married, by Thomas Jefferson's wife. Is that right?

CA: Yeah, she was inherited from as a part of almost like a dowry, it feels like.

AMT: But that tradition too of white men, white landowners, having "relationships with black female slaves" goes beyond Thomas Jefferson.

CA: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. It was in many ways, particularly after the British banned the slave trade, it was in many ways a way to continue to create property because one of the most evil and pernicious elements of slavery in the United States was that the children of the enslaved were also enslaved and they became the property of the owner. And that was a way to create more product, as it were. So this is, as I said it is a horrific system and the fact that Monticello made that visible this weekend is a testament to the strength and the vision of the folks there. But the fact that we are in 2018 and just getting full acknowledgment of that, tells us a lot about the way that this history, that has been known for years, decades, centuries, has not been fully acknowledged and that there has been an impact on American society because of the lack of acknowledgement of slavery and the enslaved in this nation's history.

AMT: Well, let me ask you, over the past two years there's been a lot of debate over the display of Confederate monuments in the south, how does the Thomas Jefferson myth entwine with the myth of the Confederacy and the lost cause?

CA: Thank you for that question. One of the things that you hear from those who are saying you know, those statues of Robert E. Lee are that's our heritage, that's our know it's our heroic past, it's our history. But then it stops short right there and it doesn't get to the heritage of what the history of what. And so it becomes truncated, the same way that Thomas Jefferson as a founding father, becomes truncated, becomes whitewashed as it were. Because then what you don't see is the role that slavery plays in this. And so the Confederate statues, as elements of our history, our heritage, was a history of fighting to be able to continue to buy, own, sell, rape, murder black people and that's that part that does not come out. And many of these statues were put in place during the rise of Jim Crow, so not right after the Civil War, but during the rise of Jim Crow and during right after the "Brown decision" in the 1950s, when the civil rights movement is gaining traction. So these are symbols of resistance to black civil rights, black equality, that's what they're the symbol of.

AMT: Well you also have a lot of mansions in the south that are sort of part of the National Trust for historical preservation. What are we missing there?

CA: Oh yeah I told the story of a, I received a mailing several years ago from the National Trust saying, oh come tour our beautiful Mississippi mansions, they are you know see Southern gentility and Southern hospitality and Southern charm. And I'm looking at this thing and I'm outraged because again you get any lesion of history, about what these plantations really are. So I said, I wrote back to them and I said, no more than you would define a tour of Auschwitz as a testament to find German engineering. Should you define these plantations by anything than what they really are, slave labour camps, where human beings were bought, sold, bred, raped and murdered. Because again, when we are not clear about what these things are, they create a narrative in American history, in American society and therefore in American policy that does not come to grips with the realities and the brutality and the consequences of slavery.

AMT: What do you think it's going to take for there to be a real reckoning by the United States about its legacy of slavery?

CA: I think we're getting there, actually. I think what Monticello did was absolutely essential. I also think that this current regime that is basically very kind of bold faced white supremacist is causing people to have conversations that they hadn't had before. Where they have to really think about what is America, what do we stand for? Who are we? So the recent revelation about the caging of children ripped away from immigrants at the border, who are seeking asylum, which is a legal action, followed by the separation of these children from their parents. And you have so many people saying this is not who we are and it's causing people to say that who are we. And it's that kind of national conversation and coming to grips with the reality that this nation has ripped children away from their parents during slavery. Ripped children away from their parents when they created the Indian boarding schools to see who we are means that we don't have to stay there. It means that we can be better. It means that we can live in the aspirations that Thomas Jefferson talked about.

AMT: With the Declaration of Independence.

CA: Yes. Yes.

AMT: Carol, we have to leave it there. Thank you for your time today.

CA: Thank you so much.

AMT: Carol Anderson, professor of African American studies at Emory University. She is the author of, "White Rage." She joined us from Atlanta, Georgia. Let us know what you think. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent about the conversation slavery in the United States. Stay with us. Finding Mr. Adler is next.

[Music: Theme]

Finding Adler: The music and mystery of the Jewish refugee who shaped the lives of a Chinese family

Guests:

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

Drum performance by 8-year-old, Yoyoka Soma.

AMT: You may have seen this video online in the past week or two, a classic tune from Led Zeppelin with an amazing drum performance by none other than Yoyoka Soma, an 8-year-old Japanese girl. Who says girls can't rock out on the drums? Yoyoka's video was originally uploaded as part of the world-wide "Hit Like A Girl" drumming contest for women and girls. It's definitely struck a chord or banged a gong with people around the world. But why should it be so surprising that a little girl can play the drums like Zeppelin drummer John Bonham. Tomorrow on The Current, we're taking on the taboo around female drummers. We'll have some special guests from a young Canadian woman who's also entered the "Hit Like A Girl" contest to an already established drumming superstar, Sheila E. That's right, Sheila E. will be joining guest host Laura Lynch Tuesday, on The Current, as part of our discussion of drumming while female. Don't miss it.

SOUNDCLIP

Sounds from a drumming performance.

AMT: OK. Now we're on to another story about music. Fang Sheng always knew music was an important part of his family's history in China, but there was a mystery about how that came to be. Turns out there was one man, a refugee, who played an important role in not only introducing music to Fang Sheng's family, but to many others in China. Now living in Toronto, Fang Sheng wanted to finally trace that family history and find out more about the mysterious musician. The CBC's Sharon Wu followed his journey and brings us her documentary. This is: "Finding Adler."

SOUNDCLIP

Documentary: Finding Adler

VOICE 1: Okay, here we go my old buddy. I haven't seen you for 30 years. Hey, you sound pretty good. I need to re-learn how to control my fingers and where to put them in the right places. I learned violin with my father, until when I was about 15-years-old, I kind of stopped learning the instrument in a professional way and so I didn't become a career musician.

VOICE 2: Fang Sheng is unusual in his family. His mother, brother and a father are all professional musicians, but not him. Fang chose language over music and to studied to be an interpreter.

VOICE 1: Classical music is always in my life. I always love listening to it, love going to concerts, but you know for over 30 years not really touching the violin is really putting a toll on me because my fingers, my hands are all becoming so stiff. As you could probably hear from the sound, I'm so shaky.

VOICE 2: But now he's picking up his violin again because he's trying to piece together his father's history with classical music. He wants to know more about how an orphan in China ended up as one of the founding members of China's National Symphony Orchestra. He knows pieces of the story. It involves the second world war and a Jewish musician who fled to Shanghai to escape the Nazis. A musician whose work with children had a long lasting impact on classical music in China, but he only has a last name for that man, Adler.

VOICE 1: I think the name Adler has been in the back of my mind for many years. Basically, I would say that without Mr. Adler, my father wouldn't become the kind of professional musician as he is later on. So I think Mr. Adler is a very, very critical role in the whole history of our family and that's what I really want to find out because I feel that there is a lot of information missing. It's like a jigsaw puzzle that I still can't piece together at the moment.

VOICE 2: What Fang Sheng does know is that the story of how Mr. Adler became such a big part of his family's history starts in the late 1930s.

VOICE 3: Already there are over 100,000 war refugees in Shanghai.

VOICE 2: They were known as the Shanghai Jews.

VOICE 3: Yet Jewish refugees from Germany are swelling the number. 4000 have landed and more are on the way.

VOICE 2: About 20,000 European Jews fled to Shanghai, one of the few cities in the world, where a landing visa was not required. Mr. Adler was among them, a professional musician from Austria. He soon became a counsellor to master of the Shanghai Municipal Orchestra. But more importantly to Fang, he would also teach orphans like his father, how to play classical music. In China there have been movies made and the books written about these war orphans and how they became the backbone of Chinese classical music, but their Jewish teachers were hardly ever mentioned.

VOICE 1: At first I couldn't even find Mr Adler's first name. It was only after a long and deep research, did I find out that his first name was Ferdinand. The Adler project, our story, Ferdinand Adler, musician, Jewish refugee, my father's violin teacher. I am looking for this man.

VOICE 2: To find more information, last year Fang turned to Facebook.

VOICE 1: Before and during World War II, tens of thousands of Jewish refugees.

VOICE 2: Launching the Adler project.

VOICE 1: I have so many questions about them, particularly Mr. Adler. How did he flee Europe? What was his life and career like before he had become a refugee?

VOICE 2: He posts the only picture he has of Adler, a black and white photo showing 11 boys, all wearing tattered shirts. In the back row is a smiling middle-aged Austrian, wearing a suit, that's Ferdinand Adler.

VOICE 1: And with my father and his colleagues in their mid 80s, I feel very pressing need to look for Mr. Adler, as a way to rediscover this part of the history, with a perspective to pay tribute to the dedication, the kind hearts, the humanity that ultimately triumphed. Please help me friends.

VOICE 2: Fang's first stop on his journey to find more information is the home of his elderly parents in Beijing.

VOICE 1: My father is turning 86-years-old this year. He has retired from China's National Symphony more than 20 years ago. His hearing has been deteriorating quite badly, especially in recent years. So for him to play his instrument has become really hard.

VOICE 2: He may not remember how to play music perfectly anymore, but he easily remembers the people in the grainy photo Fang posted on Facebook, even though it was taken more than 70 years ago.

VOICE 4: Fang's father describes the people in the photo.

VOICE 2: Fang's father, Ming Liang Sheng, was 12-years-old when he first met Ferdinand Adler. He was living in an orphanage with his younger brother when an official from the Shanghai government came to visit. He was looking for children to attend to China's first youth music school. It was being set up with the help of European refugee musicians. Both brothers were chosen. Fang's uncle to study cello, Ming Liang was placed in Mr. Adler's class to learn violin.

VOICE 1: So do you remember what type of person Adler was like in class? Was it a strict teacher?

VOICE 4: Adler was very nice and a patient with a loving heart. We were just a bunch of poor kids. He was the concertmaster for the Shanghai Municipal Orchestra. He could charge a lot of money for teaching students in Shanghai. We were in Changzhou, Adler and the three other Jewish musicians came to teach once a week.

VOICE 2: Changzhou is about 200 kilometres from Shanghai, a six-hour journey on an old train with many stops along the way.

VOICE 4: So why were they willing to travel all the way from Shanghai to our small town to teach us? Because they believed this group of poor kids was really committed to learning music. These Jewish musicians considered teaching as a way of returning a favour to the Chinese for their kindness.

VOICE 2: Ming Liang said although Adler only spoke German, he didn't feel any language barrier at all.

VOICE 4: He used his hand to show me how to position each of my fingers on the strings. It seemed that this was a natural way to teach and to learn violin, the same way a Chinese teacher would do with beginners.

VOICE 2: Ming Liang may not have spoken any German, but back in Toronto, Fang is taking classes. Still hopeful that somehow he will get in touch with someone in Europe who can tell him the rest of the story about Ferdinand Adler. Fang constantly searches online for any information. Then one day, a headline from a Chinese newspaper jumps off the page.

VOICE 1: Shanghai Symphony Orchestra touring Europe meets family member Austrian woman brings old city memories.

VOICE 2: During a stop in western Austria, a woman approached the concertmaster.

VOICE 1: The discoloured album start with old Shanghai newspaper clips, concert programs and photos, slowly Christina tells us her father's story. Mr. Ferdinand Adler was Shanghai Symphony Orchestra's concertmaster from 1939 to 1947.

VOICE 2: Adler has a daughter in Austria. Finally a leader for Fang.

VOICE 1: I was very surprised, but very, very excited. So immediately I tried to reach out to the Shanghai Symphony and trying to find out how to connect it Christina, but unfortunately I didn't get any response from the symphony.

VOICE 2: Now at least he has a name Christina, but not much else to go on. Months go by with no response to his social media plea, until one day a particular click of the "like" button gets his attention.

VOICE 5: My name is Paul Rosdy. I am from Vienna, Austria. I'm a filmmaker.

VOICE 1: That's I would say the most amazing thing that happened out of this Facebook page.

VOICE 2: 20 years ago, Paul Rosdy made a documentary about the Austrian Jews who fled to Shanghai.

VOICE 5: From the approximately 250 Jewish musicians, a number of them find employment in the City Orchestra, as well as in hotels and nightclubs.

VOICE 2: His research led him to Ferdinand Adler's daughter, Christina.

VOICE 1: When I first read Paul's e-mail saying learn he personally knows Mr. Adler's daughter, I got blown away because I felt quite stuck and then all of a sudden this simple click of "like," opened an amazing door.

VOICE 5: Austria was next Germany in March 1938. After this period Jewish people were arrested and put into concentration camps. So Ferdinand Adler at some time was arrested and put into a concentration camp and spent several months and the only way to get out was if you can prove that you leave the country. And I know from Cristina, that his wife at the time, got the ship tickets to Shanghai. And so she got him out of Dachau and they went to Shanghai.

VOICE 1: Through Paul I got Christina's email. Dear Christina, My name is Fang. My father, Ming Liang, was a student of your father, Mr. Ferdinand Adler. I am so pleased I can connect with you.

VOICE 6: Dear Fang, Thank you for your email from the 2nd of March. I was born at the end of 1945. When my parents returned home in August 1947, I was not even 2-years-old and just as my father died in Vienna on February 21st, 1952, I was only 6-years-old.

VOICE 1: Yet, there is very little known about Mr Adler in China. I have been trying to find out more.

VOICE 6: Everyone was only allowed to take four dollars and my dad took all of his capital in the form of his violin case. He went on a job search immediately after arrival in Shanghai and initially played in a band in a Viennese Cafe. From August 1939, he was concertmaster in the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. My mother always said that their time in Shanghai had been the best time of her life.

VOICE 1: I would like to visit you and talk with you about our fathers, about the amazing stories they went through. Best regards, Fang. I think it's more than just the answers that I wanted. What I wanted actually to reconnect with that part of the history, to reconnect with Christina, which makes it really real.

VOICE 2: To really connect, Fang needs to go to Austria. Fang hands over his ticket to the compacter to scan. So close now to his destination. Christina Adler lives in Kufstein, 400 kilometers west of Vienna, nestled between the snow capped Alps and the Kaiser mountain range. It's Palm Sunday. Hundreds of people are marching along the cobblestone streets passing by houses. The crowd heads up the hill, towards the church, originally built in medieval times. Fang follows the procession, he didn't plan to have this meeting on a big Catholic holiday, but the celebrations only add to his excitement.

VOICE 1: It's very much a big day for me. I feel very anxious, very excited, emotional. I am very nervous.

VOICE 2: Fang weaves his way through the crowds, back to his hotel, where he is to meet Christina. Christina has dark short hair, glasses sit over her rosy cheeks. She's 72-years-old and wears a pinkish-orange skirt suit, with a dark green sweater underneath. She's carrying a big stack of photos and albums. Her friend has come with her to help with translation. Christina was a little quiet at first, but Fang breaks the ice by asking her if she wants to meet his father through video chat. She agrees.

VOICE 1: My father just said that hello, my name is Ming Liang Sheng. I have always been grateful for your father teaching me. I always been missing your father ass my teacher. I see your face, your face already reminds me of your father. I see that you're in good health. I'm very happy for you. I prepared a photo album, I'd like to show you. So this is my father, after the very last lesson. Mr. Adler requested to take a photo just with his own students.

VOICE 7: Through every single contact Christina has learned something new about her father. You are the best proof of this because you could tell her about the orphanage because before that she hasn't heard about her father teaching orphans at any point.

VOICE 2: Fang turns to the second page of his album, pulling out another old photo. It's a close up of a young musician, deeply engrossed in playing his violin.

VOICE 1: So this is when he was performing in Warsaw and people praise him for his good posture. He says this is the art of the posture.

VOICE 7: So it looks very similar to the picture that Christina has of her father playing the violin.

VOICE 1: I can put these two together, oh my God, unbelievable. They look very similar the way they hold the violin.

VOICE 7: They say the same thing, so I don't have to translate. You say the same thing.

VOICE 1: Oh my God this is so amazing. How old was your father then?

VOICE 2: For more than two hours, Christina and Fang share stories and photos, filling in details of their father's lives. Fang also wants to understand how Ferdinand Adler passed away before reaching his fiftieth birthday. Doctors believe her father had a heart attack while on vacation in Kufstein. A few weeks later he went back to Vienna to perform with the orchestra.

VOICE 7: So on February 21st, was the very first time after the heart attack, that he would attend a rehearsal at the opera house and apparently during the rehearsal, the conductor made a sharp remark to her father and said something about his style of playing at the moment. During the rehearsal with the violin in hand fell from that chair.

VOICE 1: Oh my God.

VOICE 2: Life was tough for Jewish artists coming back from exile. The Vienna Philharmonic invited musicians to come back, but most did not return. Fang has one more thing to show Christina before they say goodbye.

VOICE 1: I have a small surprise for you. I have brought a special violin first to show you, then hopefully I could play a little bit. So in 1952, my father and some of his young fellow musicians were performing in Europe. He bought this violin Bulgaria.

VOICE 7: Christina is now also touched by the fact that over more than 70 years that has passed since her father left Shanghai, people still value his impact and his professionalism in Shanghai as a musician and this touches her as well.

VOICE 7: Has your daughter already play the violin?

VOICE 1: She has interest in music already, but I'm going to have violin or piano lessons for her.

VOICE 8: I might mess up with this.

VOICE 2: Fang Sheng's journey to piece together the parcel of his family history is complete. Finding Christina Adler was closure for him and his father. But the story of music in his family, doesn't stop here.

VOICE 1: Please show daddy where to put your fingers.

VOICE 2: Fang is inspired to keep working with his five-year-old daughter.

VOICE 1: Where's the note.

VOICE 8: You have to go here and then I can do it by myself.

VOICE 1: Looking back, there are a lot of people that went through sufferings, went through a lot of a hard time, but there was also a lot of triumph. The triumph of survival, the triumph of music, of arts and the triumph of the humanity, of human love.

VOICE 8: Done.

VOICE 1: That sounds nice. High five!

AMT: We have been listening to "Finding Adler," produced by the CBC's Sharon Wu and The Current's Liz Hoath. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q and a feature interview with a great Canadian singer and songwriter, Sarah McLaughlin. Remember, you can always take the current with you on the CBC Radio app, free from the App Store or Google Play. Now after our documentary about an orphan who goes on to form the backbone of China's National Symphony Orchestra, here is that orchestra with a piece called "Moon Reflection on the Twin Spring Lake." I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

[Music: "Moon Reflection on the Twin Spring Lake" by China's National Symphony Orchestra]

June 18, 2018 episode transcript

Social Sharing

More from this episode