Who we are
The Coptic Canadian History Project (CCHP) is a not-for-profit public history and community outreach organization. It serves as a forum to bridge the gap between public archives, immigrant communities, and academic scholars, and aims to preserve the experiences of Egypt’s émigré Coptic populations.
Far too often, Copts are written about, spoken of, studied, and debated. Yet too rarely do Coptic populations speak for themselves.
The CCHP is a forum for Copts and the scholars who write about their experiences to share stories through online blogs, videos, and podcasts. We aim to present the experiences of Coptic immigrants in such a way where knowledge remains embedded within the community.
The capacity of public history to allow the democratization of access to knowledge ensures that it does not become appropriated by the power structures of ‘legitimized knowledge’: the hallowed halls of academia.[1] To that end, as the founder and project manager of the CCHP, I work with like-minded individuals to organize and host conferences, exhibits, and facilitate the donation of historical documents and photographs to the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections (CTASC), York University.
Most scholarly projects on Coptic communities stress an ancient and glorious past that is filled with the stories of great heroes and saints. Such narratives, and the larger-than-life figures who inhabit them, often reflect lofty ideals rather than the reality of everyday life.
Instead, the CCHP is the first ever repository to prioritize the history and collective memory of ‘ordinary’ Coptic immigrants. To speak of the ‘ordinary’ is to adopt the perspective of social historians that ask us to look past the “great men of history” and seek the experiences of migrants, refugees, minorities, women, children, and the societies in which they live and act. In his forward to The Practice of Everyday Life, Michel de Certaeu dedicated his work “to a common hero, a ubiquitous character, walking in countless thousands on the streets.” It is to such a Copt that the CCHP asks us to turn our gaze.[2]
Through community outreach and active participation, the CCHP captures such stories and reflects the needs of our common heroes. Why do people emigrate? What do they leave behind? Where do they go and why? How do they make sense of their new surroundings? What does it mean to be a Copt outside Egypt? These and other questions animate this project and drive the ongoing exploration for a diversity of immigrant stories and experiences.
Academics are often treated as the legitimate authority on a particular community, thus reflecting that knowledge both creates and is created by power. Yet as a Coptic immigrant to Canada, my story is embedded within the community. My motivation and my inspiration are my Grandfather Farag Akladios, a contractor and architect who built over 30 churches in Egypt, and my mother and father, Mirvat and Maher, who left Alexandria to start their own antiques business and worked to ensure their children receive the best education and quality of life.[3]
Cultural influences on Coptic archiving
I began my doctoral studies in 2014 under the direction of religious and immigration historian Dr. Roberto Perin at York University, to study the immigrant experiences of the Coptic faith community in Toronto, Montreal, and New York since the Second World War. As a junior scholar researching this history, I encountered a scarcity of records pertaining to Copts in public archives. In the course of my research, I found that many individuals and organizations in Canada had amassed troves of archival records, which are not well maintained and are in some cases partially destroyed.
I then spent the summer of 2016 in Egypt, locating and photographing hundreds of textual and visual material relating to the Coptic Archdiocese of North America, established in 1963 with the support of H.G. Bishop Samuel (reposed to the Lord 6 October 1981).
While in Cairo, I discovered that many families there did not trust public archives to faithfully preserve their treasured collections or were too anxious about government targeting to make that material widely accessible. Instead, valuable materials sit on shelves in their homes, at the mercy of the heat and liable to degrade with the passage of time.
These issues all create barriers that make the advancement of historical knowledge difficult. After returning to Toronto, I discussed these issues with my colleagues, Dr. Gilberto Fernandes and Dr. Christopher Grafos. I realized then that the solution lay in the example set by their Portuguese Canadian History Project (PCHP) and Greek Canadian History Project (GCHP). Their success inspired the Coptic Canadian History Project (CCHP), and their partnership and collaboration continues to enrich joint activities; such as a Public History Symposium at York University held on 28 September 2018.
Why the Coptic Canadian History Project?
This name reflects my own limitations as a Canadian scholar affiliated with like-minded projects in a prominent Canadian research institution. Second, many Coptic immigrants in Canada did not arrive directly from Egypt. As I contemplated the goals and outcomes of this project, I reasoned that it must endeavor to capture the multi-national character of this group’s history of migrations.
Many Coptic immigrants followed very different paths – through the Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and across North America – before choosing to settle in Canada. Thus, the CCHP serves to capture both the stories of Egypt’s Coptic population and those of diverse Coptic immigrants and their descendants.
It is important to note that the CCHP is not only for Canada’s Copts. Migration has always been a part of Egypt’s history. And with the advent of Cold War student exchange programs and escalating Coptic exclusion under Nasser – and later Sadat – wealthier Copts began to emigrate permanently. That flow steadily increased and would encompass all segments of Egyptian society in the 1980s and 1990s. The 2011 and 2013 revolutions served to then escalate such movements. While some Copts moved first to Europe and then came to call Canada home, some returned to Egypt, and many others chose to settle in Australia, the United States, Germany, England, and elsewhere.[4]
The transnational and transcultural stories of global Coptic populations are always welcomed and encouraged at the CCHP.[5] I was fortunate to be joined by Miray Philips as co-editor of the blog in Spring 2017. Born in Egypt, she grew up in Kuwait, and moved to the United States to pursue higher education. She is currently a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her current research is focused on how Coptic populations in the US produce knowledge on sectarianism in Egypt. With the support of Miray and other dedicated scholars, the Coptic Canadian History Project endeavors to serve all Coptic populations around the world and their descendents.
Identity is far from simple. Identity is fluid, it is transient, it is contextual, and it is at times fractured and reformed. The stories of Coptic populations have no limitations. We construct and reconstruct our identities throughout our lives, as my own transiency reminds me daily.
What The CCHP offers
To give voice to such experiences and such emerging identities, the CCHP facilitates the transfer of audio-visual and textual material to the Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections (CTASC) for preservation and digitization. Recognizing our potential for building bridges, fostering research, and advancing social and cultural equity, we work with archivists at CTASC to catalogue and make available physical material – including newspapers, photos, and letters – to all visitors to the Archives. In time, the availability of digitized copies allowed the CCHP to host curated exhibits for educators, researchers, students, and the general public.
To that end, the CCHP partnered with the Coptic Museum of Canada (formerly St. Mark’s Coptic Museum) in Scarborough last March to share the history and culture of Canada’s Coptic communities as a part of Myseum Intersections, a city-wide festival of exhibits, events, and interactive community experiences covering a range of historic and contemporary issues. The CCHP also launched our inaugural digital exhibit, an interactive map of Coptic Places of Worship in Toronto. Organized around the theme of “ecumenism,” this Google fusion map traces the journey of St. Mark’s Coptic parish in Toronto, the first such parish in North America.
In addition to public archives and exhibits, the project aims to bridge the gap between Coptic communities and academic scholars. We accomplish this in two interrelated ways. First, we promote research and community outreach through public lectures, interdisciplinary workshops, and conference presentations. The aim of encouraging such scholarly collaboration is to unite researchers in the field of Coptic studies and to establish vibrant partnerships with Coptic organizations and individuals. To that end, we held our inaugural conference in April 2017 at York University and the second annual CCHP conference April 2018 in the Archives of Ontario. The attendance of prominent academics and cultural leaders in and outside Canada’s Coptic Canadian communities confirms the overall reach and public interest of the project and its mission. Building on such interest, we continue to deliver programming in the form of an organized panel on twentieth century Coptic migrations at the Middle East Studies Association conference (to be held this November in San Antonio, Texas) and the third annual CCHP conference, currently being planned for May 2019.
Second, our website hosts a Digital Café comprised of a Scholar’s Corner blog and an Immigrants’ Stories collection. These community driven portals provide contributors a space to share a diversity of opinions and activities which color the experiences of Coptic populations in the Middle East and North Africa, Europe, North America, and their descendants. The Scholar’s Corner is a monthly blog that hosts multimedia articles by an interdisciplinary group of academics on diverse topics related to the movements and migrations of Coptic populations. Immigrants’ Stories is a collaborative portal that invites anyone to participate in promoting and preserving the experiences of ‘ordinary’ Copts. We hope that each participant will bring forward stories and memories of their immigrant experience (or that of their parent/grandparent). Your direct participation is invaluable.
What you can do
Help support the CCHP. Donate your time. Donate your stories. Encourage others to do the same. The CCHP is deeply committed to encouraging both community involvement and scholarly collaboration. I therefore ask all Coptic immigrants and their descendants to consider archiving and preserving their family records, all established and junior scholars to introduce their work, and all interested community members to participate directly, share their stories, and leave something new for future generations. Your submissions will help to educate others and will be promoted widely on our social media platforms and through our partners. Email your submissions to theCCHP@gmail.com. Our stories matter, and I look forward to celebrating them together in our digital café.
Coptic Voice is accepting donations! If you would like to donate to our cause, please consider donating to our PayPal page.
If you would like to contribute to Coptic Voice, please send an email with your bio and topic of interest to CopticvoiceUS@gmail.com
Michael Akladios is a doctoral candidate in history at York University, working under the supervision of Dr. Roberto Perin. Michael’s dissertation examines the transnational, pluricultural, and ecumenical history of Coptic Orthodox Christian immigrants, first in Egypt and then later in the first and largest immigrant communities in Toronto, Montreal, and New York. He charts this groups’ immigration, settlement, integration, and associational activities since 1945. He has written for ActiveHistory.ca and recently published “Navigating Sacred Spaces: Coptic Immigrants in 1960s Toronto,” Left History, 2017. In addition to his doctoral research, Michael is the founder and project manager of the Coptic Canadian History Project (CCHP), a not-for-profit public history and community outreach organization affiliated with the Department of History and the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, York University.
References
[1] Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Ed. Robert Hurley, (New York: Vintage, 1988); Sheldon S. Wolin, “Max Weber: Legitimation, Method, and the Politics of Theory,” Political Theory 9.3 (1981): 401-24.
[2] Michel De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, Translated by Steven F. Rendall, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).
[3] See: Dr. Mina Badi’ Abdelmalik, “Farag Akladios: The Tireless Fixer in Building the Churches and the Monasteries,” Watani, series 1919, 2 May 1999.
[4] Michael Akladios, “Conversations with Egyptian Uber Drivers: Why Emigrate? Why Canada?” ActiveHistory.ca, 2 October 2017, http://activehistory.ca/2017/10/conversations-in-egypt-why-emigrate-why-canada/.
[5] Dirk Hoerder, “Historians and Their Data: The Complex Shift from Nation-State Approaches to the Study of People’s Transcultural Lives,” Journal of American Ethnic History 25.4 (2006): 85-96.
