Photo by Vince LaConte

In Toronto’s Chinatown, an average morning goes on as usual, with longtime business owners setting up shop and elderly residents chatting loudly in local bakeries. But underneath the mundanity lies change. When onlookers enter the Chinatown landmark, the famous Dragon City Mall, the sight of its empty shops and corridors with the occasional elderly passersby may be a surprise. Dragon City Mall’s plight is representative of the larger trend that Chinatown is facing: one of demographic decline.

According to the 2021 Neighbourhood Profile, the number of ethnically Chinese people living in Chinatown was the lowest it had been in over a decade, dropping by almost 25 percent since 2011. This means that, after years of being a deeply entrenched and treasured enclave in the city’s downtown, the neighbourhood may be on the verge of a major shift. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Chinatown hasn’t always stood where it is today. It used to be located on York Street before growing larger and spreading north to Elizabeth Street. Later, two thirds of it were razed to make way for Nathan Phillips Square and a new City Hall. Chinese Canadian community leader and restaurateur Jean Lumb campaigned to preserve the remaining third of the neighborhood, which eventually moved to where it is today. Many of the old signs of the Chinatown on Elizabeth Street are still there if you look carefully. Lumb would go on to travel to Vancouver and Calgary to aid in efforts to save Chinatowns there too, the only woman organizer to do so.

And now, after surviving a forced relocation to its current home at Dundas Street and Spadina Avenue in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Chinatown’s Chinese population is not a majority in the neighbourhood. While there are a number of reasons for this, the trend is partially due to the decline of new immigrants moving to the area. When many Chinese immigrants moved to Canada in the late 19th century, most were poor workers from the southern Chinese province of Guangdong seeking new opportunities. The picture today is undoubtedly different. Many new immigrants are students or people coming from upper-class backgrounds. The change in demographic wealth also led to more Chinese immigrants favouring suburban towns over downtown enclaves. Although household income is on the rise in Chinatown, some residents see this as a bittersweet outcome.

Donna, the owner of a local salon called Hair Magic Cut located in the ageing Chinatown Centre mall, has operated her shop for 23 years, raising her kids in the neighbourhood. When asked about the statistical change in Chinatown, she said that while she welcomes any new arrivals to the neighbourhood, the hub of Asian culture that the neighbourhood represents is still deeply important to her.

In an herb shop right across from the salon, the owner, Ms. Zhou, gave another perspective on Chinatown’s past and future. “When I first started up shop in Chinatown 20 years ago, the leading population was the Vietnamese. Once they gained wealth they went north to the suburbs. Now it’s the Fujianese population’s turn. The supermarkets you see around here are all owned by them,” she says. The current demographic decline can be seen as a part of Chinatown’s larger story, one of immigration for opportunity before ultimately graduating to what’s often regarded as a higher status in Toronto society. The changing conditions in Chinatown are partially due to the success of the suburban Chinatowns that arose in the ’90s, namely the City of Markham. In contrast to Toronto’s Chinatown, the amount of Markham residents who identified as Chinese in a survey of visible minorities grew by roughly 40 percent throughout the 2010s, while the facilities and restaurants catering to this population are far newer and greater in number.

However, moving from Chinatown to the suburbs has gotten harder. Due to the rising cost of living, and with it, rising rent over the past decade, Ms. Zhou says fewer young people are inclined to run small businesses like hers.

Still, Chinatown is falling behind its suburban counterparts. Although this can be chalked up as the result of the declining Chinese population in the area, the issue runs deeper than a natural pattern of migration. The rising cost of living is making it harder for the neighbourhood to attract young families. Recent threats of gentrification to its long-standing businesses and restaurants worsen the situation.

Community members are still determined to preserve what’s left of Chinatown. Around the same time developers bought and razed the longstanding Chinatown dim sum restaurant Rol San in 2023, a group of organizers formed a land trust to protect the neighbourhood from further gentrification. To improve business and prioritize the neighbourhood’s culture, the Toronto Chinatown Business Improvement Area (CBIA), formed in 2007, hosts many events and festivals. The CBIA’s annual Toronto Chinatown Festival typically draws over 250,000 visitors, according to their website. (CBIA representatives did not respond to This Magazine’s requests for comment.)

It is clear that Chinatown may never return to its previous status as the city’s pre-eminent centre of Chinese culture. Many different groups have come and gone after successfully searching for opportunity and wealth. Still, Chinatown is losing its ability to sustain working-class people seeking opportunity. The decline of the Chinese population is not the cause of the neighbourhood’s decline; it’s a result of gentrification and the rising cost of living. These issues are causing the neighbourhood to lose its accessibility to newcomers.

A common sentiment organizers working to save Chinatown share is their pride and happiness in the neighbourhood; not only for its prime real estate, or convenience, but for its community. Even now, with the emptying malls and a gradual loss of traditional businesses, there is hope that a piece of Chinatown’s unique history and spirit can still be preserved through the change.

Photo Courtesy Studio ZX

The graffiti-covered Van Horne skatepark on the edge of Montreal’s Mile End is usually dotted with boys in beanies and sneakers, launching themselves into the rink with the cracking sound of skateboard wheels hitting concrete. But, every Thursday night for a brief stint during the summer of 2021, they were replaced with a different crowd: femme, queer, and trans people, speeding by on skateboards or rollerskates as their friends cheered them on.

As the sky darkened, more people arrived. They came dressed to impress and eager to be with others who understood queer joy. When Vicky B. Ouellette, a trans woman and community activist, looked down into the skatepark the first time she attended “Tran Horne Take-Over,” she couldn’t hold back tears. “I’d never seen something quite like [it]. It was so precious and so exclusively queer, and it was really important.”

“There’s a lack of understanding that we create these spaces out of necessity, not out of entertainment,” Ouellette explains as she recalls the weekly event, which was intended to unite femme, queer, and trans people during Montreal’s COVID-19 lockdown. However, with each passing week, Ouellette noticed a shift: slowly, more straight, cisgender people who seemed like observers rather than participants started to attend, recording videos and taking photos. By August, the event was shut down. She believes that the police discovered it as a result of these people broadcasting the event online.

Despite knowing that the events broke the city’s stringent rules against gathering at the time, Ouellette also knows they were deeply necessary. She cites this saga as an example of how there is a widespread absence of awareness around the importance of nightlife for queer Montrealers. For many, coming together with their community is more than just a hangout; it’s seeing their self-made family.

Ouellette is the founder of Studio ZX and the president of MTL 24/24’s advisory council, two organizations driving nightlife activism for marginalized communities. To her and many others, the act of nighttime entertainment and gathering is sacred. If an event or venue is expressly queer-friendly, it becomes a haven for people to let loose without the fear of being misgendered, harassed, or othered. However, as city officials place greater scrutiny on the nightlife sector, the underground scenes that the community has built may be pushed further to the fringes.

In April 2024, Montreal’s Commission on Economic and Urban Development and Housing presented its final nightlife policy recommendations in a public assembly meeting. It was a step toward the city’s intention to spend $2.1 million to create a 24-hour nightlife zone, likely in the Latin Quarter, as well as “nocturnal vitality zoning” throughout the city. The details of the latter are still vague, with a sense that this zoning would permit alcohol sales after 3 a.m. (the city’s current cutoff). These developments may pad the city’s bottom line, but the policy lacks clear details on how it will include or protect the main drivers of Montreal’s local nightlife scenes and its most vulnerable populations: queer and racialized artists, patrons, and workers.

For those who are not within these minority groups, it can be difficult to understand the constant feeling of unease and danger in nightlife. When asked if she feels unwelcome in nightlife spaces that are not expressly queer-friendly, Ouellette was quick to answer: “Absolutely. It’s just so easy to be objectified, or fetishized, or harassed, or screamed at, or [looked at] cross-eyed. Stuff like that is so common.”

Maintaining physical safety is also a factor. For racialized people and those who are both queer and racialized, some of the peril in nightlife is not overtly violent, but stems from a sense of otherness in some of the city’s scenes. “Being hit on by cishet men not knowing that I’m trans is a situation that is extremely uncomfortable, and can be dangerous,” Amai Doucet, Studio ZX’s media relations and communities manager, explains.

For too many people, discomfort, and sometimes violence, is the status quo in nightlife. Canada’s Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces found that sexual minorities are nearly three times more likely to experience violent victimization and more than twice as likely to experience inappropriate sexual behaviours than heterosexual people. Studies have also shown that racialized women who report violence are often taken less seriously than white women, leaving them at further risk.

The document outlining the city’s most recent recommendations for the nightlife policy includes a section titled Safety & Security, which emphasizes a need to increase funding for NGOs that work to decrease night-based sexual violence and collaboration between these groups, the city, and Quebec’s Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Solidarity. Although these recommendations are a starting point, they are so general that it is difficult to glean any concrete plans.

Queer and racialized groups, and the threat of danger they face, are mentioned in the published recommendations, but the details are scant. One recommendation is to “support the creation and maintenance of inclusive nighttime community spaces for marginalized communities, such as LGBTQ2+ people, racialized communities, and people with disabilities.” Although marginalized communities and safety issues are both mentioned broadly, the document does not link the two. (This Magazine contacted several city officials who were part of the policy’s creation for comment, but none were willing to speak about the policy directly.)

As Montreal prepares to invest millions into nightlife, there is no better time for the city to improve its relationship with some of its more important players. Montreal cannot continue to undervalue the voices of marginalized groups as it enacts policies that directly affect these communities.

Last year, FANTOM, a non-profit that serves as a voice for queer and racialized people in Montreal nightlife, conducted a survey to assess its community’s needs. By far, the top concerns were safety and security, with 61 percent of queer and 58 percent of racialized surveyees mentioning it in their responses. FANTOM’s co-founder, Oliver Philbin-Briscoe, was pleasantly surprised to see that the new recommendations mentioned safety for marginalized groups at all—it’s the first time the city has done so in writing, as far as he remembers.

FANTOM envisions several projects that may help address queer and racialized people’s safety concerns, like an app to search for, review, and share venue information and the creation of more local, community-owned and operated event spaces. Still, many activists have more expansive ideas that require significant funding, resources, and collaboration with local officials.

For example, Philbin-Briscoe says it’s important to expand public transit hours to match the proposed 24-hour zones, ensuring that after-hours patrons and workers would have affordable and reliable methods to return home safely. This idea is proposed in the document, but Philbin-Briscoe is reluctant to celebrate it as a win before further steps are taken. Ouellette suggests a more qualitative path forward: a widespread education campaign illustrating the realities of marginalized communities.

Another key solution that activists emphasize is well-trained security personnel. Doucet believes that good security must hold a deep understanding of the needs of marginalized communities and be sensitive to the existing tensions between these groups and law enforcement. Several of FANTOM’s survey respondents felt that overly aggressive and poorly trained security are a central problem for marginalized communities in the underground and after-hours nightlife scene. Doucet suggests mandatory training that focuses on harm reduction and de-escalation rather than the use of violence.

Ouellette says that she believes the city’s lack of consideration for marginalized communities is not ill-intentioned, but rather, stems from a lack of knowledge and resources. However, Doucet thinks there is a relatively simple way to address this problem: to put more marginalized people in decision-making roles. “This would make sure we don’t get to a point where we’re asked our opinion after 95 percent of the work is done and most of it can’t even be changed,” she says.

Doucet suggests a council of queer and racialized people that can advocate for themselves in the city’s policymaking, in nightlife and beyond. Sometimes, she says, policymakers may not consider what Black and Brown folks, women, and queer people need because they don’t know their life experiences. That’s why Montreal needs these groups to be involved in making decisions about this city’s future.

Queer and racialized nightlife activists are cautiously optimistic, but wary of what is to come. To ensure that their hope is not misplaced, marginalized people’s concerns, solutions, and voices must be a central and meaningful part of Montreal’s nightlife policy.

Image by Paul Loh via Pexels

In the heart of the city, while more than 385,000 South Asians go about their lives, the University of Toronto (U of T) has quietly set a precedent. Amid the clamour for social justice and equality, U of T’s teaching assistants have negotiated with their union to include caste as a discriminatory practice—a move that has slipped under the radar of mainstream Canadian discourse.

Along with U of T, the Canadian Union of Public Employees – 3902 Unit 1 also became the first union in North America to add caste as a protected category, according to organizers. Caste is a traditional social hierarchy and restrictive practice based on birth or traditional occupation, ingrained in some societies, particularly in South Asia, that dictates a person’s social status and opportunities. With 2.6 million people comprising 7.1 percent of the population, South Asians represent the largest visible minority in Canada, according to Statistics Canada.

U of T’s decision sets a precedent for other institutions to follow suit, marking a significant moment in Canadian anti-caste activists’ ongoing struggle for inclusivity. “Your proposed amendment to Article 4 of your Collective Agreement includes caste as a category to be protected from workplace discrimination, harassment, coercion, interference, restriction, or any other practices prohibited by law,” said a bulletin from CUPE during the negotiation phase. “This demonstrates your ongoing commitment to fighting against oppression and recognizes that many students and education workers within the University of Toronto are impacted by caste politics and caste-based discrimination in their workplaces, classrooms, and communities.”

“This creates an inclusive and equitable environment and campus for all; that is our larger goal,” said Shibi Laxman Kumaraperumal, a fourth-year PhD scholar at U of T’s History department,teacher’s assistant, and union-side bargaining committee member who pushed for the amendment. “By doing this, we are actually beginning anti-caste conversations in the university environments in Canada. We encourage other trade unions to take it up as well.”

While many in the community are pleased with this step to curtail discrimination, that doesn’t hold true for everyone. Efforts to incorporate anti-caste measures in various North American jurisdictions have faced opposition from some Hindu organizations, which argue that such measures could lead to Hinduphobia. The term “Hinduphobia,” as outlined in petition E-4507, tabled at the House of Commons in December 2023 and meant to specifically address and define the discrimination faced by Hindus in Canada, refers to prejudice, discrimination, or hostility toward Hindu people, culture, or religion, including the association of casteism with Hinduism.

The U.S. has seen initiatives to combat caste discrimination, notably in Seattle, Washington, which became the first U.S. city to prohibit caste discrimination in 2023. Some members of the diaspora resisted, though, and they also resisted the introduction of an anti-caste discrimination bill in California, expressing concerns about the implications for the Hindu community.

Similarly, in Canada, some Hindu groups have called for a Hinduphobia bill, arguing that caste discrimination is not prevalent and that legislation against caste discrimination could unfairly target the Hindu community. Still, across the country, jurisdictions are taking steps to combat caste-based discrimination. The Ontario Human Rights Commission recognizes it now. Similarly, the city of Burnaby, B.C. voted unanimously to include caste as a protected category in its code of conduct, and Brampton, Ontario’s city council voted unanimously to take steps to add caste-based discrimination to its anti-discrimination policy.

It’s a more complex issue than it seems, and initiatives to combat anti-caste discrimination in Canada and the U.S. are in the early stages. But the efforts being made at U of T point to the need to unpack it, and to implement change at an institutional level.

Illustration by Sabahat Ahmad

As a half-Pakistani person, I often cozied up on the couch for Bollywood movie nights with my family growing up. These nights were more than a tradition—they were a rite of passage. I’m a fair-skinned South Asian, and this was a way for me to connect to my culture when I didn’t necessarily present as such on the outside. I idolized the actresses in these movies, awkwardly shaking my preteen hips and listening to soundtracks of films like Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham and Aśoka on my CD player days later.

I first visited Toronto in 2015, when I was 24. I came to heal from a bad breakup in my hometown of New York City. A year later, I met my now-husband and fell for him immediately, permanently moving to Canada. He also has a South Asian background, and it made me feel less homesick to experience the comfort of Bollywood nights with my in-laws. We’d throw in our own sassy commentary, poking fun at the soapy love scenes and dramatic dance routines while being enamoured by them at the same time.

My move to Canada was not only out of love for my husband, but love for the city. Toronto has a massive South Asian population (nearly 385,000 as of 2021). It’s also the place with the highest number of South Asians in Canada. In Scarborough, where I live, our cultures are celebrated like nowhere else I’ve been in North America. Despite growing up in a place as diverse as New York, I’d never experienced such a normalized and integrated Indian and Pakistani culture, with aunties walking around in saris and Desi aromas like masala wafting through the streets. As a result, Bollywood carries some heft as a mainstream art form here, and a more diverse range of Bollywood and South Asian films are more present on Canadian Netflix than they are in the States. It’s heartwarming to see the classics of my childhood not just in their own dedicated section but in Netflix’s most-watched films, validating and serving the viewing preferences of the population.

But in the decades between the beloved films of my childhood and Bollywood movies today, not much has changed. The very same thing that brought me comfort is also holding us back as a culture. Only years later, as we watched these movies with my husband’s nieces, did I fully understand the unrealistic beauty standards they presented. European aesthetics are put on a pedestal, and actresses are cast accordingly, sending the message to young South Asian girls that fair means beautiful. As I watched my nieces regularly straighten their gorgeous curls, I reflected on the fact that the wide range of beautiful South Asian women is and was often underrepresented onscreen.

In Canada, these same issues of colourism and racism persist despite the country being globally recognized as a place where all cultures can thrive and coexist harmoniously. This shows us just how pervasive British colonialism remains in India and beyond. In searches for Canadian Bollywood actresses online, starlets like Sunny Leone, Nora Fatehi and Lisa Ray are the first three to pop up. This is in part because they’re the most popular, but it’s no coincidence that they also have fair skin and European features. It makes me feel as though darker-skinned South Asian women are set up for failure. I worry that young Canadian girls like my nieces will inherit these Eurocentric beauty standards, negatively impacting their self-esteem and making them want to fit into an unrealistic mould rather than appreciating what makes them so unique.

In January 2024, I read that Ed Westwick (everyone’s favorite toxic drama king from Gossip Girl) was marrying a Bollywood actress named Amy Jackson. She looked suspiciously Western to me, and with the name Amy Jackson, I knew I had to dive deeper. Was this the case of a name change or something more? She could have been racially ambiguous; as someone who is overtly conscious about being perceived as fully white when I’m not, I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. I saw the dark hair, olive skin, and light eyes not unlike my own and assumed she must also be of mixed-race heritage. But after a not-so-deep dive online, I discovered that she was, in fact, an English-speaking, British white woman who was somehow ludicrously popular in Bollywood films. I had the same moment of disconnect when watching one of my favorite shows a few years back, Made in Heaven, and discovering that one of the actresses, Kalki Koechlin, was also a Caucasian woman, despite being raised in India and speaking Hindi, which has helped her fit in when she takes on these roles.

In the past, South Asian actresses who passed as white were showcased and picked first. Today, it’s enough to be white and speak the language. I don’t even think I would mind if these actresses openly acknowledged their skin tone. But the fact that it remains hidden and requires some digging begs the question: is this Brownface Lite? Is it cultural appropriation? Or is it okay if these women were raised in Indian culture and consider India their home? It’s tricky to know where to draw the line.

I’m not trying to downplay the acting skills of talented, lighter-skinned South Asian women. It’s their right to take up space in their industry of choice. But I do find it troubling that these light-skinned and white women skyrocket to fame with such ease and are sought out by directors and producers in Bollywood while thousands of talented actresses with South Asian heritage are cast aside.

Bollywood has a history of giving priority to lighter-skinned actresses, and it perpetuates the harmful side effects of the caste system in South Asian countries such as India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Skin-lightening creams are frequently advertised in India by major stars like Shah Rukh Khan, and it’s always seemed gross to me.

These messages are already too strong in South Asian culture. I attribute much of that to the brainwashing of the British Raj, which dates back to the 1850s, nailing in the mentality that if you have Eurocentric features and traits, you’re bound to succeed. These sentiments are still fully normalized and accepted.

Anyone who watched Indian Matchmaker has probably heard the bevy of problematic things the show’s star, Sima Aunty, has said, often lauding lighter-skinned people as a great catch just because they’re “fair.” She would prioritize women that fit that colourist Bollywood aesthetic for many of the show’s eligible bachelors. My own fair-skinned grandmother would use the slur “kala,” a derogatory term referring to dark-skinned people. In contrast, as someone who is often perceived as fully white, I’ve been called “gori” which refers to a light-skinned or white girl. I’ve always hated this dichotomy. I’ve heard people within my community freely comment on the skin tone of children. This widely accepted language creates a hierarchy and promotes problematic beauty standards—whether it’s meant as a compliment or a passive-aggressive criticism—and it affects children, subconsciously or not.

It feels grotesque for billion-dollar industries like Bollywood to profit off the commodification of white faces in distinctly brown roles. It screams, “brown women, this is what we want of you. This is how you can be seen as a woman.” As if darker-skinned women with distinctly South Asian features are not equally worthy of earning a “vixen” role or being picked out in a crowded audition room.

If Bollywood showed women who represent the full spectrum of South Asian beauty, it would have a global impact, expanding beauty standards in South Asia and beyond. It would improve the self-confidence of women and girls while challenging the outdated norms of colourism and even make the worlds of beauty and fashion more inclusive, making way for a more empowered female population, which we need more than ever on a global scale.

While it might seem like not much has changed, we’re moving in a more positive direction. In Canada, I see hope in talented Canadian stars like Rekha Sharma, Kamal Sidhu, Uppekha Jain, and Parveen Kaur. It’s no surprise that Canada is leading the charge in showing the many forms that brown beauty can take beyond a skinny nose and pale skin, which will hopefully create a ripple effect in other countries.

Brown women will always remain at the heart of Bollywood, and if, as audiences, we can start to acknowledge how women internalize what they see onscreen, we can start to consciously change both the everyday lexicon we use to discuss beauty and the narratives we craft.

Photo by VV Nincic

Dear Brown people in Vancouver,

Do you feel it too? The way those who don’t look like us seem to slip their distaste for us “subtly” between sentences? The fact that irrespective of our immigration status, fluent English, accomplishments, education, upbringing and value systems, we are still… unwanted? The barely concealed microaggressions and scarily racist behaviour of the people in this city have frankly tired me out.

I’ve lived here since 2018, but I felt it first in January 2023, at the No Frills closest to the University of British Columbia, of all places. While loading our groceries onto the checkout counter, I realized I forgot to pick up the key ingredient of the week—pasta. I brushed past the middle-aged white couple behind me in a dash to grab the crucial item, squeezing past them to load it onto the counter and help my boyfriend avoid the embarrassment he might face if I didn’t make it back in time. “When we walk past people, we say excuse me,” said the man behind me. “It’s in our culture.”

I was reminded of my otherness in a city I had worked so hard to create a home in. Never mind the fact that this man didn’t know a thing about me or my culture—which is known for its humility and hospitality—but he had successfully made not just one, but three people uncomfortable with his comment all at once. Me, my Brown boyfriend, and the cashier at our counter, whose skin tone betrayed her South Asianness. Imagine not even being able to work or grocery shop in peace!

Since then, an underlying, parasitic feeling of alienation has followed me everywhere, and I began to notice instances of othering all around me. Suddenly, it became salient how our language, culture and colour is used to mimic and mock us—“butter chicken” and “namaste” are just a few names I’ve been called by literal strangers on the street, and that’s just in the past four months alone.

Every once in a while, a racist housing ad like the one that went viral in March 2023—“No Indian,” it read—will circulate again, and we will be reminded of our otherness in this city. We’ll share the post with each other, leave comments in frustration, talk about it when we see each other next, and swallow the silent resignation that things just are this way.

Last summer, a third body was found in addition to Irshaad Ikbal and Suleiman Khawar’s bodies on the shores of False Creek. Ikbal and Khawar were both presumed to be returning from a night out. This means that three men were found dead in the same place, just a few weeks separated from each other. This spring, less than a year later, Chirag Antil, an international student from India, was shot dead in south Vancouver. Police said he had no connections to criminal activity of any kind. They were also quick to note that the first two deaths were “unrelated” to each other, but to my community, it doesn’t look like a bizarre coincidence. This is all to say, there is no one looking out for us except each other.

My queer and trans Brown friends felt the fear first. They ask to be picked up by a trusted someone after a night out now, feeling afraid to take transit home alone. They ask to stay on the line with friends while out for a walk, and the areas around False Creek and Granville Island became deserts for us. We hold onto each other fiercely.

From hearing fragments of Punjabi on the bus to chatting with Uber drivers who settled in Canada three decades ago, stories about Brownness and Brown people permeate throughout Vancouver. It’s lovely to look at my world and see others who look like me, but I worry about us, too. I hope we keep listening to and believing each other’s stories and caring for each other, all while navigating this strange city with caution.

Love,

Shanai Tanwar

My mom told me that once, when I was a toddler, a stranger advised her to sign me up for modelling. My green eyes, medium-light skin, and curly dark brown hair gave me a certain look, they said, which was super in. My mom said no, despite the fact that mixed-race girls like myself were in demand.

Kimora Lee Simmons, who is Black and Asian, began modelling for Chanel when she was just 14 years old. It was the late 1980s, and soon, she was being mentored by Karl Lagerfeld, reportedly the first designer to put a mixed-race model on the Paris runway. Ten years later, she launched her own clothing brand, Baby Phat. It was an instant hit: people weren’t just obsessed with the clothes, but with Simmons herself wearing them down the runway.

By the early 2000s, when my toddler modelling career was put indefinitely on hold, being mixed-race in the industry was applauded: assuming, of course, that you were the right type of mix. Which is to say that your skin could be modified to suit whatever was most marketable at the moment. At the epicentre of this movement was America’s Next Top Model (ANTM), which Simmons would later be featured on as a judge. By the show’s second cycle, contestant April Wilkner’s half-Japanese, half-white race was regularly discussed. It wasn’t the only time race became a point of fashion on the show. The appearance of changing race through makeup and outfits was a challenge in cycle four.

Naima Mora, a mixed model whose background includes Black, Mexican, Native American and Irish, had her skin lightened with makeup and was posed alongside a blonde, blue-eyed toddler. Mora ultimately won the season. Her look echoed the sentiment across the modelling industry and Hollywood in general: it was the latest trend to be able to look at someone and not be able to tell where they were from.

In 2004, the Guardian dubbed this phenomenon Generation EA— ethnically ambiguous. “The fact that you can’t be sure who they are is part of their seductiveness,” casting agent Melanie Ross said in the article. What was attractive or “exotic” about my mom, a white woman from Ontario, or my dad, a Black man from New York, wasn’t something that I would fully grasp until I was a teenager. I didn’t want to be considered exotic or alluring or sexy as a mixed-race child. I wanted to see a family like mine on TV.

In elementary school, I was the only mixed kid. It was isolating: some kids made fun of my curly hair, others accused me of being adopted. Complete strangers would ask “What are you?” without even asking my name. Later, though, it seemed super common. In high school, there were at least three of us in just the school band. By the time I moved to Toronto for university, I had met tons of people who came from mixed backgrounds like mine.

Despite this, and despite growing up seeing that my identity was trendy in modelling, Hollywood tells a different story. The only time I saw a mixed family on TV actually exploring their identity was in a cartoon called American Dragon: Jake Long, and as much as I loved seeing the misadventures of a boy who was half dragon on his mom’s Chinese side, it wasn’t the same. It’s not that there aren’t mixed people on TV or in movies: Mariah Carey, Rashida Jones, Zendaya, Halle Berry, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Keanu Reeves are all examples. They also all have one thing in common: they have lighter complexions, allowing them to weave through roles easier than darker- skinned Black actors.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Viola Davis spoke candidly about not only missing out on jobs because of her darker skin tone, but also how easy it is to get cast in stereotypical roles. “If I wanted to play a mother whose family lives in a low-income neighbourhood and my son was a gang member who died in a drive-by shooting, I could get that made,” she said in the interview. “Let’s be honest. If I had my same features and I were five shades lighter, it would just be a little bit different.”

Colourism—the specific way that skin tone plays into prejudice and discrimination—is perpetuated by the global beauty industry. It acts within the realm of systemic racism: it’s not just that Black people are more likely to experience discrimination and racism, it is that within race, people with darker skin tones are more likely to struggle when compared to other people of colour. As a light-skinned mixed person, I benefit from this system whether I like it or not.

Season five, episode 10 of Black-ish discussed colourism in a way that TV hadn’t seen before. Protagonist Dre Johnson (played by Anthony Anderson), said: “Because we look different, we get discriminated against differently. Like in the case of O.J. [Simpson]. A magazine made his skin look darker to make him seem more villainous.” (That magazine was TIME magazine.)

Black-ish (and its spin-offs), which aired countless episodes focused on racial discrimination, has also been accused of perpetuating colourism itself, partly because of the show’s choice in casting biracial actors in the roles of Dre’s children, while also casting mixed women as the stereotypical exotic love interests.

The casting of mixed actors has sometimes been controversial. In 2016, actress Zoe Saldaña came under fire for her portrayal of Nina Simone in a biopic. Saldaña, mixed with Black and Latina ancestry, was accused of blackface after it was revealed that she was made to darken her skin and wear a prosthetic nose for the role. But at the same time, Saldaña has openly rejected the idea that just because she’s Latina, she can’t also be Black. “There’s no one way to be Black,” she said in an interview with Allure magazine. “I’m Black the way I know how to be.” (She has since apologized for playing the role.)

Saldaña’s words address the complexity of race, something that Hollywood has struggled to grasp. Though it’s common for celebrities to be mixed, they’re almost never cast as such. I would never deny Saldaña’s identity as Black; the issue is that actors aren’t given the opportunity to showcase their complexities in their roles. This contributes to toxic beauty standards of colourism and sends a horrific message, declaring that you’re only as beautiful as your skin’s ability to be marketable to the latest trend. More often than not, the trends involve lighter skin mimicking Eurocentric beauty standards.

In Hollywood, it’s easier to push mixed people into a single box. In Black-ish, the box is Black. For some actors, like Dwayne Johnson, the box depends on the project. His mix of Black and Samoan has allowed him to play roles from ancient Egyptian king (The Scorpion King, 2002) to Greek legend (Hercules, 2014) to Middle Eastern antihero (Black Adam, 2022). But usually, Johnson’s characters don’t have a background where their cultures are discussed, leaving it up to the audience to interpret.

Henry Golding, the British Malaysian star of Crazy Rich Asians, has said people told him that he wasn’t “Asian enough” to play the lead in the movie. “Just because by blood I’m not full Asian doesn’t mean I can’t own my Asianness,” he said in an interview with Bustle. He also said when he played a romantic lead in A Simple Favour alongside Blake Lively—his ideal role— the character’s race wasn’t specified: it was just a character written as a person. “It was never written as an Asian role— it’s never really highlighted that I am an Asian person married to Blake Lively. But that’s what it should be like,” he said.

But what about the mixed-race people who can’t fit comfortably into the ethnically ambiguous box? While actors like Dwayne Johnson and Golding can blend in, there’s more backlash for mixed people who aren’t Hollywood heartthrobs. Names play into casting just as much as skin tone does. Chloe Bennet, who is half white, half Chinese, struggled for years to book acting roles under her birth surname, Wang. The first audition she took after changing her name resulted in a job, she said back in 2016.

To be mixed-race is to be prepared to constantly contradict yourself. It’s always having to repeat yourself when someone accuses you of being too much of one thing or not enough of the other. It’s about never really seeing yourself accurately represented in media because there is no one way to look or be mixed. It’s unfair to say all mixed people in Hollywood should be forced to prioritize one half of their culture while simultaneously trying to prove that the other half exists. Pretending that mixed people aren’t mixed can perpetuate colourism. Dark-skinned Black girls deserve to feel beautiful and see themselves too.

You can’t choose your genetics, but you can choose to call out injustice. Whether we see ourselves reflected in media or not, there are infinite ways to celebrate culture while rejecting the idea that lighter skin is better.

Published by BIPOC students and alumni, the letter documents specific instances of racism they had experienced at the school and outlines 30 calls to action. Chief among these calls was one to diversify faculty. In the first call to action, students and alumni said the school must hire more BIPOC faculty, specifically Black and Indigenous faculty, as well as collect and release demographic data, with a distinction between tenured and contract staff. Students and alumni said they created the calls to action, because, while consulted in the past through the school’s Equity and Inclusion committee, created in 2019, “serious steps toward reform have not been shared with us or made public.”

“Hiring practices have also not reflected changes that the school has expressed interest in making,” they added. In one section of the letter, BIPOC students and alumni also anonymously shared anecdotal experiences within the program. It reflected the significance of having racialized faculty in the program, especially in permanent positions: for most racialized students and alumni, it was a matter of better education through greater representation.

“Before joining Carleton’s journalism school, I asked a recently graduated white student about the racial makeup of the program’s faculty,” one of them recalled in the letter. “They asked me why on earth that mattered. This is why it matters.” Students and alumni also shared the harm some of them experienced at the hands of existing faculty in the program, much of which was white until the calls to action were released. “A professor shouted a religious slur at me in an attempt to make a joke,” one of them wrote in the letter. “Once, in a fourth-year Indigenous reporting class, the professor told me racism is simply not real and an excuse,” another shared. “If you thought you saw something as racism or a source said something was due to racism, you’re just not doing a good job as a journalist.”

In the two years since the calls to action were released, the program has brought in almost a dozen sessional instructors of colour and three tenure-track faculty, including high-profile Black journalists Nana aba Duncan and Adrian Harewood. Tobin Ng, a Carleton journalism student entering their third year at the time, says the calls to action were created “out of that frustration.” They elaborated that there “was this desire to just create a really comprehensive document that would basically outline all the things that students had been calling for again and again. There’s the emotional labour of having to repeat [ourselves], and just demand the same things without seeing concrete results,” they said.

Two years since they helped write the calls to action, Ng says the school’s response to the letter, especially through the steps it has taken to diversify faculty in the program, has finally made them hopeful. “I think that the hiring of new faculty is a step towards allowing for things that will last long beyond my time or the time of the students who are involved in this work right now.” Yet, much work remains. While the school has hired professors and instructors of colour, more change is needed to ensure that diverse faculty continue to join the program moving forward, and feel supported enough to stay and grow within it. Some steps the school is taking, in particular, involve rethinking the job of a journalism professor, creating opportunities for research and growth, and recognizing the contributions of both the students and alumni, as well as the new faculty of colour, through allyship and support.

RETHINKING THE JOB
Nana aba Duncan was sharing the job posting for a new chair at Carleton’s journalism school when a colleague suggested she apply for it. Duncan, who had spent much of her career at the CBC and had been actively involved in various diversity efforts at the public broadcaster, was completing the William Southam Journalism Fellowship at the University of Toronto’s Massey College at the time. Her research at Massey involved looking at the experiences of leaders of colour. She was interested in this topic in part because she’d never had the opportunity to work under a Black or racialized leader, and because she was looking to take on a leadership role herself.

“I was in this place of thinking about race and leadership and a move in my own career,” Duncan recalls. “I was [also] in this place of making a change and thinking about journalism in a way that could just be better for those of us who come from underrepresented communities or misrepresented communities.” After that nudge to apply for the Carty Chair in Diversity and Inclusion Studies, Duncan took a moment to pause. Then, she superimposed her personal mission “to help change the industry so that racialized journalists can feel like their perspectives and expertise are just as worthy and legitimate as the expertise and experiences of white journalists” onto the job posting from Carleton. “I realized [it all] aligns … so I applied.” The Carty Chair is the first of its kind at Carleton and across Canada. No other journalism program has a chair permanently committed to diversity and inclusion studies.

Until the summer of 2020, Carleton’s journalism school didn’t either. Allan Thompson, a professor and now the program head, insists the school had made the decision to convert its permanent chair in business and financial journalism into one that focuses on diversity and inclusion even before the calls to action were released. The decision was part of other strategic steps the school was taking since 2019, when Atong Ater, a former student in the program, shared her experiences as a journalism student at Carleton in a personal essay published by the CBC that May. A job posting for the position from September 2019, however, continued to advertise the Carty Chair as one specifically geared toward business and financial journalism, as it had been in previous years. While unclear about when the decision to change the focus of the job was actually made, Thompson says the new direction for the Carty Chair as one geared toward equity and inclusion gave the school a unique opportunity to maneuver around challenges that come with the hiring process, such as budget constraints from the university and the ability to hire new permanent faculty only when existing full-time professors retire from their positions.

It also meant the school would have a permanent member committed to spearheading equity, diversity, and inclusion, and that no budget cuts or hiring changes would affect this work. “[Endowed chairs] exist in perpetuity … and the Carty Chair had been empty for a couple of years because the occupant retired and the position hadn’t been filled,” Thompson says of the decision. “Strategically and ethically, I think it was a really wise choice to use that opportunity to create the first chair of its kind in a Canadian journalism school, where that person would have a priority to look at a whole range of equity, diversity, and inclusion issues in journalism,” he adds. “To conduct research, to create new courses, to be available to students and faculty as a resource and to be a champion, but also just to be another faculty member.”

Outside of budget constraints though, Thompson says he recognizes other challenges exist when it comes to hiring diverse faculty too. Perhaps rethinking the job also means rethinking the job requirements, especially the fact you need to have a master’s degree in order to apply for a faculty position. “Are we missing out on some really good journalists out there who have solid careers behind them, who might be interested in teaching, but don’t have a master’s degree?” he says. The conversation, however, goes beyond the school’s decision-making capacity. It continues with the university, which is ultimately responsible for changing job requirements, Thompson adds.

CREATING OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH
Duncan completed her first year as the Carty Chair this July, having designed a course on journalism and belonging and begun working on a podcasting course for the upcoming year. She says the big difference between her job now and those in the past is that at Carleton, Duncan is “simultaneously a professor and the person who cares about diversity.” At the CBC, where she was the founding co-chair for Diversify CBC, a resource group for employees of colour, Duncan remembers the work being unpaid and something she did after hours, often on top of everything else. “I was doing [diversity work] at the side of my desk while also being the host of the weekend morning show, while also having a three- and five-year-old at home,” she says. “The difference between my work here at Carleton and my work at CBC is that I had two sides to myself at CBC,” Duncan adds, “and as strange as it sounds, in this position [of the Carty Chair], I feel freer to express how much I care about inclusion and diversity.”

The work has in no way been easy, especially with working during a pandemic—often remotely or online—working from home while being a mother, and especially working to implement change that can often be emotionally draining too. It has, however, also been immensely fulfilling. “What has been rewarding is how students have responded to my course,” Duncan says, recalling the last day of class for her course on journalism and belonging. Students in the course shared with her a Kudoboard they had made. In it, they wrote their experiences in the class, thanking her for giving them the space to talk about complex issues so openly. Knowing it was her course that made these students feel that sense of gratitude filled Duncan with gratitude herself. “I just want us to continue to be fearless and curious and to do the work with respect.”

CBC journalist Adrian Harewood also joined Carleton’s journalism program following the calls to action released by students and alumni in 2020. An associate professor at Carleton, Harewood says the position has given him the opportunity and space to conduct research and create courses that illuminate Canada’s Black history. An example of this is a course that focuses specifically on the history of Black journalism in Canada. “I’m really enjoying the process of creating the course and of creating curriculum and of identifying figures and media outlets that might be unfamiliar to people,” Harewood says. “I’m also working on a longer-term project looking at the history of a very prominent Black newspaper in Canada called Contrast that was active in the late 1960s and 1970s and really was part and parcel or a product of the civil rights movement.” Harewood’s parents wrote for Contrast, and he says the research process has been interesting, given that one of the most important interviews for the project was with his 85-year-old father. These opportunities—to research and to build a more inclusive curriculum—are giving Harewood the chance to help reduce the disconnect “between the academy and the community.” He sees his work as a way to “get busy outside of our comfortable spaces.”

“Carleton is not this rarefied place, which only exists for members of the social, economic, and political elite. It is an institution that we own, too,” Harewood says. “I see that as being part of my own job and practice of trying to make space for more people but also to harness the resources of the university and share those resources with the community that we’re a part of.” His goals are varied, but being part of the faculty at Carleton
and having opportunities for research, has magnified them. “I want Carleton to be a leader when it comes to all aspects of journalism education,” Harewood says of his plans. “I want us to be a space where we are comfortable taking risks […] where we embrace discomfort.” Ultimately, Harewood says he wants the program “always to be ahead of the curve. Looking back always, and appreciating history, but also looking forward in a very kind of bold way.”

A FAR-FROM-PERFECT PROCESS
Many of the students and alumni who worked on releasing the calls to action in 2020 have also been working with the school to implement them. The process is far from perfect. Much like Duncan’s experience doing diversity and inclusion work at the CBC, students and alumni involved in addressing the calls to action are not paid for this labour, and many of them do it outside of their full-time jobs.

“We’re all working reporters with many other responsibilities on top of this,” Olivia Rania Bowden, a reporter with the Toronto Star and an alumnus from the program, says. “When we decided to [publish] these calls to action, we were like, where do we have a voice? And what can we push?” For Duncan, the work of diversifying the oldest journalism program in Canada has been a rigorous process on the faculty level too. Whether through diversifying the curriculum and the courses, the guest speakers who engage with students, or the research projects she takes on, Duncan says the work of pushing for equity and inclusion both within the classroom and outside of it is “emotionally draining and sometimes, there are the surprise moments of harm.”

An example of this, Duncan says, is when in some situations, she has heard a person say something racist or offensive or ignorant “and you either don’t know what to say, or you have to do the calculus.” For Duncan, the calculus involves deciding “whether or not I’m going to say something. And then if I decided I am going to say something, what am I going to say? And that calculus also includes: how is this person going to take it? How is my relationship going to change with this person?” According to Duncan, institutions like Carleton need to recognize “there is a burden that they don’t understand and it’s a burden they don’t know. Just as in the same way if my position was held by an Indigenous journalist or a person who went through a lot of trauma as a young person or a trans professor—there’s going to be a burden that they have that I wouldn’t know.”

The nature of the work, according to both the students and alumni involved, as well as the faculty, requires recognition from the school that goes beyond engaging with them. “What really bothers me is when [the school has] made changes, they don’t credit us publicly,” says Bowden. “I know they’ve said they were thinking about this or working on [certain changes] prior to our calls, but the thing is we did it really quickly and really well around our extremely demanding jobs because we don’t have a choice but to make it happen. As people of colour, we don’t have a choice.” It also means recognizing the push for equity, diversity, and inclusion may have begun with students and alumni of colour, but that white students and faculty within the program are equally responsible for solutions and change moving forward.

“Feeling bad or guilty is useful only as much as it is a natural feeling, and if it propels you to action, then that’s good,” says Duncan. “But I think allyship also means not performing your sadness or your guilt about the fact that systemic racism exists. And knowing that the performance of those feelings—it comes across as looking for absolution from BIPOC students or faculty. As we always say, it’s really about doing the work,” she adds. “Do the work with your colleagues, maybe with your other fellow white students, do the work within yourself.”

THE CHALLENGES THAT REMAIN
While Carleton’s journalism program has taken steps to address the calls to action released in 2020, especially when it comes to diversifying faculty and sessional instructors within the program, leaders at the university continue to remain white. The Racialized Leaders Leading Canadian Universities research published in Educational Management Administration & Leadership Journal last year found that “universities in Canada are overwhelmingly top-down institutions.”

“Even with an executive-level diversity advocate, there can be issues with diversity at the organizational level,” the research says. “Scholars have warned that these positions have the potential for tokenism, ‘whereby Chief Diversity Officers [and similar positions] may be seen as the face of diversity, but lack the formidable authority and support to create real and lasting change.’” Data from 2020 used in the research shows that 80 percent of Carleton University’s leadership is white, with 60 percent of leadership positions being held by white men, and another 20 percent held by white women. There are no Black or Indigenous men or women in leadership roles at the university.

Mohamed Elmi, the acting executive director at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Diversity Institute and a co-author of the paper, says barriers at three levels—societal, organizational, and individual—determine how many people of colour seek leadership positions in academia. One of the biggest barriers, however, is that longer career trajectories within post-secondary institutions mean those leadership positions are much slower to change.

“Even though from the outside, they [post-secondary institutions] are viewed as progressive, they are relatively bureaucratic and very slow,” Elmi says. At the same time, Elmi says the responsibility for better diversity and inclusion within the university must not fall on leaders alone. Instead, organizations and individuals that support a university, whether through funding or strategic partnerships, must also call on institutions to address diversity. “You don’t want to put the onus on the individuals, especially in a system that is not responsive,” he says.

A BLUEPRINT FOR THE FUTURE
More than two years since the calls to action were first published by students and alumni, Carleton’s journalism school has taken significant steps to address the first: hiring diverse faculty. At the same time, conversations about other calls to action listed in the document are still taking place between the journalism school at Carleton and the university at large. Among these is the call to collect race-based student data and abolish unpaid internships. It is unclear how the diversity of Carleton as a university—or lack thereof—is affecting these conversations. Thompson does say they are ongoing. For students and alumni involved, the unmet calls to action remain front and centre. For Bowden, it’s important the school now goes from addressing the calls to action to defining its mission over the next couple years. It’s a way of ensuring accountability, especially since she feels “a lot of these issues in the industry, I think can be tackled by j-schools.”

“I’m happy to see [changes] but I don’t want blog posts on our website being like, ‘Oh, we randomly did this and we randomly did this,’” Bowden says. “I want to see that in six months, [the school has] committed to [particular changes], and are they going to happen? And if it doesn’t, somebody is going to face consequences for that.”

“That’s how any planning is done,” she says, adding, “When I do see it, that’s when I’m going to feel more confident about this process.” For Ng, who graduated just this summer, the changes that Carleton’s journalism program has made so far, as well as the ones they hope the school commits to making in the future, could ensure that equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives implemented in the classroom have a positive impact on newsrooms across the country as well. “I think that conversations about accountability and transparency, and bringing that respect and care to our reporting, is something that can start at journalism schools and should continue to flow into the industry,” they say. “[It all] links back to journalism school because I think this is the place where a lot of journalists are shaped and where we first begin to understand journalistic values and the history of our role as reporters.”

Illustration by Jaden Tsan

“It’s not like you even act that Asian”—these words were spoken to me by a white now-ex-boyfriend of mine during a casual conversation. At the time, I let it go because I was not sure how I felt about it, but the words have stuck
with me.

How exactly am I supposed to act “more Asian”? And why is that something I am expected to perform? Do I need to dress up as Hollywood’s idea of a dragon lady before I am allowed to bear my cultural identity proudly? Strangers and friends alike will, unprompted, comment that I act pretty “whitewashed.” They’ve explained: it’s because I dye my hair, or I was an arts major in university, or that I like listening to punk music, or some other asinine reason. However, this is a loaded congratulations to me, insinuating that, despite my appearance and perceived hardship of being a person from a visible minority group, I am able to fully assimilate into Western society, which is apparently the true marker of success. Being called “whitewashed” is not the compliment that some people think it is.

Although I am usually happy to share my opinion or personal lived experience as a Chinese woman who was born in Canada when I’m asked to, there are times when I’m not willing to do so. I won’t engage when these questions come from strangers or people who are just looking to argue, rather than genuinely listen to my answers.

When non-Chinese strangers or salespeople approach me by saying “Ni Hao” in mispronounced Mandarin, I wonder what exactly their goal is. Are they actually attempting to connect with me and make me feel comfortable in what they think is my mother tongue, or is it to make themselves feel cultured because they want to show off the fact that they know how to say a simple “hello” in another language? Usually, it seems to be the latter. In some cases, I may humour them by responding in Mandarin, after which they will admit that they don’t actually know how to speak it. Other times, when I’m not in the mood, I’ll explain that had they asked and wanted to have a conversation with me, I would’ve told them that my mother tongue is actually Cantonese and I am not as fluent in Mandarin.

And then, if people want to speak to me in Cantonese, do they have a basic understanding or even an honest desire to learn, or are they just looking to learn the swear words so they can have a fun party trick? These are also things that can be learned on the internet for free, instead of asking me to invest my time and energy into a moment of entertainment that I do not share in.

When I worked at an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant, it put me in the frustrating position of working in a customer service role where I was required to be as polite and accommodating as possible to guests, even if they were rude or ignorant. Guests would compliment me for my English-speaking skills, remark on my lack of accent, or ask me where I’m from—no, where I was really from. Many were disappointed to hear that I’m not Japanese and that, in fact, I was born and raised in Canada. My place of birth shouldn’t even be a talking point when I’m working as a server at a restaurant, and I doubt that white servers are asked about their ethnic origins at work. Sometimes I would just tell them what they wanted to hear and make up a backstory for the most gullible. After all, they came to have an authentic cultural experience and eat California rolls at a Japanese restaurant, and in their minds, that experience is included with the all-you-can-eat menu price.

My coworkers would often try to placate me after these situations by saying that those ignorant guests were harmless. And while I can understand that those customers might have been well-meaning, it doesn’t excuse the fact that they expect me to fill a stereotype and that they are looking to receive some sort of approval from me as an Asian person, to validate that they are somehow more cultured than the average person.

Once, a man came into the restaurant while I was working, showed me a picture on his phone, and asked me if I could
translate the words on the Asian tapestry that he used to decorate his living room. I explained to him that I could not read it because he had walked into a Japanese restaurant owned by Chinese people, and it was written in Korean. He left without ordering anything. These types of microaggressions may ultimately be harmless, but they are unsettling. I am not on call to perform Asian-ness.

Even friends and acquaintances will call on me to perform. People I’ve just met will tell me how much they enjoy Asian cuisine or that they watch anime or that they listen to K-pop—as if I’m the authority on these topics and earning praise from me will validate their interests. Of course, these people never make equivalent comments to my white friends who are at the same party as me. They get to engage in reasonable small talk about their hobbies or work, while I get to listen to someone talk about their upcoming trip itinerary to Japan (where I’ve never been and can’t offer any travel advice about). Whether it’s consciously or not, people will seek validation from me—and I’m sure it happens to the majority of other individuals who are a part of a visible minority group.

This brings me back to the first comment. How exactly am I supposed to act “more Asian”? Being Asian is an experience that I actively live through— it isn’t a choice I make. It’s something that people expect of me based on my appearance. I should not be expected to explain myself to strangers and ignorant acquaintances. I’m proud of who I am, but it’s not the only facet of my life that I ever want to talk about.

I didn’t grow up to be a stereotype. There is no right or wrong way to be Asian. I’m not your anime dream girl. I’m not your Hollywood dragon lady. I’m not your idea of a model minority citizen. I’m not here to meet your expectations—there isn’t a point where I don’t act Asian enough to fit into your idea of who I am—and I do not have to do the emotional work to prove myself to anybody.

Illustration by Brintha Koneshachandra

Dear Mom,

The other day, I was making us breakfast and I reached into the fridge to grab the container of yogurt to eat with our puri. Now, you would think, having done essentially this every weekend of my entire life, I would not screech, “Ugh! Mom, where is the yogurt?! Why do you have to put the daar in the yogurt container?!” But here we are.

I shouted at you, irritated, yet knowing that I do the exact same thing. I save every yogurt and take-out container; I even have favourites.

If I ever need a container, I’d know exactly where to look. The dishwasher. “Dishwasher guilt” is nothing new. For a variety of psychological and economic reasons, refugees and immigrants tend to resist using this appliance. The idea of saving water and electricity is an important aspect. I turn the tap off when I am brushing my teeth. I turn the shower off when I am conditioning my hair. By this logic, the dishwasher is simply a nuisance. It is often used as additional storage—a glorified dishrack, the perfect place for mountains of reusable containers. There is even a common joke that not using the dishwasher for its intended purpose is the quintessential sign of one’s immigrant roots.

And as you can guess, Mom, when I moved out, I too did not use the dishwasher.

When I moved out, I didn’t downsize. I wear clothes from over 10 years ago. I love receiving hand-me-downs from my bhabi, even at 34 years old. Sometimes, even my close friend offers up clothing that she is ready to part with. I love thrifting. There is no shame in sharing.

And you, Mother, taught me that. I wore many hand-me-downs. But you made it my own. You put hairspray in my hair, lent me your pretty earrings, and told me I looked great. Your friends, with daughters quite a few years older than me, would give you bags of their unwanted clothes. Sure, I didn’t particularly love wearing clothing three sizes too big for me to school, but I certainly did make the most of it. In Grade 3, did you know my best friend and I wore those giant jackets together at recess and lunch? Her arm through the left, my arm through the right, holding each other in the middle. We would zip it right up and walk around scaring people: “We are the two-headed monster!” It really provided endless fun.

And, when I need to repair a beloved clothing item to prolong its longevity, Nani always has my back. Again, I know just where to look. The deep blue, circular Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookie tin. Yup, this is where you store the “sewing kit.” Nothing goes to waste.

There were never a lot of strict rules in our house, were there? But one was always implied, right? Don’t waste. Thanks, Mom.

Just like the chai you sip (and remove the single teabag to reuse throughout the day), our past is steeped in conservation. Maybe these practices support the stereotype that South Asian people are cheap. What most do not realize is how deeply these habits are ingrained in our history of imperialism, instability, and corruption. It is really no surprise that protecting our resources has been passed down through generations. From being forcibly expelled from your homeland with nothing, to living as a single mother—whether it is about scarcity or logic, this is how we live.

Looking back, our culture and communities have been practicing sustainability for centuries, perhaps respecting and appreciating the abundance of what we had, not the lack of it.

So, I am writing this letter to thank you, Mom, for teaching me about sustainability, long before it was cool.

With love and gratitude,

Saffina Jinnah

Dimitri Nasrallah’s Hotline (Véhicule Press) transports readers to mid-eighties Montreal when weight-loss centres were a burgeoning industry, and “body image” and “health consciousness” were terms just entering the vocabulary of self-care. Muna Heddad, a French teacher by trade, takes a job as a hotline phone operator at meal delivery company Nutri-Fort when no school will hire her. An immigrant escaping the Lebanese Civil War, she has little alternative if she is to provide a semblance of security for her son, Omar, following her husband’s disappearance from the war-torn streets of Beirut.

Nasrallah, who teaches creative writing at Concordia University, elaborated on his decision to set his novel in the heyday of hotlines.

“There’s always an unsophisticated idealism baked into the possibilities of new mediums,” he says. “A little later on, everyone comes to a consensus about usage and conventions. But there’s a window of time in which people are still figuring [out] what can be done, and that was when this era of the hotline became appealing. It’s an obscure technology now, but in its heyday it spoke to that universal need to connect with others in ways we’ve emulated since with the internet and social media.”

Known for his politically charged writing in books like The Bleeds, Niko, and Blackbodying, Hotline sees Nasrallah taking inspiration from his own childhood, articulating some of his mother’s experiences working as a weight-loss call operator.

“The people who call Nutri-Fort’s hotline and speak to Muna experience the shame that comes with fatphobia,” he says. “They’d dedicated themselves to meeting the many expectations Canadian life was throwing at them, and along the way they gained weight, which set them even further back from where they wanted to be—that consensus ideal of happiness that hangs over all of us,” Nasrallah says.

“For Muna, xenophobia brings a similar shame, of not understanding the way the game is played here and the sense of being manipulated by circumstances [she doesn’t] yet understand. That shared sense of shame makes her sympathetic to the voices she counsels on the phone.”

Muna fears that her Quebecois clients struggling with loneliness and bereavement will sever their ties with her if they discover that she is a French-speaking Arab. This balancing act of appearing sympathetic to callers who would not deign to speak to her outside of a professional scenario is the lamentable if commonplace dynamic at the centre of the novel.

“The anxiety over these two forms of visibility—body image and race—were paired together for me by that situation,” Nasrallah explains. “It was only much later as an adult that I began to see how the two were linked and fit into this larger context of unattainable ideals that are a part of North America’s social fabric.” Nasrallah notes that fatphobia and xenophobia are both fears of the body. “Both come from the same intolerances and are hardwired into the social construct. Both devalue how people see themselves.”

At a time when borders are reopening and immigration numbers to Canada are beginning to rise following disincentives to travel, Hotline documents how social issues newcomers face have root causes that have not been completely addressed four decades later.

“In every historical setting in fiction, there has to be some resonance back to the current moment, something that connects the reader to the material and helps organize the story so that parallels emerge and serve to give the narrative layers of meaning,” Nasrallah says. “When we draw from the past, it’s to understand the present moment, and organize some understanding out of the parallels we see.”