Author: Migrant Tales

A-Studio’s immigrant rape report: A prejudiced storm in a tea cup

Posted on by Migrant Tales

An A-Studio report on the “high” amount of rape convictions of foreigners in Finland is not only another unfortunate example of arbitrary reporting by the Finnish media, but reinforces the perception of how hate groups in this country use crime statistics against immigrants.  

Migrant Tales encountered another similar story about foreign rape cases in April by Aamulehti.  In both cases, it isn’t clear whether the rape cases are committed by tourists or immigrant residents.

What made the A-Studio report especially questionable were the very statistics it used to drive home its point.

In the very same style as hate groups in Finland, the A-Studio report claims that since a quarter of all rape convictions in this country were committed by foreigners, there is “a serious rape problem” in this country.

A while later, however, we learn that we’re talking about 25 rape convictions during the first five months of the year. We are even shown a table by A-Studio of the convictions by nationality. Of the 25 convictions, the biggest group are the Iraqis (7 cases) followed by Afghans (2), Nigerians (2), Swedes (2) and Serbian & Montenegrins (2).

Nina Nurminen, a prison psychologist at the Criminal Sanctions Agency, does not state in any part of the A-Studio interview that we are speaking of a small minority and that it would be wrong to conclude and label foreigners and especially Iraqi men as potential rapists. She does suggest, however, that people who come from war zones may be more inclined to rape.

A medic of the Family Federation, Miila Halonen, adds more fuel to the claims by telling us how Finnish women are “raped” without them knowing it. In other words, an immigrant meets a Finnish white woman, has sex with her and then dumps her. A friend of the immigrant calls the same woman and does the same thing.

Is Halonen implying that this is a form of “rape?” What about one-night stands among white Finns? Is it ok for a white Finn to do this but not acceptable if the person is a foreigner? How many of these types of cases is Halonen speaking of?

Like Nurminen, she too wanders off into generalizations labeling foreign men as preying on innocent women.

On top of her claims, she says that sex education should form part of the immigrants’ integration program.

Do you think that the A-Studio report was fair and offered a well-rounded story on the matter, or was it a prejudiced storm in a tea cup?

 

 

PS MP shows more ”tolerant” side to Helsingin Sanomat concerning homosexuality

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Contrary to what James Hirvisaari commented on the Hommaforum website, the Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP gave a more “tolerant” view on Helsingin Sanomat concerning his statement that homosexuality is “a sexual developmental disability.”  

Hirvisaari said that even a disabled people like homosexuals need to accept themselves for what they are, he emphasized that  homosexuality or disability does not erase human dignity. He said that his comments were not intended to incite hatred against homosexuals.

Outi Hannula, the chairwoman of the Finnish gay rights organization SETA, didn’t buy everything that the PS MP said.

“In what day does seeing homosexuality as a developmental disability differ from labelling it as an illness?” she said. “It seems that this is an attempt to label a person as deviant and unnatural.”

One of the questions that the whole affair raises is why bring up the topic in the first place.

The only sensible answer to that question is that Hirvisaari is trying to raise support and public visibility for the PS, which has seen its poll standings take a hit.

Finland will hold municipal elections in October.

Finnish anti-immigration party MP claims homosexuality to be a “disability in sexual development”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

In light of the municipal elections of October 28 and the Perussuomalaliset (PS) party’s poll standings, it’s no surprise that MPs of the right-wing populist party like James Hirvisaari are leading the charge against different minorities in Finland. In a comment on Hommaforum, the PS MP considered homosexuality to be “a disability in sexual development.”* 

Hommaforum is an unofficial PS website used to spread intolerance of minorities in Finland.

Of the Counter Jihadists in parliament, Hirvisaari is in the same league with other Suomen Sisu association fellow members like Jussi Halla-aho, Olli Immonen and others.

“In my opinion there is a good reason to ask if homosexuality is some sort of disability in sexual development if a person cannot develop in the natural order [being able to reproduce] of things,” he is quoted as saying on Hommaforum. “It’s not [homosexuality] a sickness but only a disability.”

Hirvisaari, who got fined for hate speech in December, is a good example of the negative passions and political forces that social media has unleashed in this country.

The decision by the Kouvola Court of Appeal to fine Hirvisaari for hate speech was upheld in June by the Finnish Supreme Court.

The PS MP’s near-constant rants against different minorities are a wake-up call for us on how some politicians like Hirvisaari are breathing life back into intolerance and polarizing our society.

There is a clear connection between xenophobic and homophobic behavior. In order to promote tolerance in a society, we must challenge both of these social ills.

Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen expressed such concern recently on YLE. He said that the actions and comments of parties like the PS have hurt Finland’s international image.

”What is clearly causing harm [to our society these days] is the racist, near-fascist, xenophobic old way of thinking that is propagated by certain sectors…” he said.

 

*Taking into context what James Hirvisaari said, and trying to understand it, probably “disability in sexual development” is a better translation of kehitysvamma in this context than sexual disorder.

 

Julian Abagond: human zoos

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Julian Abagond 

Human zoos (1500s- ), also known as ethnological exhibits, peoples shows (Völkerschau) or Negro villages, showed native peoples at zoos and fairs. They have been common in the West since the time of Columbus, butreached their height from the 1870s to the 1930s – back in the days of Joseph Conrad, Gauguin, minstrel shows and the birth of National Geographic.

They showed people from:

  • the Middle East,
  • Africa,
  • Sri Lanka,
  • the Philippines,
  • Java,
  • New Guinea,
  • the Pacific,
  • the Americas and
  • the Arctic.

They were especially common in

  • Germany (huge),
  • France,
  • Britain and
  • America.

Tens of millions saw them.

Examples:

  • 1896: the Cincinnati Zoo showed Sioux Indians.
  • 1899: “Savage South Africa” in Britain showed Zulus, complete with spears, shields and staged battles.
  • 1904: the St Louis world’s fair showed a “parade of evolutionary progress” with Filipinos and American Indians ranked below whites and with Pygmies just above apes.
  • 1906: the Bronx Zoo showed a Pygmy, Ota Benga, in the same cage as an orangutan.

Iroquois at a 1905 exposition dressed as Plains Indians. Probably in Belgium.

Ever since Columbus natives brought back by sailors were shown to the public, especially at fairs. Few ever made it back home and many did not last long in disease-ridden Europe. A well-known example is Sarah Baartman of South Africa, who was shown in a cage in Britain and part of an animal show in Paris.

“Native villages” were built so white people could see how they lived. Montaigne reported one in Rouen, France in 1533 of Tupinamba Indians from Brazil. Such villages became especially common at zoos and world fairs starting in the 1870s.

To succeed as a native:

  • Play to stereotype;
  • Fit Western ideas of beauty – or go completely against them;
  • Be at ease with audiences;
  • Have a special skill, like ivory carving.

This favoured those who were artists or entertainers in their own land.

The whole thing was staged and played to Western stereotypes:

  • Arabs were like in “Thousand and One Nights” from the 1300s.
  • American Indians were like in the cowboy-and-Indian books of the time.
  • South Sea Islanders were bare breasted and carefree – even though, as Gauguin discovered, that world was long gone if it ever was (but painted it anyway).
  • Black Africans were shown as savage hunters, spears and all, just a step above wild animals – even though most Africans of the time were herders and farmers. One show was called “Gorilla Negroes”.

The Pygmies at the St Louis fair, on the other hand, liked to smoke cigars and wear top hats, which screwed up the show’s racist evolutionary ranking.

Some feared for the safety of white women. In both Victorian England and Nazi Germany, some opposed the shows out of fear of race mixing between black men and white women.

At least as late as 2005 you could still see “African tribesmen” in grass skirts at a Western zoo (in Augsberg, Germany). Butsince the 1930s such things have become uncommon: film, and later television and cheap air travel, were able to give Westerners a much richer-seeming (but not always truer) experience of native peoples.

Read original story here.

 This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.

 

 

Words have consequences: Deciphering code words of hate in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales
…hate groups have used conflicts over immigration to advance                                                                                         their White Supremacy, their hate, their stereotypes…                                                                                                            Anti-Defamation League

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in the United States was founded in 1913 to address anti-Semitism and ”to secure justice and fair treatment of all.” ADL’s Stacy Burdett reveals in an interview below the code words of hate used in the U.S. to dehumanize and victimize immigrants and visible minorities. The same speech is rampant today in Finland and Europe. 

Below are four ways to recognize the code words of hate:

  • Immigrants are an army of invaders
  • Dehumanization
  • Immigrants bring crime and disease
  • Conspiracy theory

While Hispanics are singled out as a danger to the United States, anti-immigration groups in Europe point their finger at Muslims.

Let’s look at Burdett’s points and see if they apply to Europe and Finland.

Immigrants are an army of invaders. With this claim, anti-immigration groups drive home the point that immigrants, or Muslims in the case of Europe, are an ”army” or “horde” invading our values and way of life.

There are many examples of people and groups using this argument. One of them is Aalto University senior lecturer Kyösti Tarvainen, who claimed, using a pocket calculator, that Muslims would outnumber Finns this century due to their high birthrates.

Pet adjectives used by these groups to describe immigration are “uncontrolled” and/or “mass.”

Dehumanization. Immigrants are talked about as swarms, hordes or in worse terms.  Burdett says: “…when you teach children at school to think a person is animal-like, less than human, you teach them that this group is less-deserving of their basic civil rights.”

Former Interior Minister Kari Rajamäki (Social Democrat) once labelled refugees as “welfare shoppers” that come in groups to this country to live off our generous social welfare system. The claim implies that since they come here as “welfare shoppers,” they should be treated as second-class members of our community.

The Nuiva Manifesto, an immigration policy endorsed by the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) party, points out what basic civil rights should be taken away from immigrants.

Immigrants bring crime and disease. This is a common  argument used by anti-immigration groups with the help of inaccurate statistics.

PS MPs like James Hirvisaari have used rape statistics and social welfare payments to single out and attack certain immigrant groups and minorities in Finland. One of his most incredible claims was that Norwegian mass killer, Anders Breivik, carried out his massacre because of “uncontrolled immigration” and because 100% of all rapes committed in the country were by foreigners.

Conspiracy theory. In the United States, anti-immigration groups claim that Mexicans that come to the U.S. do so to reconquer the Southwest and take back land that once belonged to Mexico.

In the same way, these groups in Finland and Europe claim that ”multiculturalism” is a conspiracy to permit Muslims and blacks to take over Europe ethnically and culturally.

Concludes Burdett: “When people all over the country are trained to think of immigrants as invading our way of life, trying to rip apart our civilization and undermining our values, when we are trained to think that they are a little less than, less-deserving of rights, less human, animal-like, almost…good people will be inculcated to hate.”

…”words have consequences. There is a direct connection between the policies we have in our societies, the words of leaders, daily lives of minority communities and immigrants and unfortunately we have seen hate crimes against Latinos, Asians and other immigrants on the rise.”

Sounds eerily familiar, even if Burdett is speaking about the United States.

Thanks to Daily Community Village Activist for the heads-up. 

 

Racist graffiti appears (again) in an eastern Finnish city

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It was only in 2010 when Kansainvälinen Mikkeli (International Mikkeli) brought to the city’s attention racist graffiti. To the association’s surprise, the graffiti had been on the walls of the Kattilansilta School and an underpass for over six months. Nobody, never mind the city, appeared to care too much about them.  

While this type of graffiti is the work of a small minority, it should not only be condemned by the city but painted over. What kind of image does racist graffiti give to a city like Mikkeli? How many new families and businesses will they scare away?

Does our silence suggest that we approve of this type of behavior or that we are ambivalent to it?

 This picture was taken in July 2012, even if Nazi Germany was defeated in May 1945. 

 White Power and SS signs, a trademark of neo-Nazis, together with a familiar warning. This picture was taken in July 2012.

One of these associations that is spreading stickers promoting neo-Nazism is the Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta (SKV). The sticker was placed in spring 2012 in front of the author’s home. It reads: “Multiculturalism is hazardous to your children and grandchildren.” 

 

 

PBS documentary: U.S. Border Patrol, an example we should avoid

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When I grew up in Southern California, the object of racist insults weren’t only blacks but especially Mexicans. Even if there were no Mexicans never mind blacks at our elementary school in Hollywood, some students – if not all – had very strong prejudices against them. 

An investigative documentary by PBS shows that not only is the treatment of Mexicans and other Latin Americans a widespread problem in the United States, it has risen to endemic proportions if we look at the actions of the U.S. Border Patrol.

Here is a link to the PBS website to the investigative report titled, Crossing the line. Here’s Part I.

Writes PBS: “In the rush to stem the tide of undocumented immigrants, has Border Patrol committed widespread abuse on [US]American soil? A former Border Patrol agent blows the whistle on unacceptable conditions in detention centers, including massive over-crowding and detainees who claim they were deprived of food and water.”

One part of the PBS documentary caught my eye with respect to Finland. It claimed that in 2010, there were only three complaints by detainees and 21 over treatment in general by Border Patrol officials.

If so few complaints have been filed against the U.S. Border Patrol against thousands of complaints by former Mexican detainees that suggest abuse, torture and even sexual harassment, the single- and double-digit figures above are highly revealing.

In Finland, there were questions raised by the Ombudsman for Minorities concerning ethnic profiling by the police. The police responded that there weren’t any such cases.

Such a claim in April, which was backed Christian Democrat (KD) Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen,  shows in my opinion that ethic profiling by the police is an issue just like the mistreatment of undocumented immigrants is by the U.S. Border Patrol.

Take a look at the PBS documentary. It will shock you.

When any institution like the U.S. Border Patrol is out of control and not accountable for its actions, the biggest loser are the very values that these agents claim to defend and uphold. It is indeed a slippery slope.

Who are the real enemies threatening the United States: undocumented immigrants or a U.S. Border Patrol that appears to be out of control and acts with impunity?

Thanks go to Community Village Daily Activist for the heads-up. 

Sandhu Bhamra: If you are not White, you are not-Canadian-enough

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By Sandhu Bhamra*

Are you Canadian?

I am not talking legality on right to vote and accessing free healthcare, but the sense of being, being Canadian.

Let me walk you through a mini questionnaire to help you understand where I am going with this:

When you think of Canadian identity, what do you think of?

White? Hyphenated? Multi-racial?

(Did you think Aboriginal?)

What about culture?

South Asian? Asian? Polish? English? Latino?

(Again, did you think Aboriginal?)

Or Canadian?

So, what is Canadian culture?

Canada officially has a multicultural policy, which treats all Canadian citizens with dignity “regardless of their racial or ethnic origins, their language, or their religious affiliation”.

Or simply, in the words of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau who introduced the policy in 1971, “two official languages and no official culture”.

When there is no official culture, what is that we call Canadian culture?

Born and raised in India, identity wasn’t the first thing on my mind when I landed as a permanent resident nine years ago. I grew up in an urban enclave in India, where the first language of communication was English. I spoke Punjabi, my mother tongue, at home and am well versed in India’s national language Hindi.

On landing in Vancouver, the street signs in Punjabi language, and whole lot of services, both private and government, available in my mother tongue, pleasantly surprised me.

I realized there were services available in a host of other languages. I loved the respect given to plurality of cultures in Canada – the richness of different sounds, textures, and colours was fascinating.

I thought this is the place to be. After the few initial hiccups, my husband and I decided to stay for good. We eventually became citizens, had a family, and now cannot imagine living anywhere else.

But my faith in plurality of cultures was in for a rude shock when I went to register my daughter for kindergarten early this year. The morning of the day the registrations opened, I was first in line, excitedly waiting to fill the form.

As I filled in the details, I came across a harmless–looking column: ‘other languages spoken at home’. I have been home-schooling my daughter (basic pre-school material), so it has been in English. But my husband and I take great pride in our heritage, and speak both Punjabi and Hindi at home. We listen to English, Punjabi and Hindi music, and watch TV shows and movies in all three languages, so I wrote Punjabi and Hindi as the additional languages.

Little did I know that would change the way I viewed Canadian identity.

Apparently, if you speak a language other than English at home (I guess French doesn’t count here) your kid gets automatically assigned to the ESL program.

ESL? English as a second language program. The school secretary explained that at an orientation at a later date, my kid would be tested for ESL. I thought fair enough. For all kids to perform equally well, it only makes sense if all had the same level of English proficiency. I said to her, don’t worry my daughter will pass the test. And that’s when the full force of what lied ahead hit me.

It didn’t matter if my daughter passed, the secretary explained – there is no pass or fail in ESL, just levels. Every kid who listens to sounds made in a language other than English at home gets into the program.

It didn’t make sense to me. Next moment, I was sitting in the principal’s office, a Canadian educator with Asian roots (her ethnicity is relevant in context to this post). For the next half-an-hour or so, she tried to reason in her Asian accent the importance of the program. I told her I recognized the value of ESL; all I didn’t understand was – how was this language program relevant to a child who spoke fluent Canadian English?

Because ESL just didn’t cover a language issue, she explained. It was an introduction to Canadian culture. And what exactly do you mean by that, I asked her. She wavered in her replies, giving me examples of teaching kids about “ham” and “Canadian sports” and “traditions” or other things “Canadian”. She got personal to convince me – if it weren’t for ESL, her son wouldn’t be working in IT at The University of British Columbia!

I asked her if they put a White kid in ESL or do they assume that all White children have a good command of English language and know everything “Canadian”? She confirmed my worst fear: even if my daughter were a fourth-generation Canadian, as long as she listened to Punjabi and Hindi music, she would be in ESL.

The message I got was: if you are not White, you are not-Canadian-enough.

I thanked her, and walked out asking to sit on the Parents’ Advisory Committee.

The new definition of ESL sadly reminded me of the residential schools: the ill-fated program that destroyed the culture, identity and sense of being of Canadian Aboriginal peoples in the name of assimilation.

It is not fair on my part to compare a harmless-sounding program like ESL to a national tragedy of residential schools that destroyed generations and continue to evoke bitter memories for Canadians. But with my new understanding of ESL, veiled as a language program, and intended to teach non-White kids about “Canadian culture”, I can’t help but draw the comparison of a similar “assimilation” that the Aboriginal kids went through.

I calmed myself and reasoned, if a child who lived in a war zone in Afghanistan were to come and start school here, he or she would have to know more than just English to fit in. In this context, the program seemed fair.

But three things are out of place here: first, the wrong impression that ESL is only about language. It is actually about conversion to “Canadian culture”. (The fact is I didn’t get a clear definition of “Canadian culture” from the school principal I spoke to.)

Secondly, you cannot use a blanket column to put kids from varied backgrounds in ESL just because a language other than English is spoken at home.

Is it justified to club a child whose initial formative years were in an urban school in China with a child who spent first five years of his or her life in a refugee camp in Afghanistan with a Canadian-born, raised child who knows ice hockey from field hockey, took the first steps with Caillou, can tell a dime from a nickel, sings Canadian rhymes and a flag means the Maple Leaf, just because he or she speaks another language at home?

Still, I would give the benefit of doubt to the ESL program for better “assimilation” of my children but it’s my third point we need to consider seriously: the unfair treatment to the White child whose grandparents or great-grandparents or great great-grandparents came to Canada before the “Others” came in.

A nation with physical borders has to have a commonality (other than hockey) to exist peacefully. If we have the benefit of equality of all cultures, why this is not getting culturally crossed over?

If my kid is going to learn about “Canadian” things, doesn’t the White kid have a right to know about Vaisakhi, Diwali, or Eid? Not on a special multicultural day where kids dress up in “their traditional” wear and talk about “their culture”.

Instead of telling our kids (White and non-White alike) to respect the Aboriginal land we live on and be thankful for the rich heritage they have given us, we “study” them like a species. To me, that is breeding White vs. Other identity.

This “Other”, who lived in huts and wore feathers or came from foreign mystical lands of flying carpets and snake charmers (doesn’t matter if two generations before him or her have lived in Canada) has to assimilate in the “White” culture. Where is Trudeau’s no official culture?

This reminds me of a video project I did sometime ago. The main character was a second-generation South Asian and was filmed in both Canada and at location in South Asia. The second person of South Asian heritage in the piece was I, since I narrated the story.

There were two minor characters, one Middle Eastern in descent and one White. For time constraints, we had to pick one of the two. For me, the Middle Eastern was a stronger character in terms of background story that gave depth to the narrative. For my partner on the project (a White guy), it made more sense to keep the White person – not on strength of background story but to make the overall piece more “Canadian”. I still remember his awkward laugh and hesitation as he said to me, if we keep the Middle Eastern character, the video piece wouldn’t look and sound “Canadian”.

My partner is a nice person and a friend, but I was disappointed to see how he viewed Canadian identity. A senior (another White person) called the final shot and dropped the Middle Eastern character. He didn’t say if it were for “Canadian identity” purposes, but just the White person suited the story more. It has weighed on my chest since.

I still cannot imagine living anywhere else, but I want the Canadian identity to truly reflect the plurality of cultures.

*Thanks for reading. I am a Canadian journalist with transnational experience. An award-winning broadcaster, print and web reporter, I have reported across major media platforms – print, television and web for over a decade. I just started this blog in an effort to deconstruct identity in inter-racial, inter-cultural, patriarchal modern world. For detailed biography and portfolio, visit my website.

Read original blog entry here.

This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.

Sandhu Bhamra: “Who do you think you are?”

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Sandhu Bhamra*

That was the title under which three young Canadian authors discussed issues of identity, location and language at the recently concluded Indian Summer Festival in Vancouver.

The three, Anosh Irani, David Chariandy and Gurjinder Basran – from different backgrounds discussed how heritage, culture, memories and language shaped their work.

At the end of the talk, I asked if there was a Canadian identity and if yes, how each defined it? I quite liked what each said, but I didn’t really get a definition.

Not to say they didn’t have anything credible to say, but each defined what being Canadian meant to them. They offered a discourse, a rather brilliant one. The audience engaged and every person who spoke added dimensions to my still unanswered question: “What is Canadian identity?”

“Identity is on a spectrum,” offered a good friend. He said his “visible identity” of South Asian heritage was one end of the spectrum and the “Canadian identity” was the other end. He said growing up in Canada and living the western lifestyle, he considered himself at the other end.

But what is this other end? The opposite end of one’s “visible identity”?

He offered a description of this opposite end: the Anglo identity, which he argued was the “Canadian identity”. But when half of Vancouver and Toronto’s population is headed to be “Visible Minorities”, how is the opposite end Anglo?

Or is there an opposite end?

Or to begin with, can identity be really gauged on a spectrum?

And that too national identity?

In a nation where multiculturalism is a policy?

A nation I willingly chose to make home, where I feel loved and protected, where I can raise this question for a dialogue without the fear of being persecuted or worse, beheaded?

I have no qualms about accepting the Anglo-French heritage of Canada, but I also cannot forget that this heritage was built on Aboriginal land and identity. I cannot argue with, or change history. It is what it is. I use the lens of the past to understand the context of my present.

But to understand the present in the context of future, I have no lens.

So the need for this dialogue.

With you.

About our present.

Our present where “Visible Minorities” are projected to be “Visible Majorities” in a few years.

Our present where Aboriginal youth continue to face challenges.

Our present where the law says there is no official culture but the norm says the Anglo culture is the Canadian culture. Again, I am not rejecting the Anglo (or in common parlance, the White identity) culture, but I am saying it cannot define the core identity of a nation where the “Other” has to wrap him or her around it. For a nation to exist peacefully, the “Anglo”, the “French”, the “Aboriginal and the “Visible Minorities” on the so-called spectrum have to have a common footing – one cannot define the other.

How do we do this? That is my question – to self, to academicians, to politicians, to social scientists, and most importantly, to the society, to you.

The friend I mention above did admit that despite his identification with the Anglo identity, he does get asked, “Where is he really from”? Despite self-identification with the Anglo culture as being Canadian, his visible identity takes precedence. Meaning, he rejects his own identity and doesn’t get accepted for his adopted identity.

And that brings me to the oft-repeated question in parties, in playgrounds and at workplaces, “Where are you really from?” Even if you are a second or third-generation non-Anglo “Canadian”, have never visited the birthplace of your parents, or grandparents, you are always recognized as the “Other” and asked this question.

I myself have given answers like “I am really from Vancouver”, then tried getting specific on the area I live in, but till I answer, “I am from India”, the person at the other end doesn’t budge.

In the early days of my arrival in Canada, I used to be annoyed when asked where I am really from. Three years later, I became a Canadian citizen and gave up my Indian citizenship. When I was still asked the same, I was perplexed. Nine years later, I still am asked the same question.

How do I feel today?

For that, I will ask you to read, “Just another Chinese Christian?” by Mr. Justin Tse.

Mr. Tse, a Ph.D. candidate at UBC, frustrated with people’s expectations from him as a Chinese Christian with roots in Hong Kong brilliantly sums up the sentiments of people like me. The best part? Humour is not lost on him.

It’s even more complicated for people who inherit multiple racial and national identities before moving to Canada. Mr. Jayson Go grew up in the Philippines, is ethnically Chinese, but now a Canadian. I went to UBC with Jayson and have been friends with him since. This is one of his recent Facebook status updates:

“Filipinos always say to me, ‘You’re from the Philippines? But you look Chinese!’ Chinese always say to me, ‘You’re not Chinese. What are you? What kind of name is Go?”

Now envision this scenario: more than fifty per cent of the population torn between these identities.

I foresee chaos.

And that is why we need a dialogue. We cannot sit comfortably in the coziness of our self-created identities and pretend the Canadian landscape is the same as it was 100 or even 35 years ago and expect every newcomer to the country and the successive generations to just adapt to the existing societal norms.

We as a society need to be sensitive to the richness of experience, language, and culture that the newcomers bring with them, keeping the context of past in mind. We need to remember that these newcomers call Canada home, raise families and the children from these homes are/will be torn between identities.

And we cannot ignore the Aboriginal youth who are growing up with their unique sense of identity in the shadow of the residential school past. As one Aboriginal friend remarked to me that his tribal identity is his first sense of identity. So how was he left out from the “Canadian identity”?

It just means one thing: the present norm of Canadian identity, loosely translated: the Anglo identity, doesn’t hold water. Anymore.

If identity is indeed a spectrum; the Canadian identity needs to be the spectrum itself, not one end. Every community, Anglo, French, Aboriginal, “Visible Minorities”, regardless of racial and ethnic origins, language, or religious affiliation needs to be a band of colour that completes the rainbow, not gravitate towards one end, the Anglo end.

*Thanks for reading. I am a Canadian journalist with transnational experience. An award-winning broadcaster, print and web reporter, I have reported across major media platforms – print, television and web for over a decade. I just started this blog in an effort to deconstruct identity in inter-racial, inter-cultural, patriarchal modern world. For detailed biography and portfolio, visit my website.

Read original blog entry here.

This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.

 

 

Suomi on väkivaltainen maa

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Onko Suomi väkivaltainen maa? Vastaus riippuu siitä kuka olet: valkoinen suomalainen, mies, nainen, maahanmuuttaja, näkyvään vähemmistöön kuuluva tai vammainen.

Ennen kuin perustelen väitteeni, haluan tehdä muutamia selvennyksiä Susanna Kinnusen blogiin.

  • Olen ”pieni vihainen mies.”  Uskon, että ne, jotka tuntevat minut  henkilökohtaisesti olisivat aika paljon erimieltä.  Harrastin paljon mm.  koripalloa ja tunnetusti pelaajat ovat hyvinkin kookkaita
  • Olen  ”valtakunnanmaahanmuuttaja.” Olen suomalainen, jolla on suomalainen,  argentiinalainen ja yhdysvaltalainen tausta. Olen suomalaista sukujuurta ensimmäisessä polvessa, katson siis olevani suomalainen.

Uskon yhä, että Suomi on väkivaltainen maa erityisesti niitä ihmisiä kohtaan, jotka poikkeavat etnisesti meillä totutusta. Suomessa tehdään EU:n jäsenmaihin verrattuna kuudenneksi eniten henkirikoksia, Oikeuspoliittisen tutkimuslaitoksen mukaan.

On selvää, että alkoholin runsas käyttö lisää ja kärjistää sosiaalisia ongelmia ja väkivaltaa.

Lööppi vuodesta 1992.

Ei riitä, että joku valkoinen hyvin toimeentuleva ihminen kertoo, ettei väkivaltaa tai rasismia ole Suomessa. Olisi reilua kysyä niiden ihmisten mielipidettä jota tämä asiaa koskee.

Mielestäni tässä on koko maahanmuuttajien  ja suomen kasvavan  monimuotoisuuden kompastuskivi: kuuntelemme vain omia mielipiteitä koskien toisia ihmisiä ja ryhmiä.

Kun kirjoitin omassa blogissa, Finland is a violent country as you know, tarkoitin erityisesti maahanmuuttajia.

Jotkut kysyvät miksi Migrant Tales blogissa  kirjoitetaan paljon näkyvistä vähemmistöstä. Syy on yksikertainen: kun heille menee paremmin kun puhumme syrjinnästä ja väkivallasta (henkistä, fyysistä ja instituutionalisesta), koko yhteiskunta toimi paremmin.

Uusi Suomi