Moe Sihota rocked the house at the opening session on Monday night.  Jenny Kwan told her personal heart-warming story about the journey to find her cultural and political identity.

It's the first ever "worker of colour" conference, hosted by CUPE BC.  I am attending as a member of CUPE 391, Vancouver Library Workers. We have four members attending the conference.

This morning's session opened with a panel discussion featuring Dr. Sunera Thobani (UBC Professor, Women's Studies), Raj Chouhan (MLA Burnaby Edmonds), Jenny Kwan (MLA Vancouver Mount Pleasant), and Sid Chow Tan (Founding co-chair of Head Tax Families Society of Canada).

Each speaker talked about their own experiences in dealing with racism, as well as their community activism and what they saw as ways to address it.  And each speaker received standing ovations.  Thobani talked about racism in society, and the challenges of racial profiling in the wake of 9-11 and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Chouhan talked about his community work as founding president of the Canadian Farmworkers Union, and how it is important for unions to be active.  Tan talked about the Chinese head tax redress campaign, and how unions have been leaders in racism a century ago, and how they helped lead the CCF party and overturning racist legislation in 1947.

For me, the most powerful talk came from Jenny Kwan.  I have heard her speak a few times, but this was the first time I have heard her speak about the challenges of growing up as an immigrant in a strange culture.  Kwan arrived in Vancouver at age nine, but never felt that she felt in.  She explained how challenging it was for her mother to go to work, so her father could attend ESL classes in order to get a better job.  She described reacting against her immigrant parents, and speaking only English to them, when they could only understand Chinese.  She also described thinking that she was useless, and nobody would miss her if she died.

The turning point came when Kwan revisited her birthplace of Hong Kong, and saw the life her parents left behind so that they could come to Canada to build a better life for themselves and their children.  She then realized and appreciated the sacrifices they made, and she buckled down returning to SFU to complete her studies.  Kwan also became a community activist, working as a legal advocate.  In an effort to make a greater positive change for people's lives, she became the youngest ever councilor for Vancouver City Council in 1993.  In 1998, she became the first Chinese-Canadian cabinet minister as Minister of Municipal Affairs.

But it hasn't always been easy.  Whether it was because she was young, a woman, or a person of colour - Kwan was not treated with equal respect.  She shared stories from both her time as a city councilor and a MLA when male white opposition colleagues did their best to belittle and intimidate her.

For me, Kwan's story drove home the struggles that many people of colour face, not only from racial discrimination at school, or in the work place, but more importantly the struggle to fit in and find a cultural identity that is not in conflict with parental expectations and mainstream integration.  These same themes were repeated in the workshops that conference attendees sat on, addressing multicultural and racial issues in the union, the workplace, the community, political arena, as well as racial profiling.

I attended the workshop titled "Walking the Walk in the community."  It was led by Sid Chow Tan and Shashi Assanand.  With 14 other union brothers and sisters, we shared our own experience of racism, and issues of colour.  We discussed barriers to equal opportunity and also suggested solutions to these challenges.  Everybody came up with ideas that could help combat racism, as well as to promote cultural understanding.  We left the workshop feeling positive and vowing to take these informative ideas back to our unions and workplaces.

Tomorrow.... expect more of the same!
 

Watch GLOBAL NEWS on Tuesday Feb 26 -
6pm
TOMORROW!

Everybody knowns that BC's cultural diversity is one of the best things about living in BC.  Where else can you celebrate almost all the world's cultures worldly cuisines in a single city, go dragon boat racing, go to First Nations pow wows, enter a St. Patrick's Day parade, and learn bangra dancing?

Todd Wong (me)  was interviewed on Feb 17th for a Global TV story celebrating BC's 150 years.

I talk about cultural diversity in BC, and am seen with the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team, paddling in the background.

Cultural diversity is the topic, Todd and the Gung Haggis dragon boat team will represent it to Global TV viewers.  Our dragon boat team itself has a good mixture of not only Asian and Caucasian paddlers, but also one paddler with Iraqi heritage and 3 paddlers with both Asian/Caucasian DNA.

I also explain the history of the Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year dinner, which celebrates not only the Scottish and Chinese pioneer histories of BC, but also "everything inbetween and everything beyond."



We did a poll asking people what they thought were the things that made BC a world-class place, and people/culture/diversity was one of the top 10 responses.  To illustrate some of BC's amazing culture and diversity, I thought you would be a great person to profile.  But of course, we need some viz of you doing something, and since we missed the dinner, the dragon boating would be great, as well as another example of cultural diversity.  The story is scheduled to air Feb 26.