[Music]
my mother died just recently last month
in fact and my family did what families
do at that time we started to sort
through a lot of stuff there were
memories of course collections and
photographs and my sister and I started
going through boxes of pictures and
seeing a lot of familiar faces so we
came across some photos of people we
couldn’t recognize they were strangers
and they really didn’t fit in because I
figured they looked Southeast Asian and
they didn’t really work with my mother’s
other photographs so we were thinking
who are these people well we just
presumed that these pictures got mixed
up with our family photos and there was
somebody’s photos from the photo shop
except in the next box of photos we were
going through we have found pictures of
these same people but in these pictures
my mom and dad were in the photos and
they were laughing and smiling there was
some kind of a celebration like it was I
don’t know an anniversary or a birthday
can you figure this out and then my
sister Mary Jane she remembered that
after she and I left home and went our
way that my parents had sponsored a
family of Vietnamese both people this
was the late 1970s and these people were
one family among many that my my
mother’s church had sponsored like many
people did in Canada and these this
family of a mom and dad and their kids
they became the words of my mom and dad
and then beyond that they became friends
and we remembered how our parents used
to talk about these people and how much
they meant to them so we looked at these
photos we realized yeah
yeah they do belong here what does it
mean to belong
who gets to belong to our families our
lives who do we let in who do we let
into our communities who are the ones we
accept and who are the ones that we shun
the ones we know are not right the ones
who shouldn’t be here
the ones we’ll call the other I grew up
in a community in North Winnipeg of
immigrants was a lower middle class
neighborhood and there were a lot of
ethnic tensions in my neighborhood but
if I could bundle all of you up and take
you with me to West Kildonan 1960 you
would say what is this woman talking
about these are all white people these
are all European stock Canadians old
stock but what you wouldn’t see is that
this was a decade and a half after World
War Two and the people here were come
from Europe from a war from a continent
that had turned against each other and
these countries these ethnicities had
killed each other and millions of people
died and so people from those countries
came and settled across Canada including
where I lived in Winnipeg so in my
neighborhood there were there were
Germans and there were poles and there
were Czechs and Slovaks and there were
Ukrainians and they were Russians and
they all brought their biases with them
these had been enemies in another place
they had been foes and friends
they had been the persecuted and the
persecutors and they all live together
in Winnipeg and it was tense there were
Catholics and they were Protestants
there were Orthodox Christians and there
were Jews at least the Jews who had
survived an attempt to have them
exterminated as a race but as as
children we were kind of oblivious to
all of this we all went to school
together as kids we all belong in school
right and we enter each other’s houses
to play and in these houses while they
were little different the traditions
were different the customs were
different the languages sometimes were
different different food different
smells one thing I remember most about
those houses they always had cookies
different kinds of cookies and didn’t
matter where these people would come
from and what they’d suffered but their
stories were there were sweets sweets
were the great emulsifiers for all of us
it was the one common thing among us and
though I could remember in some of those
households like a Jewish friend whose
grandfather when he would reach for
something there was a number crudely
tattooed to his arm and and I as a kid I
didn’t know what that was I only
understood years later what it meant to
have that number and I knew they were
dark secrets and dark stories here for
us kids we were just after the sweets
and I think for the adults it was
probably alcohol right I think there was
slivovitz a– and there was grappa and
there was homemade hooch and there was
wine it probably had the same effect
right my grandmother came from Poland
and she married a man of German descent
and my mother came from Scottish and
English descent and so me and my
siblings were a mix of all those races
and we grew up like everybody else in
Winnipeg and across Canada and my
generation we grow up and we married
into other people’s ethnic mixes and
then all that blood got mixed together
and all those ethnicities blended
together and all those distinctions
ceased to matter even though these
ethnicities that we were holding within
us what people had killed each other for
in another place and now they didn’t
matter because because we had only one
kind of blood in US which was human
blood you know there is no such thing as
an ethnic Canadian doesn’t exist of
course there are indigenous people and
they were here long before we arrived
and they have their own identity and
many of them do identify as Canadians
but at the same time all the people who
came here all of you and your ancestors
and everyone became from someplace
different and we all became Canadians
but there’s no race called Canadian
there’s no ethnicity cold Canadian we’re
all just part of the human race so then
if that’s the case who is the other who
doesn’t belong is it you is it you you
don’t want your parents don’t belong is
it is it your kids who doesn’t belong
look at each other you see the one who
doesn’t belong of course not you all
belong here right it’s the other you
know the one you saw them you saw them
on the subway today or on the bus the
the guy who cut you off in traffic he
doesn’t share your values doesn’t he
doesn’t understand our culture who we
are and how you know we just wonder why
are they here and you know I start to
think well maybe we just don’t
understand who these people are and you
say to me well maybe you don’t get it
you know your euro canoe it’s not just
an the odious view of old stock euro
Canadians
need I hear this between Tamils and Sri
Lankans I hear between Sunni and Shia
between Hindu and Muslims I hear it
between Persians and Arabs I hear you
know I belong they don’t close the door
after me so you think I don’t get it
right I understand there are those who
are undesirable but I do I think there
are people who shouldn’t be allowed to
come here but not because of who they
are because of what they might have done
and we have all agencies that protect us
and from people who are do bad things
who come here and they get shipped back
if they have arrived but as a journalist
as a journalist I’ve seen the effects of
rejecting people because of who they are
because of their blood their ethnicity
of their culture of their religion and I
know what it means to see that and if I
could bundle you all up again and take
you for another trip and show you what
I’ve seen as a journalist and show you
what ethnic cleansing looks like and
show you people who are forced from
their houses from their streets from
their homes and sent away simply because
of who they are and I could take you to
see what scorched earth looks like where
villages have been burned to the ground
and I could take you into the woods
where I’ve been meeting families huddled
in the woods hiding with their children
as they tried to escape to someplace
safe I could show you all that and you
might say to me but that could never
racism racism starts slowly and it
builds and at first you don’t notice it
because maybe you think well you know I
mean it’s not happening to me I’m not
being affected by this or maybe you
think that ah you know well that guy
really doesn’t
but what happens when you become the
other when you’re the one who doesn’t
belong when you’re the one who’s
insisting I I’m part of this what
happens when they come for you and
there’s no one left to say that you’re
the one who belongs so what’s the
antidote to this as a journalist and I
work for the CBC and as it happens I
talk to people and asking their stories
and as you hear people’s stories you
start to connect with them you start to
see who they are you start to identify
with them and then and then as you’re
listening the story then then you are
the one you’re the one in the little
life raft trying to cross the
Mediterranean with your family you’re
the one who is who’s trying to carry
your children through a field of razor
wire you’re the one trying to cross a
mountain pass with your aging mother on
your back and if you think that that
well these are things that happen to
others you just have to remember what
happened in this country the kind of
racism we have seen where we saw that
indigenous survivors of residential
schools or Japanese Canadians who who
were interned in camps in this country
because of who they are during the
Second World War or the Jews who were
turned away at the border and sent back
to death camps as we proclaimed that
none is too many the antidote to this is
to hear their stories and then as you
hear their stories you realize that
stories are kind of like cookies you
start to see that we all belong at my
mother’s funeral there were a lot of
familiar faces and but there were a
group of people who came in that we
didn’t recognize they were strangers and
we thought that maybe to come to the
wrong room but then I recognized the
kids the children they were the ones in
the photos the the Vietnam family but
this can’t be
kids it was years ago I realize these
were the children of those children and
these parents were the kids who were in
the photos and those older people the
Grandma and Grandpa were the mum and dad
that my mom and dad welcomed into their
lives and I was so happy to see them
because I could recognize them I knew
that they belonged and so they said that
had it not been from my mum and dad they
don’t think they would have survived and
his kids wouldn’t have even existed so I
asked them they tell me their story and
the mother who had been a child on this
boat as a Vietnamese boat person she
described what it was like to be adrift
on the on the high seas and with there
were dozens of people crammed into one
boat and I ran out of fuel and then they
ran out of food and they ran out of
water and they thought they wouldn’t
survive and a little boy tugged on his
mom’s sleeve and says mom mom tell him
what you saw tell them what you found
she laughed she said there was one day
they could see something red bobbing in
the water and they brought it into the
boat and it was an apple the first Apple
that she had ever seen and they divided
that Apple up into as many pieces as
possible so that everyone could have a
bit and she says that now living in
Canada all these years later she can
never see or smell or taste an apple
without thinking of that first delicious
encounter and I was thinking what these
stories would have meant to my mom and
dad listening to them for the first time
decades ago and I think my father would
have thought yeah I can imagine this
because because his own mother my
grandmother who came from Poland as a
teenager alone because the family could
afford to send only one kid and she
crossed Europe and then she crossed the
ocean in a ship
and then she crossed the continent all
alone at 17 years old she arrived in
Winnipeg and she had with her little
more than her story and her story joined
with all the other stories that she met
in Winnipeg and those stories became one
story and that’s what it means to belong
so I ask you today as you listen to the
stories that you’re going to hear and as
you meet people and you look at them you
think yeah there’s the other there’s the
one who doesn’t belong remember they may
be looking at you and saying you don’t
belong you are the other just as they
did in my community in Winnipeg and so
you have to get past that have to see
that I wonder who they are because as a
journalist I know what it was when I
asked them their stories and they told
them they ceased to be parts of groups
or parts of movements or parts of mobs
they became individuals each with a
story and when you hear the stories you
connect with them as individuals and
that’s what will happen and that’s I’ll
tell you that when you hear their
stories and you start to identify with
them I promise you will change your life
thank you [Applause]
my mother died just recently last month
in fact and my family did what families
do at that time we started to sort
through a lot of stuff there were
memories of course collections and
photographs and my sister and I started
going through boxes of pictures and
seeing a lot of familiar faces so we
came across some photos of people we
couldn’t recognize they were strangers
and they really didn’t fit in because I
figured they looked Southeast Asian and
they didn’t really work with my mother’s
other photographs so we were thinking
who are these people well we just
presumed that these pictures got mixed
up with our family photos and there was
somebody’s photos from the photo shop
except in the next box of photos we were
going through we have found pictures of
these same people but in these pictures
my mom and dad were in the photos and
they were laughing and smiling there was
some kind of a celebration like it was I
don’t know an anniversary or a birthday
can you figure this out and then my
sister Mary Jane she remembered that
after she and I left home and went our
way that my parents had sponsored a
family of Vietnamese both people this
was the late 1970s and these people were
one family among many that my my
mother’s church had sponsored like many
people did in Canada and these this
family of a mom and dad and their kids
they became the words of my mom and dad
and then beyond that they became friends
and we remembered how our parents used
to talk about these people and how much
they meant to them so we looked at these
photos we realized yeah
yeah they do belong here what does it
mean to belong
who gets to belong to our families our
lives who do we let in who do we let
into our communities who are the ones we
accept and who are the ones that we shun
the ones we know are not right the ones
who shouldn’t be here
the ones we’ll call the other I grew up
in a community in North Winnipeg of
immigrants was a lower middle class
neighborhood and there were a lot of
ethnic tensions in my neighborhood but
if I could bundle all of you up and take
you with me to West Kildonan 1960 you
would say what is this woman talking
about these are all white people these
are all European stock Canadians old
stock but what you wouldn’t see is that
this was a decade and a half after World
War Two and the people here were come
from Europe from a war from a continent
that had turned against each other and
these countries these ethnicities had
killed each other and millions of people
died and so people from those countries
came and settled across Canada including
where I lived in Winnipeg so in my
neighborhood there were there were
Germans and there were poles and there
were Czechs and Slovaks and there were
Ukrainians and they were Russians and
they all brought their biases with them
these had been enemies in another place
they had been foes and friends
they had been the persecuted and the
persecutors and they all live together
in Winnipeg and it was tense there were
Catholics and they were Protestants
there were Orthodox Christians and there
were Jews at least the Jews who had
survived an attempt to have them
exterminated as a race but as as
children we were kind of oblivious to
all of this we all went to school
together as kids we all belong in school
right and we enter each other’s houses
to play and in these houses while they
were little different the traditions
were different the customs were
different the languages sometimes were
different different food different
smells one thing I remember most about
those houses they always had cookies
different kinds of cookies and didn’t
matter where these people would come
from and what they’d suffered but their
stories were there were sweets sweets
were the great emulsifiers for all of us
it was the one common thing among us and
though I could remember in some of those
households like a Jewish friend whose
grandfather when he would reach for
something there was a number crudely
tattooed to his arm and and I as a kid I
didn’t know what that was I only
understood years later what it meant to
have that number and I knew they were
dark secrets and dark stories here for
us kids we were just after the sweets
and I think for the adults it was
probably alcohol right I think there was
slivovitz a– and there was grappa and
there was homemade hooch and there was
wine it probably had the same effect
right my grandmother came from Poland
and she married a man of German descent
and my mother came from Scottish and
English descent and so me and my
siblings were a mix of all those races
and we grew up like everybody else in
Winnipeg and across Canada and my
generation we grow up and we married
into other people’s ethnic mixes and
then all that blood got mixed together
and all those ethnicities blended
together and all those distinctions
ceased to matter even though these
ethnicities that we were holding within
us what people had killed each other for
in another place and now they didn’t
matter because because we had only one
kind of blood in US which was human
blood you know there is no such thing as
an ethnic Canadian doesn’t exist of
course there are indigenous people and
they were here long before we arrived
and they have their own identity and
many of them do identify as Canadians
but at the same time all the people who
came here all of you and your ancestors
and everyone became from someplace
different and we all became Canadians
but there’s no race called Canadian
there’s no ethnicity cold Canadian we’re
all just part of the human race so then
if that’s the case who is the other who
doesn’t belong is it you is it you you
don’t want your parents don’t belong is
it is it your kids who doesn’t belong
look at each other you see the one who
doesn’t belong of course not you all
belong here right it’s the other you
know the one you saw them you saw them
on the subway today or on the bus the
the guy who cut you off in traffic he
doesn’t share your values doesn’t he
doesn’t understand our culture who we
are and how you know we just wonder why
are they here and you know I start to
think well maybe we just don’t
understand who these people are and you
say to me well maybe you don’t get it
you know your euro canoe it’s not just
an the odious view of old stock euro
Canadians
need I hear this between Tamils and Sri
Lankans I hear between Sunni and Shia
between Hindu and Muslims I hear it
between Persians and Arabs I hear you
know I belong they don’t close the door
after me so you think I don’t get it
right I understand there are those who
are undesirable but I do I think there
are people who shouldn’t be allowed to
come here but not because of who they
are because of what they might have done
and we have all agencies that protect us
and from people who are do bad things
who come here and they get shipped back
if they have arrived but as a journalist
as a journalist I’ve seen the effects of
rejecting people because of who they are
because of their blood their ethnicity
of their culture of their religion and I
know what it means to see that and if I
could bundle you all up again and take
you for another trip and show you what
I’ve seen as a journalist and show you
what ethnic cleansing looks like and
show you people who are forced from
their houses from their streets from
their homes and sent away simply because
of who they are and I could take you to
see what scorched earth looks like where
villages have been burned to the ground
and I could take you into the woods
where I’ve been meeting families huddled
in the woods hiding with their children
as they tried to escape to someplace
safe I could show you all that and you
might say to me but that could never
racism racism starts slowly and it
builds and at first you don’t notice it
because maybe you think well you know I
mean it’s not happening to me I’m not
being affected by this or maybe you
think that ah you know well that guy
really doesn’t
but what happens when you become the
other when you’re the one who doesn’t
belong when you’re the one who’s
insisting I I’m part of this what
happens when they come for you and
there’s no one left to say that you’re
the one who belongs so what’s the
antidote to this as a journalist and I
work for the CBC and as it happens I
talk to people and asking their stories
and as you hear people’s stories you
start to connect with them you start to
see who they are you start to identify
with them and then and then as you’re
listening the story then then you are
the one you’re the one in the little
life raft trying to cross the
Mediterranean with your family you’re
the one who is who’s trying to carry
your children through a field of razor
wire you’re the one trying to cross a
mountain pass with your aging mother on
your back and if you think that that
well these are things that happen to
others you just have to remember what
happened in this country the kind of
racism we have seen where we saw that
indigenous survivors of residential
schools or Japanese Canadians who who
were interned in camps in this country
because of who they are during the
Second World War or the Jews who were
turned away at the border and sent back
to death camps as we proclaimed that
none is too many the antidote to this is
to hear their stories and then as you
hear their stories you realize that
stories are kind of like cookies you
start to see that we all belong at my
mother’s funeral there were a lot of
familiar faces and but there were a
group of people who came in that we
didn’t recognize they were strangers and
we thought that maybe to come to the
wrong room but then I recognized the
kids the children they were the ones in
the photos the the Vietnam family but
this can’t be
kids it was years ago I realize these
were the children of those children and
these parents were the kids who were in
the photos and those older people the
Grandma and Grandpa were the mum and dad
that my mom and dad welcomed into their
lives and I was so happy to see them
because I could recognize them I knew
that they belonged and so they said that
had it not been from my mum and dad they
don’t think they would have survived and
his kids wouldn’t have even existed so I
asked them they tell me their story and
the mother who had been a child on this
boat as a Vietnamese boat person she
described what it was like to be adrift
on the on the high seas and with there
were dozens of people crammed into one
boat and I ran out of fuel and then they
ran out of food and they ran out of
water and they thought they wouldn’t
survive and a little boy tugged on his
mom’s sleeve and says mom mom tell him
what you saw tell them what you found
she laughed she said there was one day
they could see something red bobbing in
the water and they brought it into the
boat and it was an apple the first Apple
that she had ever seen and they divided
that Apple up into as many pieces as
possible so that everyone could have a
bit and she says that now living in
Canada all these years later she can
never see or smell or taste an apple
without thinking of that first delicious
encounter and I was thinking what these
stories would have meant to my mom and
dad listening to them for the first time
decades ago and I think my father would
have thought yeah I can imagine this
because because his own mother my
grandmother who came from Poland as a
teenager alone because the family could
afford to send only one kid and she
crossed Europe and then she crossed the
ocean in a ship
and then she crossed the continent all
alone at 17 years old she arrived in
Winnipeg and she had with her little
more than her story and her story joined
with all the other stories that she met
in Winnipeg and those stories became one
story and that’s what it means to belong
so I ask you today as you listen to the
stories that you’re going to hear and as
you meet people and you look at them you
think yeah there’s the other there’s the
one who doesn’t belong remember they may
be looking at you and saying you don’t
belong you are the other just as they
did in my community in Winnipeg and so
you have to get past that have to see
that I wonder who they are because as a
journalist I know what it was when I
asked them their stories and they told
them they ceased to be parts of groups
or parts of movements or parts of mobs
they became individuals each with a
story and when you hear the stories you
connect with them as individuals and
that’s what will happen and that’s I’ll
tell you that when you hear their
stories and you start to identify with
them I promise you will change your life
thank you [Applause]
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