In Vietnam, 32 years after my family fled, I didn’t find the sense of home I was expecting
The whir of motorcycles and the hum of overhead wires crackled through the air as the young man stepped carefully into the humid night. He looked up and down the alleyway, one of the many winding side streets that made up the labyrinth of the Cholon district in Saigon, Vietnam. Since the war, the nights had become increasingly uneasy, never knowing if police would come by and knock on your door to monitor your movements. Taking a few steps, he hesitated and looked back, locking eyes with a woman staring out of the window, her face browned from the sun and lined with worry. Afraid to draw attention with anything resembling a farewell, his father had already turned away, back to a veneer of normalcy. It was an unbearable but necessary risk to send their only son on a boat to escape a country ravaged by war, and in their final words, all they could choke out was a reminder to send a letter once he was safe. There would be no proper goodbye, only a final wave to his mother standing steadfast at the window before he walked away, empty-handed and the heavy burden of hope pounding in his ears.
Thirty-two years later, I would walk down the same alleyway, retracing the steps of my father.
Read the full article originally published in the Globe and Mail on May 30, 2023.
My family fled Vietnam for Canada. By the time I started asking questions, it was almost too late
Movies about the Vietnam War were from the American perspective and so distant from my family's reality
If you asked me when I knew that my family were refugees, I couldn't tell you. There was no single moment of realization — just scattered memories like puzzle pieces that don't always seem to fit.
Read the full article originally published on CBC on October 24, 2022.
On Coming Home
We buried our grandfather today. He passed away unexpectedly last week, leaving us sorting through shock, sifting through grief, and clutching at memories.
What breaks my heart is that I’d just started working on a project to document my family history. My other grandparents passed away before or shortly after I was born and with my grandfather being a man of few words, I’d never really thought to ask.
It was only last month that I set up a Zoom interview with my grandfather where I asked him all sorts of questions about his life. I guess I had felt a gnawing feeling that time was running out. I guess I was right.
Just as I’d started to untangle the knots, now I’m left grasping at air. While I’m devastated that he won’t be able to see out this project, I’m so grateful that I had the chance to have that conversation with him before he left and I know his legacy will continue through his story.
Talk to your living ancestors.
Unearth the stories of how they moved mountains,
Sliced through oceans and sideways stares.
And know that the same strength lies in you.
My Grandfather’s ancestral home in Guangdong, China.
Lang-Anh Huynh was born in Tai Po County in Guangdong, China in 1930. He left home at the age of 16 and emigrated to Saigon, Vietnam where he would go on to start a family and build a successful business.
When the communists took over, he lost everything and was briefly imprisoned.
After several failed attempts to leave, he spent the last of his fortune to put his entire family on a rickety boat and set sail. After nine days, they made it to Hong Kong — one of the lucky ones.
They would stay in a refugee camp until getting sponsored to come to Ottawa under Project 4000, an Ottawa initiative spearheaded by the mayor at the time, Marion Dewar.
In Canada, he started over yet again, but the language and cultural barriers made it even harder. He worked at restaurants as a dishwasher or cook until he retired.
He lived in the apartment above our family business and would come down on a daily basis to drop off Chinese herbal broth or dishes that he’d cooked himself.
Up until recently, he still played badminton and ping-pong at local community centers; he was apparently a formidable ping-pong player.
He leaves behind seven children, eleven grandchildren, and a great-grandson.
His sacrifices laid the foundation for us to live to our fullest.
In memory of Lang-Anh Huynh (January 30, 1930 — May 23, 2021)
An $80 Gua Sha? Capitalizing on cultural traditions without recognizing discrimination leads to further erasure
While the rise in popularity in practices rooted in Asian cultural traditions could be positive and lead to cultural understanding and acceptance, often cultural origins and intentions are stripped away, rewritten or erased for profitability, Tiffanie Tri writes.
Growing up, my mom and her sisters would ease muscle pain by carving a heated soup spoon against hardened tissue. Known as Gua Sha, this ancient practice found among many East Asian countries is believed to help improve circulation and ease tension by manually applying pressure with a tool such as a spoon or coin wrapped in a towel. I can recall them sitting one behind the other and applying even and deliberate strokes to the back and neck, leaving behind faint red streaks on the skin like new earth after a forest fire.
Read the full article originally published in the Toronto Star on May 20, 2021.
For Moms, the fire in our veins
When my mom recounts growing up in Saigon, Vietnam, the memories are vibrant - the heady musk of incense, a mosaic of bright fabrics. After Saigon fell in 1975, everything changed. My grandfather lost his business and spent everything he had to get his family onto a cramped boat, sailing out to the South China Sea.
On one of their attempts to flee, their boat was hijacked by men who seized gold and jewelry that the passengers had with them. Unsatisfied with their haul, they pulled my mom onto their boat, put a gun to her head, and threatened to kill her if she didn’t give up more gold. She responded “Go ahead, kill me. I’ll return as a ghost and haunt you.” They laughed and let her live.
Do you tip over the edge of courage and slip into madness? Once you do, can you ever come back?
My mom and I have never had one of those relationships that you see on sitcoms, where daughters call their moms for advice and tell them all about their problems. During my teenage years, our house was a battleground; she wanted us to be safe, I wanted to feel like I had agency.
At the same time, I can still recall her writing out math problems by hand, extra work for us once we came home from school. Unsatisfied by the status quo, she fought for us to be more challenged, successfully advocating for me to skip a grade and attend advanced classes. I don't know how she managed to convince the school with her broken English. Moms really are the fire in our veins.
These days, we’ve come to a delicate truce: she acknowledges my independent nature, and I respect all the struggles she has pushed through and understand that her actions have been based on trauma and survival.
So here’s a shout out to all the moms who do what they have to do to survive, and especially all the people who have a complicated relationship with their mom but figure out a way to love them anyway. Happy Mother's Day.
5 steps to avoid being tokenized in an arts organization
This article was originally published on Apt613 on July 3, 2020.
By Tiffanie Tri
As we enter the next phase of the great collective awakening by white people to the fact that racism truly does exist, we will begin to see organizations clamouring to be more “diverse and inclusive.” In order to keep up with the times, many organizations will be reaching out to marginalized communities, especially Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) and gender minorities, to join their organizations as staff and board members. I used to believe that this was one of the key elements of the foundation to a more inclusive world, but I was wrong. From my experience, simply adding a BIPOC or gender minority into an organization that is not already diverse and does not have inclusive practices and processes often leads to tokenism.
What is tokenism? According to our favourite gal, Merriam Webster, tokenism is “the practice of doing something (such as hiring a person who belongs to a minority group) only to prevent criticism and give the appearance that people are being treated fairly.” In practice, tokenism looks like you being the only person of a marginalized community in the room. Tokenism feels like microaggressions or gaslighting when you voice your opinion and it doesn’t align with those of the majority sitting around the table.
The fact is, if an organization has suddenly put out a call for more diverse staff or board members, aside from being a little late to the game, this branding exercise has the potential to be damaging for folks from marginalized communities. Potential side effects include tokenism, microaggressions, and being silenced. Good intentions or not, if there has not been infrastructure created within an organization to support and value marginalized voices, the organization will be getting more from you than you’re getting from them. This is especially important in the creative industries because organizations will be using your identity to prop themselves up when asking for grant funding and other opportunities.
So how can you tell if a call for diverse board or staff members is just a branding exercise, and how can you protect yourself, your time, and your energy? Don’t just ask for a diversity and inclusion policy — do this instead:
1. Look at the current members in an organization. Read their bios. Note who has seniority and roles of authority in an organization. Do BIPOC and gender minorities hold positions where they have decision-making ability?
2. Ask for board meeting minutes and attendance records from the last year. Some organizations will list BIPOC and gender minorities as board members even if they’ve rarely been to a meeting. You need to know who is actually at the table, if they are able to contribute meaningfully and shape the direction of an organization, or if they’re just there as diversity ornaments.
3. Ask about organizational structure, and make sure the legal and financial side of things are covered. Is the organization a registered charity, an incorporated non-profit, or a community organization? Make sure that the rules and best practices are being followed for each type of organization. For instance, incorporated non-profits cannot have owners. If an organization identifies as a non-profit, yet their leaders claim to be “owners” or “co-owners,” that inconsistency in governance is a red flag. If an organization runs year-round events, do they have board insurance? If an organization is a non-profit, does anyone on the board get paid? If so, for what role? Is there transparency on financial decision-making?
4. Look at how an organization and its leaders have responded to the Black Lives Matter movement – does it centre them in the narrative? Do they expect or seek praise and recognition for this? If yes, proceed with extreme caution. This is Performative Allyship and is not meant to help you. Instead, ask what an organization is doing to yield power and make space for BIPOC.
5. Turn the “application process” on its head. Instead of offering up your skills and expertise, ask what role you would be playing in the organization. Which of your skills and expertise would benefit the organization the most? What do they feel you specifically will add? And what can they offer you? Don’t forget — you’re interviewing them too.
It’s natural to feel excited and flattered at the thought of becoming a board or staff member at an arts organization. Maybe an organization provides a chance for you to get experience and exposure that you’ve never had before. This will need to be taken into a calculation that only you can make for yourself. Just remember that these organizations need you and your lived experiences to stay relevant today, not the other way around.
So before you jump in, take some time to do your research and get a better idea of what you may stand to gain, or lose, from getting involved. If possible, “date” the organization before you commit. If you’re being asked to join the board, participate in a board meeting or two before making a decision. If you’re applying for a job, call up some employees to learn more about the organizational culture before you accept. Reach out to current and past board members, employees, and community partners to get a sense of how an organization manages relationships.
In the next while, there are going to be a lot of invites for people from marginalized communities to join the board or staff of organizations in the creative industries. Now more than ever, these organizations will benefit from appearing progressive. But appearances can be deceiving. If we’re not careful, our identities could be used by Performative Allies to maintain a hold on funding, opportunities, accolades, and ultimately, the status quo.
Welcome!
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