Schema | Your Daily Dose of Ethnic Cool : about being more than ethnic

Statistics Canada predicts that half of second-generation Canadians would be visibly diverse

By Alden E. Habacon

(See interactive map above at theglobeandmail.com)

Statistics Canada has just released its Projections of the diversity of the Canadian population, for population grown between 2006 to 2031. That's basically two generations from now. They're just estimations about how visibly and culturally diverse the country will be, but made by the smartest people in the country.

Here's the highlights:

By 2031, between 25% and 28% of the Canadian population could be "foreign-born". About 55% of this population would be born in Asia (we kind of already knew this).

The proportion of non-white Canadians will double by 2031 (to between 29% and 32%). Particularly, rapidly among the Canadian-born, many of whom are children and grandchildren of immigrants.

"By 2031, according to the reference scenario, visible minority groups would comprise 63% of the population of Toronto, 59% in Vancouver and 31% in Montré al." Huh? How can they be the "visible minority groups." OK, brainiacs, you need to update your terminology!

Over the next 20 years, the number of Canadians who were born outside of Canada (aka "foreign-born population") could increase four times faster than the rest of the population. Wow! You think there's a lot of Chinese restaurants now?

By 2031, almost one-half (46%) of all Canadians 15 years old and older, would have been born-outside of Canada or would have at least one parent who had immigrated to Canada.

What about those second-gens?

Almost half (47%) of ALL second-generation Canadians (that's people who were born inside Canada, and at least one parent immigrated to Canada) would be visibly diverse. That's nearly DOUBLE the proportion in 2006.

Within the visibly diverse third-generation and above (those who are Canadian-born and whose parents and possibly grandparents were Canadian-born), although they are a small proportion of the population, their size would almost triple, from 1% to 3% of the Canadian population.

What does this all mean?

Posted by Alden | March 9, 2010 | Comments (0)

Tags: Canadiana, Commentary, Diversity

Homeless Man as Fashion Icon | Brother Sharp

By Claudia

My parents were watching the Chinese news last night and one particular story about a homeless man from China caught my attention. His name is Cheng Guorong, better known as "Brother Sharp," a title dubbed in Tianya, the most popular internet forum in China.

Ever since this photo appeared on the internet, "Brother Sharp" has become an instant celebrity. People were immediately taken aback by his "rugged good looks,"

"That frowning look...Ai yo! My little heart! Really so handsome!"
"China truly has innumerable handsome guys, Brother Sharp, you are truly too handsome."

For more ridiculous comments, check out ChinaSmack

Looks like everyone has disregarded the fact that Mr. Cheng is, in all aspects, a homeless person with a tragic past (his wife and father died in a car accident and he is a single father of two). Instead, people see him as the undiscovered Mr. GQ and have tried to reach out to him and, rather forcibly, have urged him to accept what he fervently refuses.

What I can't seem to understand is how homelessness, in all its sadness can possibly be seen as cool, handsome, or...fashionable?!

"When I... see the homeless, like, I'm like, 'Oh my God, they're pulling out, like, crazy looks and they, like, pull shit out of like garbage cans."

As quoted by supermodel Erin Wasson two years ago

And if you thought Wasson's comment was absurd, may I bring to your attention Vivienne Westwood's most recent fashion show in January 2010 entitled, "homeless chic." Apparently, she was inspired by the homeless people...who I suppose have an uncanny, i-don't-care-what-you-think kind of look.

Though you might be having an odd feeling of déjà vu right now, we're not talking about Ben Stiller's "Derelicte" line from that satirical film, Zoolander. That's right, folks, the film was supposed to be satirical, as in, a joke...ha-ha, but I guess Vivienne Westwood didn't get the memo...

What the eff!

More info:

Homeless Chinese man becomes 'derelicte' fashion icon, web celebrity

Xilige aka Brother Sharp refuses help from Ningbo shelter

Brother Sharp: Beggar Hailed Most Handsome, Fashionable

Posted by Claudia Ho | March 9, 2010 | Comments (1)

Tags: Fashion

Latinocanadà

By Guest Contributor: Stephen Henighan, Originally Published on Geist

Photo: Bryan Partington

Here's an interesting piece of history: Aboriginal Canadians greeted the French explorer Jacques Cartier in Spanish way back in the 1500s! Spanish and Portuguese explorers had beaten Cartier to the land he was to claim for France.

Canada's first Spanish-speakers may have been around centuries ago, but now we associate their language with our neighbours down south or Mexico, Spanish having become of commercial importance post-NAFTA. Writer Stephen Henighan digs deeper for the soul and history of the small but expanding Latino community of Canada.

The least-discussed facet of the economic and cultural transformation that began in Canada with the implementation of NAFTA on January 1, 1994, is the fact that of the 450 million people who inhabit the North American Free Trade Area, roughly one-third—more than 100 million in Mexico and more than 45 million in the United States—speak Spanish.

The Latin American community in Canada does not have a strongly defined public image, even though our contact with the Spanish-speaking world goes back to the country's origins. Some of the first non-indigenous visitors to both our Atlantic and Pacific coasts were of Iberian heritage. Navigators from Spain and Portugal, such as the Corte-Real brothers and João Fernandes, visited Atlantic Canada as early as the summer of 1500. These voyages were the catalyst for increasing numbers of fishermen from the Basque country to spend their summers on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. When Jacques Cartier, heralded by high school history textbooks as the pioneering post-Viking European explorer of eastern Canada, arrived in 1534, Aboriginal Canadians, recognizing Cartier as a European, naturally addressed him in the Basque language of northern Spain.

Men of Hispanic culture were also among the first explorers of Canada's Pacific Coast. In 1774 Juan José Pérez Hernández, a naval officer based in San Blas, Mexico, sailed up the British Columbia coast as far as Haida Gwaii (the Queen Charlotte Islands). In 1775 the Peruvian captain Juan Francisco Bodega y Quadra retraced this route and claimed the coast for Spain. In 1789 the Spaniard Esteban José Martínez constructed the fort in Nootka Sound—Santa Cruz de Nutka, in Spanish—that is often considered to be the first European building on Canada's Pacific Coast. But these early contacts did not result in Spanish colonization, and the Hispanic cultural presence in Canada soon disappeared.

As recently as 1970, it is unlikely that Canada's population counted much more than three thousand people of Latin American origin (and even fewer from Spain). The catalyst for the growth of a Latin American community was the military coups in Chile, Uruguay and Argentina between 1973 and 1976. When the United States refused to accept most refugees from military governments that the U.S. supported, tens of thousands of people were diverted to Canada. Most were middle class and well educated; since many knew more French than English, the first beachheads of a Latino-Canadian culture were established in Montreal and Ottawa. Small travel agencies, empanada shops, newspapers and, because the refugees included many writers and avid readers, Spanish-language literary presses, became the first outposts of this new contribution to our cultural mix. The civil wars in Central America in the 1980s diversified Canada's Hispanic community. Many of the immigrants and refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala came from rural areas and were of indigenous descent; they settled throughout Canada, often in places where unskilled labour was in demand. In the new millennium, Colombia and Venezuela have become major sources of immigration. But it is the passage of NAFTA, which has weakened Mexico's once-powerful middle class, that has contributed to the greatest change in the Latin American community. Since NAFTA provides for free movement of "professionals," middle-class Mexicans whose prospects have dimmed at home can settle here with less difficulty than other Latin Americans. In recent years, Mexicans have overtaken Chileans to become the largest Spanish-speaking group in Canada.

Census figures maintain that the Latin American population of Canada is a little more than 250,000 people. This figure is almost certainly too low, just as the one million claimed by one Hispanic lobby group is too high. The probable figure—around 500,000— amounts to about 1.5 percent of Canada's population, far below the almost 15 percent in the United States, and the more than 30 percent in the entire North American Free Trade Area. This imbalance generates a series of paradoxes in the ways in which Canadians experience Hispanic culture. Products on sale in big box stores bear trilingual labels: Shower door/ porte de douche/ puerta de ducha. Some items that arrive in Canada directly from the United States, disdaining official English-French bilingualism, have labels in English and Spanish. For example, when someone spills a soft drink at my local shopping mall, employees set out a yellow pylon with Wet Floor on one side and Piso Mojado on the other; Plancher Mouillé is nowhere to be seen. The Greyhound buses that I ride between Guelph and Toronto often have bilingual English-Spanish signs, but no French.

Yet, outside of Alberta and Quebec, Spanish is sparsely taught in our high schools. As a result, Spanish departments in Canadian universities are bottom-heavy, with hundreds of students taking one or two semesters of introductory language to use on the beach in Cuba or the Dominican Republic. In contrast to French, which is booming, advanced courses in Hispanic literatures and cultures are thinly subscribed; among students who are not of Hispanic ancestry, enrolment in these courses is plummeting. Since the implementation of NAFTA, Carleton University, Simon Fraser University and McMaster University have closed their BAs in Spanish; the BA at Queen's University was recently threatened with closure. This is a startling fate for the second language of the Americas during a period of hemispheric integration. The trend suggests that for most Canadians, Spanish remains an exotic anomaly promoted by corporate priorities, the U.S. entertainment industry and the drive to sustain the continental market. (It is elderly Canadians who have most conspicuously deepened their contact with Latin America, by retiring in ever greater numbers to Costa Rica and Panama.) As more Canadians have begun to learn a few words of Spanish, fewer than in the pre-NAFTA era are pursuing a serious interest in the language, literature or culture of the Hispanic world. Our engagement with our Latin American neighbours remains distant and primarily commercial, our place in the Americas as nebulous as it has always been. Alejandro Saravia, a Bolivian-Canadian writer from Brossard, Quebec, whose impressively fluid trilingual book of poems, Lettres de Nootka, was published in 2008, laments a time when: "along with the indigenous languages/ Spanish was/ the newest, most fragrant bride/ of the North Pacific Coast// yet the maps/ the history books/ barely retain the fragile memory/ of Santa Cruz de Nutka." Our history tells us that our links to the rest of the hemisphere run deeper than commercial treaties.

Find more by the author on Stephen Henighan's website | Visit Geist Magazine

Posted by Gayatri Bajpai | March 8, 2010 | Comments (0)

Tags: Culture, Diversity, Identity, International, Literature

Shop For Free! At The Frock Swap 4.0

By Linda Chan

The lovely ladies of oncelovedthreads.com, Danielle Ow and Marjolyn Ustaris, are organizing and hosting The Frock Swap 4.0. Oncelovedthreads.com is a website, that sells reasonable priced once loved but always loved clothing.

The Frock Swap 4.0, a day of free and sustainable shopping. Like the popular saying: one person's trash becomes another's treasure. The swap is just like any other warehouse sale, only that you don't have to pay for anything, and everything will be gently used. The deal is you bring those gently-used pieces of clothing (that sit in the back of your closet always waiting to be worn, but never is) in exchange for new gently-used, but still fashionable clothes.

Register here by April 28th, 2010 to partake in this brilliant shopping experience.

There will first be a clothing drive, where you bring a maximum of fifteen of your used, but still fresh pieces of clothing. Here the clothing will be organized and prepared for the actual Frock Swap the next day.

Check out The Frock Swap 3.0 to see what it is all about.

THE FROCK SWAP 3.0 from marjolyn on Vimeo.

Clothing Drive
Date: May 1st, 2010
Time: 10am-6pm
Location: Box Studios
1622 Franklin Street

The Frock Swap
Date: May 2nd, 2010
Time: 12pm-4pm
Location: Box Studios
1622 Franklin Street

*Remember, you won't be able to shop at the Frock Swap, unless you participate in the clothing drive.*
All unswapped clothing will be donated to a local charity.

View Larger Map

Posted by Linda Chan | March 8, 2010 | Comments (0)

Tags: Community, event, Fashion

Saul Williams: Video Interview on Grounded TV

By Claudia, Originally found on Grounded TV

I discovered Saul Williams back in uni and when I saw his Def Poetry Jam video (see below), I was absolutely blown away. Grounded TV has been working on a three-part video interview of Williams, who is honestly a ridiculously gifted, cool, AMAZING music artist/spoken word poet. It might take a while to get used to "Afropunk," but if you take the time, you'll understand why he is truly a genius. Do me a favour, check it out.

See also Saul Williams on Def Poetry Jam. So powerful.

Take a read of his full bio if you're intrigued.

Original post on Grounded TV.

Posted by Claudia Ho | March 7, 2010 | Comments (0)

Queen Yu-Na/Bond Girl: Behind the Scenes

By Gayatri Bajpai

I never watched skating much before, but Joannie Rochette's bronze medal performance brought me close to tears and I have to say, though the tragedy surrounding her mother's death was a compelling factor, there's something about skating in itself that makes you emotional. Corny as it sounds, something inside you soars with the skaters as they spin and fly over the ice. Music choice also obviously makes or breaks the choreography and I have to say I'm a big fan of what they did for Kim Yu-Na's performance.

I didn't catch the women's final, unfortunately, but I did find a youtube video of "The Queen," a title that Yu-Na has earned at the tender age of 19. I was struck by how much she does look like a "Bond Girl" with the whole black silhouette thing going on.

I'm amazed at how she's just practicing and for some reason, it's still riveting. I love how she lets it all hang loose, sports her black tights with confidence, does crazy spins at incredible precision and surprises everyone with her smooth transition from "regal princess" to "cool chick with a 'tude." And, of course, the signature smoking-gun move.

Does she like it shaken, not stirred? More like on the rocks. Well, definitely on a big block of ice.

Posted by Gayatri Bajpai | March 3, 2010 | Comments (0)

Tags: Asian, International, Sports

Michael Phelps & Scott Lago Accuse Lainey Lui as Asian Medal-Biter

By Claudia and Christina

Remember the American Bronze medal snowboarder, Scott Lago, who got kicked out of Vancouver before the closing ceremony after some rather scandalous party photos popped up all over the internet? Poor guy, eh?

Yeah, no.

Rather, poor anonymous Asian girl, whose infamy on TMZ (and now, everywhere else on the web) will continue to haunt her forever...Or until another random Asian girl takes her place!

Lainey Lui, is a journalist who runs a gossip site, LaineyGossip.com. During the Olympics she was a regular on the the "gossip and celebrity watch" segment of CTV's Olympic coverage with MTV's Dan and Jessi.

Lainey was sent on a mission to go to an Olympics party, hosted by the one and only Michael Phelps to complete three tasks:

1. Take a picture with Mr.Phelps.
2. Kiss him on the cheek.
3. Get him to send her a text message.

As it turns out, Phelps was actually terrified of Lainey when she went in for the kiss because he was fully convinced that she was the Asian medal-biting rebel who got Scott Lago kicked out of Vancouver. In fact, he was so sure that he made a call to Lago's friend and told him that the "same Asian chick" had tried to make out with him too...ok, what the eff?!

"I am the Asian reporter in question. I am the person now being accused of getting Scotty Lago kicked out of Vancouver. I am the person Michael Phelps believed was trying to set them both up. Because some people don't know about Asians."—Lainey Lui

Now, because of Phelps' misidentification of Asian girls, Lago feels like he has been "set up" and wishes that the IOC was more supportive of him and ignore the fact that he hung the medal around his ding-dong...classy. Meanwhile, Lainey is being accused all over the internet as the girl who kicked Scott Lago out of Vancouver.

"Like hello! Excuse me, Michael Phelps, not all Asians look the same, stop the Racial profiling now!"—Lainey Lui

Ah yes, I can certainly see the resemblance. The black hair and degree of Asian-ness was a dead giveaway. I'll give Mr.Lago the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he doesn't know what Lainey looks like, but for Mr.Phelps, I don't know, if that was a joke, it wasn't a very funny one or maybe he hasn't laid off the pot yet.

In any case, it's yet another mistaken Asian identity story heard one too many times.

Check out Lainey Liu's response on youtube.com.

Read Lainey's response on laineygossip.com

Posted by Claudia Ho | March 3, 2010 | Comments (0)

Tags: Asian, Identity, Race, Sports

How to Be Part of World Expo in Shanghai | Jointhewall.org

By Claudia

I don't know why I don't blog more about these guys, because, for the record, Phil Wang, Ted Fu and Wes Chan of WongFu Productions are THE BOMB. They put out a cool video last week talking about this year's World Expo which will be hosted in Shanghai. WongFu's video (below) covers the monumentus event quite well and mentions how you can become a part of the Expo without having to trek it to China. Check it out.

WongFu Productions Special Vlog:

Take a look at Jointhewall.org for The United Chinese of America site and Wong Fu Productions Facebook Page to be a part of the "Faces of Expo" even if you're not Chinese!

Posted by Claudia Ho | March 2, 2010 | Comments (0)

The Ommwriter: Taking Paradise to You

By Linda Chan

Ever want to go away to a secluded island, on a tiny island to write facing the ocean, where all you see is the water and the expanding horizon, and pretend you are a romanticized artist? Need to get away from the distractions of life, and the distractions from your computer such as Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia to get your essays, reports, and other work done? Well, your problem is solved with the Ommwriter.

Ommwriter is first and foremost a word processor, but it can do so much more. It is an application designed to turn your computer into a private writing oasis. With ambient background music, serene backgrounds, and non-irritating keyboard sounds, like the sound of bubble wrap (it makes everyone happy, as Claudia says on her post about Happy Slip); it creates a staycation like no other.

This program is created by Herriaz Soto&Co, an advertising agency based in Barcelona. They have done some really cool work for the Spanish branch of international companies, such as BMW, Ikea, and Casio to name a few.
As it says on their website:

Ommwriter is a humble attempt to recapture what technology has snatched away from us today: our capacity to concentrate.

It is kind of ironic to use technology to get away from technology, but this application is genius. I am using it right now to write this post, and I feel like I am writing something very profound. Maybe it's the mood music.

It is available to be downloaded for free. Check out the introductory video tutorial found on the Ommwriter website.

Posted by Linda Chan | March 2, 2010 | Comments (0)

Tags: Advrtisement, Commentary, Design, Technology

March 4 - March 27 | Kaori Exhibition (Ura Monchan)

By Joy Inae Kim

There are some things that you can only understand if you have ever been a foreigner, such as being in a new place, finding who they are, facing alienation and struggling with any boundaries that may present itself in their physical environment.

Now picture what it would be like being an immigrant.

From Thursday March 4 until Saturday March 27 Powell Street Festival Society and Blim will be presenting Kaori Kasai: Ura Monchan. Through painting and print storyboards, Kaori Kasai will discuss her own struggles of identity as a landed immigrant in Canada. Ura Monchan, or "reverse side" of Monchan, looks behind the scenes of protagonist Monchan ("endeared monster") in Kasai's children's book Monchan's Bag (2010). Monchan is an androgynous character who, beyond its sweet and calm composure, is in emotional turmoil and self-questioning.

Come visit Blim to meet and fall in love with Monchan! Opening night (March 4th) runs from 8:00pm to 11:00pm. It's FREE and open to the public! Stick around also to hear Kasai talk at 8:30pm. There will also be a FILM night, where she will present her films on Thursday March 26. The entry fee is $7-10.

If you love this enough there is also a Limited Edition Screenprinted shirt by Kaori Kasai available at Blim! Only for the month of March, so drop by soon!

Images are said to be available upon request.

Dates to remember:

March 4: Opening (8-11pm); Artist Talk at 8:30 pm (free)

March 26: Flim Night (curated by the artist; $7-10)

March 27: Last Day of Exhibition

Location: Blim, 197 17th Ave. E, Vancouver.

Kasai has exhibited around the world, from Compound Gallery (Portland) to Giant Robot, Little Otsu and SOMARTS (San Francisco), to gallery 1 (Japan), and more recently at the Powell Street Festival (Vancouver) at Helen Pitt Gallery. And now, Kaori Kasai's: Ura Monchan will be the final exhibition at Blim gallery's current location.

For more information visit the Powell Street Festival Website for event details and Kaori Kasai's Website for more details on the artist.

Posted by Joy | February 27, 2010 | Comments (0)

Tags: Art, Books, Event, Identity

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