This article is written by Natasha Chai, director of workforce development for the Government of Alberta, Canada

I’ve been feeling pretty sick these past few weeks.

Once again, people all over America have been left to make sense of a discriminatory act of violence committed at home. Acts of hatred, whether or not they aim at or achieve murder, are contemptible. Yet the latest shooting in which eight women were gunned down at a spa in Atlanta on 26 March really rocked me to my core.

All eight women were of Asian descent. The event occurred against the backdrop of increasing rates of violence towards Asian-Americans on US soil. Perhaps this news stuck with me because I’m a public servant, and because I’m also Asian-Canadian.

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Shamefully, the danger people of Asian descent face in Canada is even greater. In Vancouver, reports of hate crimes against Asian people rose by 717% between 2019 and 2020. The Ottawa Police Service meanwhile has touted a 600% increase in reports of violent crimes directed towards East and Southeast Asians. We used to associate such statistics with our counterparts in the US. But today, it is Canada that records the higher number of anti-Asian hate crimes per capita.

Such staggering numbers have made me question whether my home really is as welcoming as I thought it was growing up.

Seeds of doubt

My family settled in Canada in the early 1980s after the country decided to give a Chinese man (my father) a chance to enter academia through the University of Alberta. My childhood was filled with China’s cultural influence. Its language, music and food were permanent fixtures in our household. My parents urged us to cherish and honour our Asian roots while we fought to assimilate into the majority white population.

I can’t say I was ever made to feel like an outcast. The horrible thing about witnessing a sudden surge of hostility towards people who look like you, however, is that it makes you question everything you took for granted.

When my parents were laid off from their respective jobs in the 1990s, each was told that the company had its back against the wall, that it had “no choice” but to let them go. But I wonder whether in the decision-making process my parents weren’t in fact seen as expendable. My mother’s Caucasian counterpart certainly kept her job as a receptionist for many years after the company made its supposedly tough decision.

Our pigmentation will always make us minorities at home.

Then there were the occasions on which my friends and I were denied entry into bars, while other patrons walked in without a second glance from the doormen. We were always told it was because the place was filled to capacity. Might it have been more to do with the prevalent image Canadians had of Asians in the early-00s, as a race inextricably mixed up in gang violence?

I’ve been fortunate enough to have been offered opportunities to do meaningful work in the public sector, despite being the full Asian package, with my yellow skin, flat nose, black hair and slanted eyes. Now I wonder whether these characteristics, in a time when organisations are wanting to “increase diversity”, are why I’m in my current leadership role, rather than my ability.

Now more than ever, I know that as a woman of a visible minority, and as a leader in the public sector of my country, I cannot afford to waste words on this issue.

Seeds of hope

Influencing governments to combat racism must be done with a blend of evidence and conviction, compassion and respect. Policies that are implemented should go beyond safe-guarding specific communities, and focus on embracing and protecting the rights of all humans in society.

Fruitful engagement on contentious issues around race and other barriers must occur within a safe place, be it a community town hall meeting, or a virtual discussion forum. These discussions should acknowledge facts and historical legacies, but not for the purpose of creating blame or guilt by association.

Their focus should instead be on precisely what forms of racism are occuring, why their consequences matter, and what the path to repairing their damage should be. Policies, frameworks and action plans mean nothing if people have no will to change the underlying reality, and no place in which to change it.

Just as schools mandate history and science, so too should the interpersonal and social realities of racism be made part of a child’s education. Children ought to know just how harmful racial stereotypes can be, and no race of people should be identified as a “model minority”.

A person of any race can excel in math or science, but stereotypes that attribute natural gifts to a race justify stereotypes that perpetuate negative images equally. Perhaps most importantly, children should be taught to recognise and speak out against racism wherever they see it, even if it means confronting their own family.

Just as resources (manpower and/or money) should be given to initiatives and action plans if they’re to be properly sustained, so consequences should also be paid out in kind to those determined to sow hate. This could mean hefty fines, jail sentences or disqualification from election campaigns.

Roots and rights

I don’t have all the answers, but this much I do know: Canada is and will always be home. It is where I dared to dream as a child, and it is where my husband and I have chosen to raise a family of our own.

My son, born and raised a Canadian, will forever be the descendant of an immigrant Chinese family. Our pigmentation will always make us minorities at home, while our customs will always make us foreigners in the homeland of our ancestors.

While this is a little heart-breaking, it is a truth I can just about tolerate. What I will not tolerate is a future in which I and other Canadians of Asian descent live in fear of their own country. It just isn’t right, and must be stopped now. — Natasha Chai

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