While Canada prides itself on being a multicultural society and welcoming people of unique backgrounds, we often forget about our history of bias against minority groups. From 1881 to 1885, approximately 17,000 Chinese immigrants came to Canada and were hired for labour on the construction of the …show more content…
Microaggression is an indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group. My mother was only nine years old when she immigrated from the Philippines to California, where she was relentlessly made fun of and bullied because she didn’t know how to speak English and because of her accent. My Filipino father was born in Canada and recalls memories from his childhood when the white kids in his neighbourhood would yell “ching chong” at him and his siblings. In Grade 2, one of my classmates pulled his eyes back at me and said, “Look, we’re twins now.” I have been asked “Where I’m REALLY from,” even though I was born in Calgary, had racial slurs yelled at me by strangers, been told my cultural food looks weird, and have had people ask me stupid questions such as, “Do you eat dogs?” or “Do you like anime because you’re Japanese?” When I tell people that I’m Filipino - not Chinese, Japanese, or Korean - they respond with The continent of Asia is so diverse, yet when someone thinks of an Asian person, they typically think of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean