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Living Hyphen is a community that explores what it means to live in between cultures as what we’ve been calling “hyphenated Canadians” — that is, anyone who calls Canada home but who may have roots elsewhere.
But what does it even really mean to be Canadian?
This Canada Day, I want to take a moment to reflect on this question of what it means to be Canadian much more deeply. I challenge you to do the same.
In June 2021, a man rammed a pickup truck into an intersection in London, Ontario murdering Muslim Pakistani Canadian pedestrians. This act of domestic terrorism resulted in the deaths of four members across three generations of the Afzaal-Salmat family. Only one person survived: a child who was left orphaned because of this hateful act of Islamophobia.
The Living Hyphen team worked closely with the London School of Racialized Leaders – an organization that was founded as a result of this tragic incident – to put together a short audio experience to unpack Islamophobia in Canada and reflect on the ongoing racism specifically in London, Ontario.
Led by immigrant daughters, racialized Muslim women, working class sisters, and dreamers and believers, the London School of Racialized Leaders is empowering racialized youth into transformational leaders by skill-building and reclaiming narrative power.
Living Hyphen turned 3 this month and it cannot be understated just how much we‘ve grown over this last year. I’d even go as far as calling 2021 our breakout year!
From opening ourselves up to new storytelling formats to expanding our workshop offerings, from branching into more in-depth anti-racism work to garnering national media attention, 2021 was a game-changer.
As I’ve done in the last couple of years, I want to take a pause and share a look back on the year that was, to take stock of all we have accomplished and to express gratitude to the people who helped make it happen.
But before running through all the meaningful, powerful, and significant things that Living Hyphen has manifested and been a part of this last year, I want to also acknowledge and hold space for how difficult this year was.
In many ways, 2021 did not feel all that different from the chaos of 2020. The last year has felt like a blur as we continued to live in the midst of this pandemic and all the uncertainty, loss, and grief that laced our everyday. I have personally felt disconnected and sad as we remained virtual in our programs, continuing to contend with lockdowns, restrictions, and the threat and anxiety around our collective safety. It has felt lonely and tiring. I have been missing the magic of our in-person community events and that electricity, that undeniable vibration we all feel when connecting face-to-face.
There continues to be so much loss that we are still grappling with, still processing.
But as I wrote in my birthday recap last year, despite all of this––or rather, because of it––the pandemic has “illuminated new paths for us, clarified our direction, and reinvigorated us in our mission to reshape the mainstream and to turn up the volume on voices that often go unheard.”
And so just as the chaos of our world has not subsided, nor has the clarity we gained in our work been diminished.
I mean it when I say that 2021 has been a breakout year for us. Let me tell you all the ways…
I’ve had to keep repeating those words to myself over the last week and pinching myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.
In just two and a half years, we’ve sold out two print runs of our beautiful first foray into Canada’s arts and literature scene. That means 1250 people across Turtle Island have had their hands on this jam-packed 124-page magazine. Probably more if you consider that we’re available in libraries from coast to coast, and all the book swaps we’ve been tagged in on Instagram!
How do I even mark a moment as big as this? In “normal” times, we’d throw a big ol’ party complete with a potluck celebration, storytelling, and the warmth and exuberance of our community. But alas, the times we’re living in won’t allow for that just yet and we’ll have to wait just a little bit longer to gather again in person. So in the meantime, I’ll pay homage to this milestone in the best way I know how — by writing about it.
