Decolonizing Our Tongues: Language As A Transformative Tool

Decolonizing Our Tongues: Language As A Transformative Tool

We live in a country under a colonial government that claims to celebrate multiculturalism but that has a history of systematically erasing the many rich and diverse languages of the Indigenous nations who were the original inhabitants of this land, and that has a current reality of shaming and discriminating against the many immigrants who speak many beautiful languages of our vast world.

The supremacy of the English language is an extension of white supremacy in this colonial land.

At Living Hyphen, we strive to move beyond the limitations of language — more specifically, we strive to move beyond the colonial standard of “excellence” that is English. Continue reading for all the ways we do that.

Letting Go of Perfection and Embracing the Mess: Living Hyphen's Approach to Writing Workshops

Letting Go of Perfection and Embracing the Mess: Living Hyphen's Approach to Writing Workshops

For those of you who have been following Living Hyphen’s journey, you know that over the last few years, our writing workshops have become one of our core offerings for our community. In fact, since we started delivering cultural programs back in the fall of 2019, we’ve organized and facilitated nearly 120 workshops with over 1400 people!

These writing workshops are our way of actively and tenderly cultivating, nurturing, and mentoring racialized writers — many of whom come into our workshops highly reluctant to even call themselves that.

These writing workshops are, for me, the most radical thing we do at Living Hyphen. Radical, of course (though it shouldn’t be), because of the voices that we prioritize, but even more radical because of our approach and pedagogy.

Redefining What It Means to Be "Canadian"

Redefining What It Means to Be "Canadian"

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.

Unpacking Islamophobia with Racialized Leaders

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.

MEET THE LONDON SCHOOL OF RACIALIZED LEADERS

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.

Raghad El Niwairi

SARAH BARZAK

NOOR SIMSAM