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Fall 2024

A changing Chinatown

What do shifting demographics mean for the neighbourhood's long-term identity?

Michael Koy

In Toronto’s Chinatown, an average morning goes on as usual, with longtime business owners setting up shop and elderly residents chatting loudly in local bakeries. But underneath the mundanity lies change. When onlookers enter the Chinatown landmark, the famous Dragon City Mall, the sight of its empty shops and corridors with the occasional elderly passersby […] More »
Fall 2024

Night moves

Marginalized people are key to nocturnal scenes, but new Montreal policy misses the memo

Leina Gabra

The graffiti-covered Van Horne skatepark on the edge of Montreal’s Mile End is usually dotted with boys in beanies and sneakers, launching themselves into the rink with the cracking sound of skateboard wheels hitting concrete. But, every Thursday night for a brief stint during the summer of 2021, they were replaced with a different crowd: […] More »
Summer 2024

Breaking barriers

A landmark move to combat caste discrimination in Canadian academia

Shilpashree Jagannathan

In the heart of the city, while more than 385,000 South Asians go about their lives, the University of Toronto (U of T) has quietly set a precedent. Amid the clamour for social justice and equality, U of T’s teaching assistants have negotiated with their union to include caste as a discriminatory practice—a move that […] More »
Spring 2025

White lies

Looking back at her family's traditions, one writer realizes brown women are often eclipsed in Bollywood

Naima Karp

As a half-Pakistani person, I often cozied up on the couch for Bollywood movie nights with my family growing up. These nights were more than a tradition—they were a rite of passage. I’m a fair-skinned South Asian, and this was a way for me to connect to my culture when I didn’t necessarily present as […] More »
Summer 2024

A love letter to Brown people in Vancouver

During this spike in racism, I hope we look out for each other

Shanai Tanwar

Dear Brown people in Vancouver, Do you feel it too? The way those who don’t look like us seem to slip their distaste for us “subtly” between sentences? The fact that irrespective of our immigration status, fluent English, accomplishments, education, upbringing and value systems, we are still… unwanted? The barely concealed microaggressions and scarily racist […] More »
January-February 2024

Hollywood’s mixed-race problem

Movies and TV try to get it right, but they’re missing the mark

Asha Swann

My mom told me that once, when I was a toddler, a stranger advised her to sign me up for modelling. My green eyes, medium-light skin, and curly dark brown hair gave me a certain look, they said, which was super in. My mom said no, despite the fact that mixed-race girls like myself were […] More »
September-October 2022

Diversifying Canada’s oldest journalism school

In 2020, journalism students and alumni called out systemic racism and demanded change. Is Carleton doing the work?

Meral Jamal

In the summer of 2020, against the backdrop of a global pandemic, the world had its re-reckoning with racism, and so did the place where I studied, Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication. It began when George Floyd, a Black American, died on May 25 of that year after being pinned to the ground […] More »
July-August 2022

The model minority performance

Why are white people always asking me for validation?

Karen K. Tran

Illustration by Jaden Tsan “It’s not like you even act that Asian”—these words were spoken to me by a white now-ex-boyfriend of mine during a casual conversation. At the time, I let it go because I was not sure how I felt about it, but the words have stuck with me. How exactly am I […] More »
May-June 2022

Thank you, Mom

For modelling sustainability

Saffina Jinnah

Illustration by Brintha Koneshachandra Dear Mom, The other day, I was making us breakfast and I reached into the fridge to grab the container of yogurt to eat with our puri. Now, you would think, having done essentially this every weekend of my entire life, I would not screech, “Ugh! Mom, where is the yogurt?! […] More »
May-June 2022

Retro read

Novel looks at social issues faced by newcomers

Jean Marc Ah-Sen

Photo by Dimitri Nasrallah Dimitri Nasrallah’s Hotline (Véhicule Press) transports readers to mid-eighties Montreal when weight-loss centres were a burgeoning industry, and “body image” and “health consciousness” were terms just entering the vocabulary of self-care. Muna Heddad, a French teacher by trade, takes a job as a hotline phone operator at meal delivery company Nutri-Fort […] More »
March-April 2022

One and all

The pressure to represent all Black women

Sarah Charles

No joy is more fulfilling for me than shattering the expectations someone has of me. To be unpredictable is to be individualistic. And in my skin, standing alone as an individual gives me the chance to take solace in myself. Because I am an unambiguous Black woman in a predominantly white community, escaping the stereotypes […] More »