Death Struck Where I Was Born, But Never Lived
/Pacinthe Mattar talks about how "shame and guilt move through my veins" when she missed the funerals of her grandmothers and uncles in Death Struck Where I Was Born, But Never Lived.
Read MoreNine Nights and Forty Days: Grief, Trinidadian Style
/After 40 years in Toronto, Septembre Anderson's relatives still grieve using Trinidadian mourning rituals. She talks about the death of her uncle in Nine Nights and Forty Days.
Read MoreDon't Tell Grandma
/Perhaps it happens in many cultures, but Helen Mo has only seen Asian and South Asian families hide death and illness from older relatives. "With one act, it’s possible to both love and disrespect," she writes in Don't Tell Grandma.
Read MoreIn the House of Crying
/Rawiya Kameir explains the Sudanese ritual of beit el-bikka for In the House of Crying, a dramatic display of grief that first annoyed, then comforted, her.
Read MoreA Way of Death
/In A Way of Death, Heather Li describes why her annual visit to her family graves is actually kind of fun.
Read MoreLessons from an 'Ethnic' Wedding
/Helen Mo on why hipsters love an ethnic wedding.
Read MoreMy Big Fat Non-Traditional Wedding
/Bhairavi Thanki discusses why she isn't going to have any of her family's Indian traditions in her own wedding, no how, no way.
Read MoreOne Bride, Two Dresses
/Denise Balkissoon speaks with a bunch of brides who wore two dresses at their ceremony: an outfit that spoke to their ethnic traditions, as well as the Big White Dress.
Read More400 Types of Drunkenness: Pulque, the Mexican Moonshine
/Chantal Braganza teaches us all about pulque, the Mexican liquor with the consistency of saliva and the taste of runny sourdough starter. Cheers!
Read MoreIrish Pride
/In Irish Pride, Lucas Costello shares an intense, dark memoir of life with an alcoholic Irish dad and a teetotalling Filipino mom.
Read MoreKids and Wine Is Just Fine
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Kids and Wine Is Just Fine: Kelli Korducki was a child drinker (sort of) and people let her get away with it cause her parents were foreign (maybe).
Read MoreKendrick Lamar and the nuclear family in rap
/Kendrick Lamar's Good Kid, m.A.A.d. city is one of the most remarkable albums of our time for a number of reasons. The music is groundbreaking, the lyrics are complex, and it appeals to all facets of what falls under the umbrella of hip-hop
But, in my mind, the most unheralded unique aspect of GKMC is one that's most important to society as a whole. Through the voicemail skits that drive the narrative of the album, Kendrick introduces us to his parents. His real parents, not voice actors.
Perhaps this is the first truly intergenerational rap album.
Read MoreQ & Ass with Rahim Thawer
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Speaking with Denise Balkissoon, sexual health counsellor Rahim Thawer discusses HIV prevention, fetishes, stereotypes and, most importantly, keeping the ass fun.
Kim's Convenience: On now at Soulpepper
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Esther Jun as Janet and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee as her father, Mr. Kim
By Denise Balkissoon
Every second-gen* daughter of a workaholic immigrant father should go see Kim's Convenience. Mr. Kim may be Korean, not Trinidadian, and he's a shopowner in Regent Park, not an electrician-turned-politician in Scarborough, but I'm pretty sure he got his schtick from my dad. Item A: fatherly concern wrapped up in insults. Guaranteed my dad has come out with just what Mr. Kim asks Janet: "Why not do something 'real' and make your your low-earning, arty job a 'hobby'? What? Why are you mad now?" Item B: Brutal, bone-cutting arguments about who owes who what, in terms of money, time and respect in this new land where none of the traditional rules apply. Item C: Oceans of intense love tussling for shelf space with old-school notions of masculinity, culture and honour.
Every member of the Kim's cast did a fantastic job breathing real personalities into the classic immigrant archetypes that we think we understand, but probably haven't though enough about. As a note-perfect Eau de Convenience Store wafted from the stage, Mr. and Mrs. Kim conversed in Korean, yet the audience kind of knew what they were saying. So real, and so brilliant.
I can't say if Kim's Convenience is actually Toronto's play of the year because I am a boor who never goes to plays. But in this one, I saw myself, and I saw my city, not just its hardworking past, but its brave, mongrel future.
Kim's Convenience is on now at the Young Centre in the Distillery. It's almost sold out, but there are still tickets left in mid-June. Grab 'em, now.
*Or maybe I mean first-gen? Copy editors and genealogists, help me out here.
Tricked Into Catholicism?
/Heather Li wondered why her family was Catholic. The answer was surprising. Was her family tricked into Catholicism?
Read MoreHouse of Lords: Ten Religious Buildings in Toronto
/Temples, synagogues and street corners: Denise Balkissoon takes you on a tour of a few religious buildings in Toronto that she’s visited.
Read MoreContents Under Pressure: A Queer Muslim Unsilenced
/“Being both Muslim and queer always seemed like mutually exclusive identities to me.” Rahim Thawer explores how he came to see queerness and Islam as compatible, at least in himself.
Read MoreShame and the Shalwar Kameez
/My mom's not a jeans and t-shirt type of girl.
And now in her mid-50s, it's doubtful she'll ever be one. My mom feels most comfortable in the traditional Pakistani shalwar-kameez, a loose-fitting tunic top and flowing pajama-like pants that billow in the wind every time I see her walk out of our Mississauga home.
Her outfits often have unimaginable bright hues, anywhere from magenta to parrot green, colours that seem to blind you on a cold, tombstone-grey Canadian winter day. They always grab my attention.
Read MorePassing, Or Something Like It
/Passing, Or Something Like It: Paul Aguirre-Livington on realizing that despite being a son of an immigrant father whose first language isn't English, the actual colour of his actual skin still makes him "white."
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