Sanjo

“I love my brown food, so when I first came to Canada, I took it to school. I couldn’t really blame the other kids—they didn’t know what I was eating—but they’d look at it and say, ‘Ew, what are you eating?’” 

“But when I went to Sunday school, everyone had the same food and shared the same experiences. Then that kind of built a connection—that we experienced the same struggles and oppression.” 

“Volleyball started off with my dad. Back home, he used to play with his friends. After becoming more financially stable, he found a community here and started playing again.” 

“I used to go as a child and watch him play. The children I played with all grew up watching our parents play. As we get older, that gets translated upon us.” 

“The team I play for right now–we’re from the same culture and background. We make jokes in our own language that we can't find outside of our community. It's become a whole family that isn't really my family. A lot of people are mature enough to realize that there's a deeper connection.” 

“To this day, I still feel left out. You see on social media, there's so much hate towards immigrants and people of colour. If you go on 6ixbuzz comments, it’s all like ‘deport, deport, deport.’ It's to the point where you don't always feel safe being here.” 

“One of the key arguments that a lot of people have online with this new generation of immigrants is this ‘lack of desire to integrate within Canada’. It's as if people within my community aren't making an effort to embrace other cultures. And we're scared that it's going to affect us. My friends and I were brought up here, so we merged into the Canadian identity.” 

“Honestly, we’re also kind of pressuring the new immigrants, saying, ‘you can't do that type of stuff here,’ when realistically, they're trying to find culture. But I think that comes from a good place, where you need to integrate to a certain extent. In our heads, we don't want you experiencing oppression and racism because we experienced it too—we know what it feels like.” 

“Canada promotes itself as a very diverse and rich nation in its people. But sometimes, even though you put all your effort into becoming a Canadian, they don't want you to be a Canadian.”