Dry Humour on the Wet Coast

When I did a google image search for “Chileans in Canada”, google tried to correct me. “Did you mean CHINESE in Canada?”

No, google. No I did not.

Here’s a picture of a volcano in Chile.

The other day my cousin, uncle, and I went to White Spot for lunch. My cousin is usually harping on my for not spending enough time with the family out here on the coast, so I try to have lunch with the guy and his pop, my tio, at least once a month.

So we were enjoying a nice meal of bacon cheddar burgers (three all around, just like the musketeers, my uncle said) when the conversation managed to steer it’s way towards that of race relations in the lower mainland.

You see, this uncle, my father’s brother, is not a natural born Canadian, nor is he of white/European descent. He, like my father and his 11 other siblings, was born in Santiago, Chile, and like most left leaning and forward thinking people, had to flee the country in the early ’70s because of the coup d’etat. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, google “Pinochet” and have a look. It was a pretty gnarly time for all those involved. The family doesn’t like to talk about it much.

Anyway, my Uncle, and my whole family, is Hispanic. Or Latino, as he likes to put it. He has black, graying hair, a dark complexion, and speaks with a fairly thick Chilean accent. It’s pretty easy to tell that he’s is a member of a visible minority.

So he, and most of my family out here, lives in Richmond. Richmond is a suburb south of Vancouver Proper that is mainly populated by people of Asian decent. About 60% of people in Richmond are of a visible minority. I think I’m related to all of the Hispanic people there.

My Uncle started to talk about how multiculturalism doesn’t work, that it’s contributing to the ghettoization of Canada and that some areas don’t even feel like North America anymore. He told me a story about how thieves have been prowling his warehouse where his company keeps scrap metal and other equipment and how the RCMP won’t patrol the area because, he believes, he’s Latino. The then related it how Black and Latinos in the southern United States are fighting and killing each other and the police don’t raise a finger to do anything about it.

My cousin just came back from a month long trip from Mexico and he told me a story about how he was hassled by US Customs agents when he was trying to get back to Vancouver. A few agents took him aside and asked him if he was Mexican. He said “No, I’m Canadian.” They then asked him “Are you sure you’re not Mexican”

Then my uncle brought up how he was at the local rec centre, using the steam room when a gaggle of Asian men came in and started speaking Mandrain loudly to each other across the room. This made my Uncle very uncomfortable. He finds it very rude for people to have conversations in foreign languages in public, especially when other people are present.

“You’re in Canada, speak English or French, goddamit!” he said.