NAVIGATING ANTI-ASIAN RACISM IN TORONTO: AUDIO INTERVIEW WITH QUINCY LY
“Growing up in Scarborough as new Canadians, people would do really mean things to us. I remember going to my dad and asking him, ‘what’s wrong with us?’ because my sisters and I always got bullied. I have memories of people throwing garbage in our apartment door mail slot, and trapping my sister and I in an elevator - they kept pushing the elevator buttons so we couldn’t get in or out. I remember girls in our apartment cornering my sister and pulling her hair, and cornering me so I couldn’t protect her.”
Racism is blossoming in Canada. Racism is alive and well here.
Canada is so diverse, but we live in this culture clash.
In Chinese culture, we are taught to let things slide to maintain peace and integrity. Not engaging in negativity is deemed to be zen and noble. In Western cultures, this behaviour is perceived as weak. So much bullying happens in trying to navigate this divide.
How do we navigate these cultural expectations?
Quincy Ly grew up in Scarborough with his parents and four sisters in a close-knit Chinese-Vietnamese family. He speaks fondly about his favourite memories of his Chinese culture, of sitting around the dinner table with his family, in his words, we were always eating together and never apart”
Like many racialized folks, Quincy speaks to spending a lifetime investigating his genetic make-up after the French colonized Vietnam many years ago.
His father’s side of the family is Chinese, and migrated to Vietnam. His Mother’s family is primarily Vietnamese with some Chinese and French (Y’all know how colonization works). He grew up immersed in Chinese culture and his parents identify with being rooted in Chinese communities within Vietnam. His family strongly self-identifies as Chinese.
I reached out to Quincy after he wrote online about anti-Asian racism that he’s experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic, and how these experiences have been a trigger for him, for racism he experienced as a child.
"When the pandemic hit and Trump went online and called Covid, ‘The Chinese Virus’ people started looking at me differently on the streets. People walked by me on the street and started muttering under their breath, ‘Hey man, are you Chinese?’. I let a few of these moments pass me by until I was walking down Queen Street and had someone yell, ‘YOU F*&^% CHINESE PERSON!!’ I knew they had the perception that Asian people were weak and wouldn’t fight back, but I did. I confronted them.”
When we talk about Antiracism initiatives, we talk about dismantling systems that perpetuate oppression, but, on a deep level, we talk about these systems, because they perpetuate hurt, loneliness and violence. We have become shockingly comfortable with taking the sacred pieces of culture that we want to profit from - music, food, and healing practices - and discarding the people who live within these cultures.
This is Quincy’s journey - of embodying a deep sense of pride in his family and Chinese culture. Of raising his children in diverse communities. Of learning when it’s worth his sacred time and energy to fight back - and when to talk a breath a walk away in the name of self-preservation.
where’s Quincy at these days?
A man of many skills and talents. A son. A father to two boys and a brother to FOUR sisters!! (no wonder he’s wise!)
ALL THAT. Plus. Quincy is a Mortgage Agent in Toronto. Hit him up for your mortgage needs.
Post a note below for Quincy.
Send me a message with your stories on navigating Intercultural + Multiethnic relationships, on overcoming racism and injustice, and on decolonizing and dismantling limiting beliefs >>> to rebuild and reclaim your mental health and wellbeing.