07/01/2025
Truth-Telling is Not Always Comfortable, But It’s Necessary.
Growing up, summer often meant crab fishing with my dad and watching Canada Day fireworks. As a kid, those moments felt simple and celebratory. But other summers looked different. I remember aunties who were angry, voices tense, energy heavy. Instead of fireworks, we’d gather at the Smithers Friendship Centre for Indigenous-led events filled with ceremony and culture. I didn’t always understand why only that we were choosing something different, something that felt confusing.
As I got older, I began to understand.
Being both Southeast Asian and Indigenous hasn’t always come with clear belonging. I’ve been told I’m “not Asian enough,” and I’ve been pushed to dull my Indigeneity to fit in. And still, I am both. Fully. Fiercely. Uncomfortably for a younger me. And that blend shapes how I move through the world especially on days like today.
To be honest, attending Canada Day events can feel uncomfortable. I hear the frustration and pain of other Indigenous people who refuse to celebrate a country built on stolen land, broken treaties, and attempted erasure. I carry that truth too. But I also carry hope.
I’m not here for the old version of Canada the one that forgets or hides. I’m here for the Canada that’s restoring, reckoning, and rebuilding with continue to acknowledgment the truth of Indigenous elders of the past and continued racism today. The one that’s capable of new, shared histories. The one where Indigenous voices are not only heard but centered. The one where being both is no longer a question, but an honour.
And that kind of Canada isn’t created through silence. It’s built by those of us willing to speak up. To stand in the discomfort. To tell the truth. Our truths even when they don’t fit the narrative.
So today, I walk with that complexity. I walk with memory of my dad and my grandmother who raised me. And I walk forward—never hiding, never erasing—because healing only happens when we show up whole.
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