0:00

Ethnically Ambiguous is a production of

0:02

I Heart Radio. For more podcasts

0:04

from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,

0:06

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

0:08

favorite shows. Hello, Hello,

0:10

Hi Sharne. How are you? I'm

0:13

good. We just had

0:15

a great conversation with our guests,

0:17

Just Merwin. I really think our audience

0:20

is going to take this episode. I'm excited

0:22

about it. A lot is covered in this episode.

0:24

We hit on their childhood, we

0:26

hit on ghost stories, what

0:29

it means to be your own representative

0:32

to help other people who are going

0:34

through maybe what you have experienced growing

0:36

up. It's a wide ranging discussion

0:38

with plot twists, Yes,

0:41

a lot of plot twists, and a lot

0:43

of international intrigue. I'm

0:46

kidding what kind of it's kind of

0:48

true, But it's a great conversation. I really

0:50

think y'all are going to enjoy it. So don't go anywhere.

0:52

Who are we? Where

0:55

do they come from? Who do we

0:57

become? What is it to

1:00

me? What do is

1:02

it? There are?

1:05

Who are my parents? Where

1:07

are my names? Why

1:09

are we born? We

1:13

are ethnically

1:15

ambiguous? Hi?

1:20

Hi, sharin Anna,

1:28

did you like that? I

1:31

like that? We both started cackling. Yeah, I wanted

1:33

to do that as a regular intro every time.

1:37

I do really love when people have that

1:40

kind of laugh, like when people have like a cackle

1:43

laugh. I wish I had like one

1:45

of those. I've never come across someone who has like a

1:48

like a legitimate cackle laugh, you

1:50

know what I mean, though, it's like an infectious kind of sound.

1:52

I feel like I've always been very self conscious

1:55

about my laugh. I will start with that. I've always been

1:57

very self conscious about it. Well, I

1:59

had to change my laugh. I used to laugh like hoh,

2:03

and you know what I just got just made

2:06

fun of ruthless. You're not being

2:08

serious because you already know this about me.

2:11

I've already told you this in the past when

2:13

we went to comedy shows and stuff. I love

2:15

your laugh. I think your laugh is

2:18

so infectious and so like you

2:20

like the Hi Hi. That's

2:22

not what your laugh sounds like. You have a great laugh,

2:24

and I would always recognize your laugh at comedy

2:27

shows. I created that laugh the ha ha he

2:29

he ho. I think I was like in high school

2:31

and I was like, I'm just gonna laugh like this in movie theaters

2:33

at comedies. I

2:35

mean that would also be very distinctive and I would still

2:38

recognize it, so that would also

2:40

work such a funny laugh to laugh, like how

2:42

people right laughter ha

2:44

ha. If

2:46

I'm being starcastic, I'll be like ha ha, but

2:48

like I don't actually an

2:53

extra little a h d if

2:55

I'm really if I'm really like liking it.

2:58

But anyways, Yeah, this was actually

3:00

one of our better intros in my opinions,

3:02

which is maybe sadum. Today

3:07

we are joined by a guest that

3:10

I only met kind of recently

3:12

when we did the Bechdel Cast live reading,

3:16

and the live reading was Twilight,

3:19

And for those of you who don't know, Twilight

3:22

takes place on like partly on indigenous

3:24

land in the story, but also has a lot of indigenous

3:27

characters. And I really appreciated

3:29

Jess because they brought a lot of facts

3:32

and knowledge about indigenous

3:35

culture. And it's because they

3:37

are also Indigenous and

3:39

I have been wanting to talk to them

3:42

for a very long time about their

3:44

activism work and also just everything

3:46

that they're up to. So without further

3:49

ado, y'all please welcome

3:51

Just Merwin bad

3:57

for you.

4:01

It's lovely to be here. Thank you so much.

4:03

I'm so excited to get to talk more with both

4:05

of you. I love the show. It's

4:08

a huge honor. Yeah, I am

4:10

Indigenous. I am an Indigenous. I

4:13

guess I guess before is that

4:15

the term also, like okay,

4:18

I didn't wanna. I feel like there's a lot of terms

4:20

that kind of get taken over by

4:22

mainstream and then people run with it,

4:24

whether it's like Native American or you're Americans

4:27

that doesn't count either. Yeah,

4:29

there's a lot of differences actually, even between

4:31

like the States in Canada, like the way that we talk about

4:34

things here in Canada, and it can involve

4:36

like some of the same nations even, you

4:38

know, and we'll use certain terminology and

4:41

it's not uncommon for example too

4:44

here folks in the States, Indigenous folks

4:46

in the States still use terms like Indian.

4:49

Like we talked a lot about that term

4:51

in terms of not only just like the American

4:53

Indian Movement, which is like an activist organization,

4:57

but also just like some people prefer

5:00

to saying Native American because it's

5:02

like we're not Americans, you know, it's

5:04

more like an umbrella term. It's really interesting

5:06

because you don't get that so much in Canada. I think here

5:08

in Canada we tend to use

5:12

indigenous or First nations

5:15

or maytie or like Inuit

5:18

or you know, or you actually use like the nation

5:20

name. So in my case, I'm

5:23

mixed race Magma. So

5:26

the Magma are people of

5:28

the Northeastern Woodlands

5:30

part of North America. Think

5:33

of like Maine, Quebec,

5:36

the island of Newfoundland, like New Brunswick,

5:38

Nova Scotia, Prinsedwood Island, so like that

5:41

big swath of territory is our traditional

5:43

territory known as mcmaghie,

5:46

and we are part of

5:49

a confederacy. So that's another thing too,

5:51

is not only do we have sort of the

5:53

name of our each of our nations, but

5:56

a lot of nations are part of like larger

5:59

groupings because we had a whole political system,

6:01

like we had so much sophistication pre

6:04

contact and how we were organizing ourselves.

6:06

So Magma are also part of

6:08

the Wabanaki Confederacy, which includes

6:11

like the Abenaki, the Panova,

6:13

Scott, the Passamaquaddy, and the

6:15

Willa Stock. So when

6:17

you're Magma, you can say a Magma, you can say I'm

6:20

Wabanaki. Both are correct.

6:23

So yeah, it's kind of neat to

6:25

think about the ways that we interrelate

6:28

and the ways that we call ourselves,

6:31

even like all of our nation names mean things

6:33

like Wabanaki means people

6:35

of the down Land because we're

6:37

in the east where where the sun rises. Magma

6:41

comes like, yeah, isn't it.

6:43

I really love it as like as a word as

6:45

a concept, and Magma it

6:47

means like my family or my people. And

6:50

then in the Magma language when we refer to ourselves

6:52

we call ourselves lu. So

6:55

there's like different layers of like how we delineate

6:58

ourselves, like on a regional levell on

7:00

a like nation or like tribal level,

7:03

and then between ourselves, you know.

7:05

So that's kind of like the breakdown. Part of

7:07

My family is also Welsh and

7:10

Scottish and and Irish, you know,

7:12

like all sort of the Celtic sort

7:14

of swirl. Let's let's get into that

7:16

little bit. I want to get into your your background

7:19

and your roots. Did

7:21

you grow up in Canada? So

7:23

I grew up in Nova Scotia, largely

7:25

in the city of Halifax, also a little

7:27

bit in Yarmouth, where my mom's family is from through

7:30

my maternal grandmother.

7:32

That's where I get Magma from.

7:35

She was like just the most amazing person.

7:38

I think Grandma Love in and of itself

7:40

is like a magic thing,

7:42

you know, Like, but she was. She was

7:44

a really interesting lady, Bernice Crosby,

7:47

And she was a

7:49

blind orphan. She was orphaned at

7:51

a very young age, Indigenous at

7:53

a time when like indigenous people

7:55

didn't get the vote in Canada until the sixties,

7:58

Like you had basically no qu and writes, you

8:00

know, to be born poor and

8:03

disabled at that time was like next

8:05

level. And then she

8:08

married my maternal grandfather,

8:10

who was like the son of an Irish immigrant. He

8:13

was like twenty years her

8:15

senior, so I think she was like nineteen

8:18

and he was like forty, right,

8:20

which is common of the time. Yeah,

8:22

absolutely, And and like I

8:25

had never been married, and so it was kind of like,

8:28

you know what, let's try this, let's give this a shot.

8:30

And on my dad's tide of the family.

8:33

My last name Merwin is like Welsh

8:36

originally, and it was spelled different

8:38

because Welsh is also like an interesting

8:41

language that doesn't really use vowels. I don't

8:43

know if you've ever seen any like Welsh words, but they're

8:45

all like consonants and you just kind of have to

8:47

figure out what vowels go

8:49

where and maybe what they sound like. You're

8:52

like, maybe it's an a. I don't know,

8:55

maybe we say it this way,

8:57

maybe we don't. I didn't know that. Yeah,

8:59

that I've out the Welsh language, you'll

9:01

get words that are like c W c

9:04

H and you're like, I

9:07

don't. We're like no idea, no

9:10

framework reference and how to say that. So

9:12

they were sent punitively to North America

9:15

because they were sort of roughnecks.

9:17

Like my grandfather was used to say

9:19

they were pirates, but I don't know like how

9:22

actually piraty they were. They were just like they

9:24

were just rough people that, like I

9:26

got sent to North America because they were like, we don't

9:28

want you here in Wales anymore. And

9:31

so when they arrived in North America, they're like, you know what

9:33

makeover as many people

9:35

do and they, you know, immigrate to a new place. They

9:38

anglicized the name and like change the spelling

9:41

and the way that we spell it with an m u

9:43

is actually very rare. Usually

9:46

if you meet Merwin's it's m e r

9:50

and they're everywhere like there's

9:52

a there's a Merwin National Park in

9:54

Wisconsin. Is

9:56

that spelled m e er? Yeah,

9:58

M E R W I N. And

10:01

I think that it is after like a writer

10:03

or a poet maybe, but

10:05

it was something that you know, growing up in Nova Scotia

10:08

like seemed very far fetched.

10:10

I come from, you know, traditions of people

10:12

who you know, like yarn

10:14

In and like tellent talent tales,

10:17

and I think that that is very

10:19

much how I sort of ended up doing

10:21

what I do now. Yeah, so

10:24

like the stories of being like descended from pirates

10:27

and they're being like a Merwin National Park in Wisconsin

10:30

of the promised land of Merwin's. I guess um

10:33

might not be true, but that's what I was told growing

10:35

up. Yeah,

10:38

you know Wisconsin. Yeah,

10:41

you know if you have, you've never been there, who knows

10:43

what it's like. You know, Like I've never to Wisconsin.

10:46

It could be very high. I probably haven't.

10:50

Maybe one day that'll be like something

10:52

I do is like drive to Wisconsin and

10:54

just be like what, um,

11:00

you know, what has even going on?

11:02

My um paternal grandmother

11:06

was Scottish. My grandfather on that

11:08

side had actually been a spy during

11:10

World War two and

11:12

like worked for like am I six,

11:15

I think Your Majesty's Intelligence Service

11:18

or am I five, and I think it's in my

11:20

six. I think it is in my six, right, watch

11:26

yeah, And I guess, like, you

11:28

know, the short answer is that, like I come from a bunch of

11:30

like rowdy, loud,

11:33

storytelling people. You know,

11:36

Well, what was it like growing up in

11:39

Canada being mixed,

11:41

being part Indigenous, partive

11:43

European. I gu guess you can say, were

11:46

there a lot of Indigenous people where you grew up

11:48

or were you one of the few? How

11:50

was that like? So it was kind

11:52

of sort of a weird thing. I didn't really know any

11:55

other sort of indigenous folks really growing

11:57

up. I was thinking about this earlier actually, like

11:59

how I would contextualize

12:01

this, like because I'm very white passing, and

12:04

my mom is darker, and my

12:06

sister is even like you know, darker,

12:08

and you know, has like long beautiful hair, and

12:10

you know, and I never was that. I looked much

12:12

more like my dad's side of the family. So for me, it was always

12:15

like growing up knowing your Indigenous,

12:17

but you don't look indigenous, and you get told that all

12:19

the time when you're mixed, right, Like, I

12:21

think you don't look you don't look X, Y

12:23

or Z, like, you know, like I thought you were

12:25

this yeah, yeah, exactly,

12:27

and and even you know, and also being you

12:30

know, trans and being queer. You know, in the eighties

12:33

and nineties, you know, Halifax

12:35

is a city, but it's a small city, so like living

12:37

in a smell place, being

12:39

queer, being mixed, being trans it. Just

12:41

like at a certain point in time, you're

12:44

just like, I just I just can't

12:47

exist here because there's nobody like

12:49

me. And I remember people saying

12:51

to me when I was growing up, you're just being different

12:53

to get attention, and the

12:55

heartbreak of that also being like if I

12:58

just want to be accepted, like you

13:00

know, but only the things you remember when you're

13:02

a kid, you know, those are formative

13:04

moments where you're trying to figure out who you

13:07

are and your identity, and people

13:09

think you're doing it for attention,

13:11

Like it's so dismissive

13:14

and insulting totally.

13:16

The only representations, especially you know, at

13:18

that time as well, like the only representations that I saw

13:21

of indigenous people were like Western's

13:23

you know, or um

13:26

there was like one really racist like

13:28

diorama and a museum that I remember

13:30

like very distinctly. But other than that, like

13:34

my frame of reference for like what it meant to

13:36

be make not even though that was something that like I

13:39

was told and I was told to be proud

13:41

of, I was like, I what am

13:43

I even proud of? Like I don't substantially

13:47

you know, like there was like all

13:50

the sort of confusion, I guess, And

13:53

it wasn't really until I got into my teen years

13:56

and started to reconnect.

13:58

Like we have, at

14:01

least here in Canada UM what

14:03

we call friendship centers, and

14:05

so like in any sort of UM

14:08

city, like major city, UM,

14:10

there's generally these friendship centers. And friendship centers

14:13

are centers for

14:15

like urban indigenous folks, you

14:17

know, a lot of time they have services like daycares

14:20

or like um the one in Halifax

14:22

offers like a lot of programs to do with

14:25

like language learning and

14:28

like also like addiction recovery and

14:30

also like you know, like sometimes they have like food pantries

14:32

and things like that. So like it offers a lot of services.

14:36

Sometimes they have clinics in them. It kind

14:38

of all depends. So when once

14:40

I started, you know, became

14:42

like a team, I started like connecting with

14:45

the Friendship Center in Halifax a lot more and

14:48

meeting other MAIGMA people and

14:51

like starting to feel a little bit more

14:53

reconnected to like

14:56

what it meant to be like

15:00

indigenous person. And

15:02

and at the time as well, we

15:04

had an option in high

15:07

school. So in high school, you know, it's it's similar to

15:09

the American system here, like you have

15:11

like primary through grade twelve and

15:13

then you know you have to when you're in high

15:15

school do so many credits to

15:18

graduate. You know, you have to take like three science

15:20

classes and two math classes, and normally

15:22

you have to take Canadian history.

15:25

But when I started high school, they were trying

15:27

out this new program that allows you to take Migma

15:30

history as opposed to

15:32

taking Canadian history, which was

15:34

like great. You could also take um

15:36

African Nova Scotia history because we actually have a huge

15:39

black community in Nova Scotia who

15:42

were loyalists who came

15:44

up after the American Civil

15:46

War, so it's like a long established black

15:48

community Nova Scotia, so you could take Yeah,

15:51

it's really cool, Like there's and there's so much history

15:53

too between like Migma folks and like

15:55

African Nova Scotians and like

15:59

some real jan Key stuff that happened with

16:01

like the British being like we'll send you back to Africa

16:03

and people being like what excuse

16:06

me, Yeah, that is such

16:08

the most cruel and bizarre

16:11

like ultimatum or like

16:13

like don't do this, or

16:16

like that's the early intense

16:18

one. Yeah. And and for a lot

16:20

of these folks, like they didn't necessarily

16:22

like you know, they had been born in the States, so

16:24

they didn't like it wasn't like they were like going home

16:27

to their families. It was like the

16:29

British there was a massive the

16:32

first race riot in North America happened in

16:34

Nova Scotia, in a small town called Well

16:36

outside of Shelburne. After that happened,

16:39

the British were like, we'll send you to

16:41

this territory we have called Sierra Leone

16:43

and you can live out your your days there. And some people

16:46

did go, but a lot of folks stayed

16:48

in Nova Scotia because, like I said, you know, it was like

16:50

this has become our home now. Yeah. But

16:53

yeah, so that's sorry, that's that's a total

16:55

tangent. But yeah, so it's a really fascinating

16:57

alogial's very fascinating. Yeah,

16:59

it's very u in the province.

17:01

So yeah, so so kind of getting to like reconnect

17:03

in my teens and and do some make

17:06

my history stuff and also

17:08

like reconnects

17:10

through the Friendship Center and starting to do more stuff there.

17:12

And I was also at that time too, like going and hanging

17:15

out like in our Outer

17:17

Youth project, like for Queer Youth. So

17:19

it was like this like blossoming sort

17:21

of moment of like kind of finding

17:24

my voice and like finding my footing. Unfortunately,

17:29

when I was sixteen, my parents kicked me out. And

17:33

can I can I ask was there a reason

17:35

behind it? Or was it just like or is that

17:37

touchy? I was gonna say, like it,

17:41

you know, it wasn't like one of those I feel like

17:43

we get into like the homework sort of like dramatization

17:45

of being like I came out as gay, and

17:48

not to say that this doesn't happen, like I think sometimes

17:50

people come out and their parents kick them out, you know,

17:52

but like my parents also, you know,

17:55

UM struggled with alcoholism,

18:00

and my growing up had not been particularly

18:02

easy, you know, because of that, and

18:06

um, you know, I sort

18:08

of started finding I think, my footing

18:10

and my voice, and you know, it was also struggling

18:12

with a lot of mental health stuff, and

18:15

I think that they just didn't

18:18

know how to deal with it. And so their way of dealing

18:20

with it was to get angry, and

18:24

that anger manifested in a way of sort of being

18:26

like, you can't live here anymore. And

18:28

I went through a period, a very brief period.

18:31

You know. I was fortunate and the fact that you

18:33

know, I did have places that I could

18:36

go and people that I could stay with. I ended

18:38

up staying actually with my aunt Marcella, who

18:41

you know. I was like, I could sleep on our couch and

18:44

try and keep going to high school.

18:47

But I did go through like there was like a very brief moment

18:50

where I was a little bit more um

18:52

tenerant and like homeless, and

18:56

that was, you know, not easy, of

18:58

course, you know. So I finished

19:00

up the school year of grade

19:03

ten and trying

19:05

to deal with all this other stuff that was going on, and

19:08

ended up getting sent from little

19:10

Halifax, Nova Scotia to live with my uncle in

19:13

rural France. WHOA,

19:16

that was a plot twist. Didn't see that coming, right,

19:19

Oh, there's more plot twist coming, trust

19:21

me, it gets weirder.

19:23

Maybe, I don't know. Well, okay,

19:26

let's get into it. After a very quick commercial

19:28

break. This will be enticing

19:30

for people to stick around. What

19:33

what happens to France. Yeah,

19:36

right back, Sorry,

19:47

I didn't mean to cross the boundary.

19:50

It's totally okay. It's all stuff that like

19:52

I've been in therapy for years now, and

19:55

if I didn't want to talk about it, I wouldn't, you

19:57

know. Yeah, I just want to apologize

20:00

my curiosity sometimes is a

20:02

disease. No, no, No,

20:04

it's totally fine. It's totally fine. Um, It's

20:06

something that like I talk a lot about my youth with

20:09

the young people that I work with today, because you

20:11

know what, like a lot of Indigenous youth and

20:13

a lot of queer youth really

20:15

struggle, you know, and they go through

20:17

similar things. I have a really dear friend

20:20

who went through a very significant

20:22

period of homelessness in their early twenties, and

20:24

like being able to talk

20:26

about these things and talk also about like the fact

20:28

that it's like and now I'm I'm okay and

20:30

I have an apartment, and you

20:33

know, when my parents first kicked

20:35

me out, I spent like the first like three days just riding

20:37

the public transit around Halifax

20:40

because I didn't have anywhere to be and just

20:42

like crying because I was like, I don't have

20:44

a home, and I didn't

20:46

really know. I didn't really have the

20:48

tools to like deal

20:50

with that, like what that meant emotionally,

20:53

and you know, to sort of look

20:55

at that kid that I was at that moment

20:57

and sort of be able to say now, like, yeah,

21:01

you know what, it's gonna be okay,

21:03

Like it's gonna like you're gonna go through so much

21:05

shit, but it ultimately

21:08

it's gonna work itself, you know, and you

21:10

can get through it. I think sometimes that can be really helpful.

21:12

So you're right. I mean, I'm so glad

21:15

you work with with kids because

21:18

hearing your experience, I

21:21

know, the youth and even adults

21:23

will listen to you and be

21:25

like, oh I will be okay. You

21:27

know, it's your efforts are appreciated.

21:30

I guess I want to say thank you. I

21:32

think sometimes to like having that perspective, like

21:34

I like when my parents

21:36

kicked me out, like you know, being able to

21:38

eventually make my way to like my Myselfa's

21:41

house, who wasn't actually

21:43

my but like it was like a family

21:45

friend kind of yeah, you know, but

21:47

he's also am I got like in terms of like chosen

21:50

family and everything, and you know,

21:52

we've remained very close throughout the years.

21:54

She's in her seventies

21:57

now and she's now

21:59

like the deca of her church, and she's really

22:01

active and involved in her community. Because she's

22:03

also the one that really encouraged me to get involved

22:06

in like doing activism and doing community organizing.

22:08

Like also like taught me a lot about racism and

22:11

how important it is to have compassion and

22:13

how important it is to meet people

22:15

where they're at, even if that's like a really difficult

22:17

place that we don't agree with. And

22:20

I think that sometimes what people miss

22:22

the mark on when they're they're talking about like

22:25

at risk youth or even like at risk adults.

22:27

Like I don't know if you

22:29

stop being at risk like once you turn eighteen,

22:31

right, I definitely

22:33

have had a lot, a lot of shaky years

22:36

between eighteen and now like thirty two. Like

22:39

there's been some times and sometimes

22:42

there's like conditions placed on meeting

22:44

somebody where they are. Sometimes

22:46

in order to access programming, you have to be sober.

22:49

Sometimes in order to access programming, you you

22:51

know, you have to be enrolled in school

22:54

or like before I went to go live with Matt and uncle

22:56

and France, I tried to apply to a

22:58

welfare program that was Availa about the time

23:01

that would have allowed me to get like

23:03

an apartment and stay in school and

23:05

like get a little bit of money so that I wouldn't have to

23:07

like work full time and go to school

23:10

as like a sixteen year old. There were a bunch

23:12

of different conditions placed on that, one of them being

23:14

that like my parents had to

23:16

contribute some of the money. It was almost like a

23:19

grant matching sort of thing where it was like the government would

23:21

put in this much, and then my parents would put in this much, but

23:23

my parents wouldn't actually sign the paperwork

23:26

on the part that they had to put in, so I was unable

23:28

to access that money. So

23:30

like I would have had to be working full time in

23:32

order to like just pay for living

23:34

expenses. So like there's there's

23:37

so many things like that that you catch you up that,

23:39

like, you know, what I always try and do in

23:41

in the work that I do get to do with other people

23:43

is you know, come from this place

23:46

of like compassion and sort of like talk a little

23:48

bit about some of the things that I've been through and

23:50

just sort of be like you know, like what

23:52

do you what are you doing right? Yet? Like what do you feeling

23:54

like what are you thinking right now? And then yeah,

23:57

I find that that often is really helpful because,

23:59

like you know, I think

24:01

sometimes too, we want to protect

24:04

kids, and I've been very fortunate to know some

24:06

amazing kids you know, who are like ten,

24:09

eleven, twelve years old, who you know are

24:12

already thinking about things like suicide, and

24:15

it like breaks your heart. You just want to be like I want

24:17

to protect you from the world, and

24:19

it's like there has to be an acknowledgment

24:22

of sort of like I can't,

24:24

but I can tell you that it's

24:27

not worth it, and it's not worth it for all these reasons

24:29

of like your life is going to be

24:31

amazing and you are capable of so much, you

24:34

know, Like, yeah, I'm

24:36

getting like a little worked up because I'm like thinking

24:38

about students I've had over the

24:40

year. I really, I really, we both

24:42

really appreciate your willing this

24:44

to be so open and honest about this stuff. I

24:46

think it's um,

24:49

I don't know, I think it matters. I mean, I feel

24:51

like what we talked about a lot on this podcast

24:53

is like you're not alone, which

24:56

is just kind of like big with children of immigrants,

24:58

because like you do feel alone.

25:01

Of the time because like one, like you

25:03

said, you just don't fit in and you want

25:05

to fit in, or like you're kind

25:07

of made to feel mothered on

25:10

many aspects and just by

25:12

people who like don't understand or just

25:14

like don't like get where you're

25:16

from or who you are, Like why do your parents

25:18

have accents? Like it's just like all this weird stuff

25:20

where you're like, dude, I don't know, I just am

25:23

what I am, you know, uh,

25:25

And I think we always just start trying to emphasize

25:28

like your experience is,

25:30

like, while it's unique,

25:33

a lot of people also have these similar

25:35

unique experiences that make them feel oothered

25:38

and that kind of outside what

25:41

the status quo should be or like

25:43

what you think life should be like.

25:45

So I think it's it's important to kind of have these,

25:48

you know, discussions and to just create

25:50

context. I think, like your

25:53

story like while like

25:55

you know, you know, Sharone felt bad asking

25:57

you about it, but like you're

26:00

story is probably story.

26:02

You know, I would say, tons

26:04

of people have experienced what you've experienced,

26:06

and it does take

26:09

time, I think, to come around to kind of being

26:11

open about it. But I think like that's kind

26:13

of your powers that you have this experience

26:15

that you can then turn

26:18

around and like guide people who

26:20

do need guidance, like in that moment where

26:22

like I just feel stuck and lost and

26:25

I don't know. I can only imagine if you, if

26:28

you existed, if a version

26:30

of you exist for yourself when

26:32

you were going through that, Like that's what I really

26:34

like, That's what I feel like. I

26:37

mean, I say this all the time on this podcast, but

26:39

you have to be the person that you needed in

26:41

a lot of ways. And I think

26:43

you're doing an amazing example of that. Oh,

26:46

thank you so much. No I and I totally agree.

26:48

And I think that that's something that's that's really lovely

26:50

in terms of like the message of

26:53

the podcast and what you've both done

26:55

with this platform that you've created in terms

26:57

of like speaking too, because

26:59

it's it's very true, like the margin

27:01

of you start to realize I

27:03

think as you grow older that like the margin of

27:05

what is like the status quo is actually a

27:07

very narrow margin, and more of us actually

27:10

fall into like the other category,

27:12

you know, Like so the more that we

27:15

can sort of find each other and like you

27:17

know, just be there for each other and

27:19

and like yeah, and be

27:21

the person that like we needed when we were growing up,

27:24

I think all the better, right, um,

27:27

because it's you know, the world is fucking

27:30

nuts, it really is. And

27:33

I think doing this podcast, we've also learned, like

27:36

people can come from all sorts of backgrounds

27:38

and upbringings and we're so much

27:40

more alike than we are different. And yeah,

27:43

a huge part of it is reminding everyone that you're not

27:46

alone. And even though

27:48

you're made to feel just like

27:50

I like a like a freak alien,

27:53

like just an other transient

27:55

whatever. Like, it's so I think coming

27:58

together and realizing

28:00

that it's good when you find

28:03

your people and when you find that

28:05

your efforts mean something. And I really

28:08

respect the fact that you work with children

28:10

because our kids, youth, young

28:12

adults, whatever, because those

28:15

formative years are so intense

28:18

and things that happen when

28:20

you're growing up can

28:22

completely alter your life so

28:25

totally and and like and and just like

28:27

the path that your life might take, and even

28:30

just like, I feel like to have somebody

28:32

say to you what you're feeling is valid

28:34

can be such a powerful thing because I think that

28:36

like, I mean, me and me and honest parents

28:39

would tell us we're so sensitive and that we're

28:41

like just don't cry or like

28:43

suck it up or whatever, and those that

28:46

that that's not helpful, you know what I mean, like you

28:49

hate to be sad. My parents a lot

28:51

of their frustration with us manifested

28:54

in anger as well, because it's like they just didn't

28:56

know how to communicate with us. Like my dad truly

28:58

did not know how to communicate it with a bunch of kids

29:00

who felt like stifled and confused

29:03

and shut down, and so he would just

29:05

get angrier at us, and that, you know, just

29:07

make us more upset. And it was like the cycle

29:09

of like, you know, you

29:11

don't know how to break free, and the parent

29:13

feels like, well fuck it, you

29:16

know, like I've been kicked out so many times

29:18

growing up that Luckily, like my dad is

29:20

so quick to be like get the funk out. But my mom,

29:23

my mom is truly like my savior in a lot

29:25

of ways, because while I

29:27

struggled a lot with the fact that she wouldn't

29:29

stand up to my father in the moment when

29:32

he was coming for us, if you will, like not

29:34

literally physically coming for us, but um, well kind

29:36

of you know, he's like threatening, you know, she wouldn't

29:39

stand up for us. In the moment, but like she'd

29:41

always be the one to come find us, you know, while

29:43

we're like wandering town being like why

29:45

does no one love me? Why does no one like me?

29:47

She would come find us later and be like, you know, how

29:49

your dad is what? You know, at the time, I'd be

29:51

like, fuck that dude. But like

29:54

in the now looking back on it,

29:56

and yes, of course, with years of therapy, like

29:59

kind of fine, make peace with the way that everyone's

30:01

kind of struggling internally and trying to understand

30:04

each other. And it's just we're

30:06

all human, man, We're all just trying to figure

30:09

it the funk out. It is so hard

30:11

out here. It's you

30:15

know, and I think sometimes it's

30:17

like you know, and I try to be sympathetic,

30:19

and I do talk to like parents sometimes too,

30:22

um, you know, and

30:24

and like my my cousins are all like

30:27

all have kids and stuff like that, so we spend a lot of time

30:29

like talking about parenting with them, and

30:32

you know, I think that it's I think it's I

30:35

think it's legitimately hard for parents, especially because

30:37

if there's like differences that they can't

30:40

see or differences that like they don't understand

30:43

within like their context of understanding the

30:45

world. I think it's really hard.

30:47

It's like because I don't

30:49

know when it comes to things like

30:53

I don't like not fitting in at school,

30:55

or or feeling

30:58

queer or whatever. It's like maybe

31:00

they can't wrap their heads around your

31:03

existence. And that's really hard.

31:06

Yeah, in the context too, you know,

31:08

Like it's it's like I think that

31:11

I think that sometimes we because

31:13

of what we experience, you know, growing

31:16

up. You know, we sort of arrived in adulthood

31:19

with like a certain understanding of the world and a certain

31:21

like because we were you know, we sort of were contained

31:24

within a certain context, right, And now

31:26

you've been trying and like catch myself on this as well.

31:29

But like I think because of that, sometimes, you know,

31:31

when our kids are experiencing things our

31:34

kids. I don't have any kids. I'm not going to have any

31:36

kids. I'm gonna just like you know what you mean, it's like the

31:38

collet of youth. Yeah, but

31:40

like when you when you know and and and

31:42

sometimes like you just it's just

31:44

so far outside of like what you like

31:47

have ever even sort of you

31:50

know, experience. I guess like

31:52

like I think about like, um

31:55

so, like the Magma

31:57

had really like we were one of the first nations

32:00

in you know, what's considered Canada now to

32:02

have contact with Europeans. When when Europeans

32:04

started coming over, and it was like even as early

32:07

as like the fifteen twenties and

32:09

then you know, so that's like five years

32:11

ago. It's a long time ago, and that

32:15

has undoubtedly shaped

32:17

our nation and and

32:19

and how we practice

32:22

and our identity

32:24

and like spirituality and all these other things. And

32:27

it's very interesting now to sort of talk to like

32:32

the young like queer magma folks

32:34

that I know, um,

32:37

because like they're starting to reclaim

32:39

things in a way that like I don't think

32:42

my generation would have been able to and definitely

32:44

like not their parents generation. Like you

32:46

know, when I was growing up, we still talked about things

32:48

like don't

32:50

drink from a public water fountain because you'll get eight.

32:53

Like we were still scared of aids, you know,

32:55

to the point of like well if you're

32:58

if you're queer, you just have eights and

33:00

that's like, you know, so you

33:03

know, realizing it is like that your queer is

33:05

like a very young person like you know, um,

33:09

I knew from a very very early age and being

33:11

like oh well, I'm going to die of

33:13

AIDS, and that's just like how you understand

33:16

the world. And then talking to kids

33:18

now who are like sixteen, who

33:20

are like, what is even gender it

33:24

is? In? Yeah,

33:27

it is pretty incredible how different.

33:30

I mean, I'm excited

33:32

to see what the future holes as far as queerness

33:35

and general identity and just

33:37

knowing how far we're like even that experience,

33:39

like yeah, like the youth are eons

33:41

beyond where I was when I was their age,

33:43

and I was very confused and I felt

33:46

so much shame about being queer. And

33:48

there's a lot of reasons, whether it's religion or

33:50

culture otherwise. But if

33:53

I I mean, there are definitely cons

33:55

to being a teenager now, like whether it's

33:57

like social media and the internet, But the

34:00

upside is that

34:03

those tools can connect you to people that are

34:05

experiencing what you're experiencing and

34:07

opening the door to be like we're all

34:10

on a spectrum and it's okay, and

34:13

like it's so refreshing, and

34:15

even just things like from like an indigenous perspective

34:17

of feeling like there has been this big

34:20

resurgence, you know, like a lot of

34:23

artists my age and sort of like of my generation

34:25

you know, are now like sort of rising to prominence

34:27

and becoming much more visible. And so there's like, at

34:30

least here in Canada, you know, like there's so much

34:32

more Indigenous art and

34:35

culture and stuff being created. You know, things

34:37

like like there was a film that just came

34:39

out last year called Blood Quantum that

34:41

was like a zombie indigenous

34:44

like like crazy

34:47

horror gory film. And like

34:50

to see something like that, you know, whatever you think of

34:52

sort of like horizon amount or like whatever.

34:55

You know, if that's not your thing, that's totally fine. But just even

34:57

the fact that that exists, I was like,

34:59

it's bad. That's awesome, you

35:01

know, like how can I can't be upset of that?

35:04

You know, So,

35:06

like, you know, there's so many like there's

35:08

so many things that like the the youth I think also are

35:10

able to access um

35:13

both within themselves, within their communities.

35:15

You know, Elders are becoming a lot more open

35:17

to talking about things like gender variation

35:20

and like variation and sexuality

35:22

in a way that I don't know would have been the case

35:24

like twenty years ago. And all

35:26

that's really great because like ultimately, you

35:29

know, you know, Indigenous

35:32

people's had a lot of

35:34

different understandings of gender and sexuality,

35:37

and a lot of those practices went away.

35:40

Like I said, you know, when we sort of

35:42

came in contact with Europeans in sixteen

35:45

o four, the grand chief of the Migma I

35:47

remember too, was baptized

35:49

by some Jesuit mescenaries and like essentially

35:52

the nation became a Christian

35:54

nation. That sex

35:56

with your ship. You know, there's

35:59

so many ex samples. I mean, we

36:01

didn't. I wish we cover this more in our education

36:04

in the in the States, but our education

36:06

here is so it's like it's

36:08

like the whole saying like the winner writes

36:10

the history kind of thing, and so you only hear kind

36:13

of one side of everything. But there are so

36:15

many examples of religious

36:17

whitewashing, essentially, if so many indigenous

36:19

cultures and so many it's

36:21

it's just really unfortunate and really disgusting

36:24

we really think about it. It's like it's and

36:27

it doesn't get talked about enough, it really because

36:30

that alters generations and history

36:32

and people. You know, that is

36:35

like it's traumatic in the moment

36:37

on so many levels, but that trauma

36:39

carries generation generation totally,

36:43

and and and it alters how

36:45

we understand our past

36:47

and how but also like how we can

36:49

envision our future, right, you

36:52

know, and so to see like young

36:54

people starting to pick up things and like run

36:56

with things now and also to understand that like

36:59

they can also like create within that, you know,

37:01

like you know, sometimes tradition

37:03

starts with us, and so

37:06

starting to see a little bit more of of

37:08

like new traditions starting and being

37:10

like so proud of that. Like one of the big things

37:12

that's happening that is really exciting to see

37:15

is like how language is also changing.

37:17

Not I'm not a fluent MCMA speaker.

37:19

I have been learning, but it's a

37:21

very complex language. It's

37:24

all verb based or mostly verb based. There's

37:26

no gender pronouns. That's

37:29

the future, right, It's

37:31

so great. It's you talk about it's like me

37:34

you and then like the collective you

37:37

like them so much better. Like I

37:39

think what really sucks me up because Okay, Arabic

37:41

is very gendered, Spanish is very

37:44

gendered. I've been teaching myself trying to learn

37:46

Spanish on my own, and I'm realizing just

37:48

how like they're not similar at all language

37:50

wise, but they're both very gendered

37:52

languages. Like in Arabic especially, it was

37:54

my first language, and even

37:56

objects are massful and feminine, like

37:59

kind of similar in Spanish that I'm

38:01

realizing now, But it's

38:04

such a gendered language, like Arabic

38:06

is so gendered. I don't want to

38:08

give that to as an excuse as to why sometimes

38:11

pronouns are like they tripped me up, but like

38:14

it's it's really refreshing to hear

38:16

that, like the Magma language

38:18

is kind of like EON's ahead of that, and

38:21

recognize that we're all just like human and not exactly

38:24

like male or female or whatever else is

38:26

in between. We're all just then

38:28

in between where we're all that. In

38:31

Farsi, they don't have there's

38:33

no gender to nouns. There's no grammatical gender.

38:36

Oh that's really cool, yeah, because I never

38:38

thought about it until one day my dad. I

38:40

was like, well, how would I describe

38:43

something like for a woman, And and

38:45

my dad was like, that's not

38:47

you just say that, And I was like, oh my god,

38:49

you're right, Like we don't do that. It's

38:52

like someone had to point out to me, because you know, when

38:54

you learn in school, like a

38:56

language, you're like hyper aware of

38:58

such things, but like just learned

39:00

because I was the group speaking it, so I

39:02

just never thought about it. And then I remember my dad just

39:04

being like, there's no gender, and then I was

39:06

like, oh my god, you're right. I'm so

39:09

used to being trained to think there

39:11

is. Yeah, that flows my mind because

39:13

in Arabic, like even the moon is it's

39:15

a woman, like it's like not like a technical woman,

39:18

but like the noun for her. And I

39:20

just said, the noun for the moon is like

39:22

a feminine thing, and like a

39:24

ship is feminine, Like even

39:26

like a dog can be both. Like like there's

39:28

different words for any every animal,

39:31

if it's a male or female animal. It's

39:33

just it's really segregated

39:35

gender wise. And I love Arabic. It's

39:38

my It's a beautiful language, but

39:40

it has some work to do as far as the future

39:42

of gender, and the future of gender

39:44

has been the past and president of gender

39:46

as well. It's just like catching up to

39:49

you know, can I ask you to a question? Yeah,

39:52

plot twist. I'm taking over the podcast. No,

39:57

So this is what's really interesting for me because but I was gonna say,

39:59

like, like we're starting to like like we didn't

40:01

have a word in mcmah for like queer, so like young

40:03

people are coming up with these words. Now, do

40:05

you find in sort of like

40:08

the diaspora of sort of like

40:10

you know, your respective communities that like that

40:12

language is sort of evolving, like

40:14

or do you find that, like when you end up talking about Christoph

40:17

you end up doing it more in English. I've been doing

40:19

it more in English, to be honest. I

40:21

have noticed that there are some

40:23

like uh, in like Instagram

40:25

and like accounts that I'll like look up like

40:27

like these like younger people than me that are like Palestinian

40:30

or whatever, and just seeing how they're adapting

40:33

the language. And it's

40:35

definitely something that is new

40:37

and trying they're trying to implement. Does

40:39

that make sense, It's like it's just it's a it's a work

40:42

in progress, and I really value that work in progress.

40:45

And I'm glad that it's being talked about because there are so

40:47

many Arab Middle

40:49

Eastern Muslim queer

40:51

people and they need a space.

40:54

Uh. And they're they're and they've always been there. That's the

40:56

thing, Like I don't want to make it seem like there

40:58

it's like just happened to this

41:00

decade. Queer people of the Musom community exists.

41:03

That's not true. They've always been there, and

41:05

it's it's apparent in the art, it's

41:07

apparent in the

41:09

the writings. So many poets, like a

41:12

lot of male poets in Arabic,

41:14

they would talk about a male lover. So it's like

41:16

ganus existed, you know. So it's just

41:19

I think it's just it has never been mainstream

41:22

and so it never gave it was never given the

41:24

attention as far as language is concerned. But

41:27

I hope it continues to progress

41:31

in that direction. It's the same for

41:33

me. I don't. I don't really well because I

41:35

honestly only speak first to my parents and my siblings,

41:38

but like siblings rarely, but

41:40

like, um, we don't talk

41:42

about such things because

41:44

it doesn't come up in conversation. Um.

41:48

And I feel like when my parents do talk about it,

41:50

they speak about it in English as well, Like I don't even

41:52

think they would be hip to anything that was happening.

41:54

I really should look into it. I don't know. I'm

41:57

gonna I'm gonna look into it. I'm

41:59

gonna do my re series. People my

42:01

family would definitely use English as well. But

42:04

let's just take one last break. Thank you

42:06

for that great question, by the way, Jess, Let's

42:08

take one last break. We didn't get into France

42:11

yet, but I didn't forget

42:13

We're gonna get into France. I want to get into

42:15

your work as a programmer for film festivals.

42:17

I want to get into fat Tuesday. I want to

42:19

get into all of it. Also ghost stories.

42:22

Oh yeah, I have a ghost story for you, because

42:24

we were talking about stories. Yes, we

42:27

got We just told us a story on the

42:29

Bechdel cast stream. Uh. It

42:32

was amazing, but I'm decided to hear more. We'll

42:34

be right back. We're

42:43

back, okay quickly. I

42:46

maybe I'm being selfish. Now, tell us

42:48

about France, tell us about I

42:51

want to get into your work, and I want to hear this ghost

42:53

story. Yeah. So, so I ended up

42:55

in France at like seventeen,

42:58

and I did not speak French.

43:00

I spoke Canadian public school French, which

43:04

you know, when I was growing up, like was a

43:06

lot of like they taught you French through songs, and

43:08

I don't know if they do this with Spanish in the

43:10

States, but like we'd learned songs like

43:13

Natalie, Okay, that kiss, that's

43:17

that's more helpful. But we

43:20

something that I really despised. I

43:22

have a thorn in my side as far as the education

43:25

system here goes as Spanish as it required.

43:27

So really, yeah, a

43:29

lot of people here only no one language, and that's

43:31

only because the school top in one. What

43:34

yeah, we have to we have to learn at least two,

43:36

we have to learn French and English. And then the majority

43:39

of the world is like that America is

43:41

the languages are required as like

43:43

a graduation thing, but you get to pick if

43:46

you want, like French, but that's not until high school.

43:48

Oh, high school, and then

43:50

if depending on your major in college, I

43:52

had to also do a language and college.

43:55

But I think but I think

43:57

German if it was if it was, but

44:00

if it was like mandatory

44:02

as a kid, that's much more conducive

44:04

to actually learn the language, you know what I mean, Like this

44:06

country hates immigrants, so they would never

44:10

I mean, I think it's sus

44:12

that we teach French and not indigenous

44:15

languages because like but

44:18

very like yeah, very

44:21

very like white like

44:24

prominent way of being like these these are languages

44:26

you should know white people know them.

44:29

But it's it's also sort of happening now we're

44:31

like so I think we start Frenching, like

44:33

you can do French immersion, but you can also start French,

44:35

I think in the public school system, like in grade three, but

44:39

now to somebody was telling me this the other

44:41

day, and I don't know, Like Montreal is

44:43

a pretty big, like multicultural

44:45

city. We also have like schools where

44:47

you do like Hebrew immersion, and like we

44:49

have schools where you do like like Arabic

44:51

commersion. Yeah, we've

44:53

got and I don't think we have a school or we used

44:55

to have a school where you could do like Farste immersion.

44:57

But I think you have to be like older, like I think you started

45:00

it like grade six. Interesting,

45:03

I mean that's still just like it's also like

45:05

an awkward, weird age to just be like and now

45:07

we're going to throw you head first into

45:09

another language. But I think a lot of the folks

45:11

who go there are like, you know,

45:13

maybe a parent speaks Arsita, so it's like maybe

45:16

a little bit easier. But I

45:18

want to talk about France, though I don't want to get too

45:20

side tracked. Tell us about France.

45:22

Okay, you gotta keep me on track, though, you gotta,

45:25

because like I will you know me, I'm just everything

45:27

you say. I'm like listening to you, like

45:29

like just like at the edge of my seat. So I'm

45:32

going just letting you go because I'm just listening. Um.

45:37

So I ended up in France, and I didn't really speak

45:39

French, and um my part

45:41

of my condition of going to go live with plant and uncle was

45:44

Okay, you gotta go to school, you gotta finish high school,

45:46

gotta gotta do that. And so I

45:49

ended up in in France. The

45:51

way that they do high school is is weird and

45:53

different. So you you sort of finished high school

45:55

when you're in grade ten, and then you have

45:57

like two years that are called your baccalaureate,

46:00

which is like, oh, it's like in Syria too,

46:02

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so

46:05

I had So I ended up in France doing

46:07

a baccalaureate, didn't speak French, had

46:10

to learn how to speak French. Whoa like

46:12

fast. And that was like a whole

46:15

thing because I was in a

46:17

program that was like literature and

46:20

history and philosophy, like all

46:23

the things that I love, but also things that you

46:25

have to know how to like speak the language in order

46:27

to understand, Like you can't just like bullshit your

46:29

with philosophy or maybe you can, but

46:31

like it was interesting. It was I was in a

46:33

private Catholic institution, and

46:37

uh boy, howdy,

46:42

I showed up and I was like, I had

46:44

like it used to be a haircut that

46:46

was like sort of like a mohawk, but like a mohawk with bangs,

46:49

called a chelsea. I

46:51

had a very I had a very bad haircut,

46:54

and all of

46:56

my pants head holes in them. And I was

46:58

like at this very like bored Catholic

47:01

institution. Like we had Mass on like Wednesday

47:03

morning to go to Mass. It was like what um,

47:07

So I went and did that. And I learned how to speak

47:09

French and I

47:11

did all my exams and it

47:13

worked. It worked out somehow, miraculously.

47:16

I ended up graduating with

47:18

like pretty decent marks after

47:20

like two years. And this is always

47:22

living in France, and I was living with my uncle in this like tiny

47:25

little village. Our village had two streets.

47:28

Wow. And so the street that we lived on and

47:31

then the other street, uh was

47:33

where all the important things were. So like the bakery,

47:36

the church, the butcher, the

47:39

tobacconist you know, that was

47:41

like on the other street and that those were the two streets

47:43

in our town. Yeah,

47:47

the tombaccini, Yeah, the person

47:49

who sells cigarettes basically

47:52

because in France you need you need two things. You need

47:54

baguettes and you need cigarettes. At least

47:56

at that time, that was very true. So

47:59

I went back in the because my you know, uh

48:02

I just I it was if being

48:04

out in a small city, it

48:07

was not possible. It was definitely not possible in

48:09

rural France in

48:11

the early two thousands. And I

48:14

went back in the closet and I started smoking, and

48:16

I tried to seduce

48:19

young um seminarians because

48:21

we lived very close to a religious community,

48:23

and I'd be like hello, and you

48:26

know, it was more it was sort of like it

48:28

was more for fun, I think, than like I didn't

48:30

know what to do with them. If they actually were like, yes,

48:33

I will kiss you, I'd be like, well

48:36

yeah, slow down, back

48:38

off, buddy. But but at the time, you know, you're

48:40

sort of like rebellious and you're like, I just wanna I

48:42

want to spoil something um

48:46

And and that kind of all came crashing to an end

48:48

one night when uh I,

48:50

I went out with some people and we got very drunk

48:53

on some Spanish absence, and I

48:55

had been a little bit too forward with a young seminarian

48:58

and then the next morning he gave me pen flip, being

49:00

like is marriage for you? Like,

49:03

maybe you should consider a celibate life, and I

49:05

was like, maybe I have to. It

49:08

was like one of those moments where you're like, I

49:10

don't know if it was a rock bottom, but it was definitely like a

49:12

moment of being like a maybe

49:15

maybe I should do something different um

49:19

bottom for some guys, which

49:22

pamply you're like, oh fuck this yeah.

49:26

Well, it was just like you know, I was like, this

49:28

is not really going anywhere. I'm not like I'm

49:31

not making friends or influencing people. This

49:33

is just this is sad. This is maybe sad.

49:36

Maybe this is sad. Um.

49:39

I have a lot of those moments in a regular basis where

49:41

I'm just like maybe this is sad, and then I just

49:43

keep doing whatever I'm doing. So when

49:45

I finished my baccalaureate, I graduated.

49:48

I've been living in France for like two and a half years.

49:51

UM. During that time, I had been working in a

49:53

community that my uncle were part of that

49:55

like isn't an intentional

49:57

community for adults

50:00

with intellectual and physical disabilities. So

50:03

I've been working there a little bit and through that I

50:06

had the opportunity to go

50:08

to Kolkattam.

50:11

So I've had

50:13

a job in Calcutta and I was like, Okay, I'm

50:16

nineteen years old. Now I'm

50:18

going to go to India. And

50:21

you know, I think that a lot of people this is

50:24

this is what I like to call the problematic ears,

50:26

because this was like I look back on this

50:28

and it's pretty It's

50:30

definitely problematic to be like a young person

50:32

from a like western

50:35

country going to another

50:37

country to like work for

50:40

an NGO. I think a lot of people

50:42

do it, but I think it's it's a gray area,

50:44

you know, because at one at one side, there's

50:46

like you're traveling

50:49

and immersing yourself in a culture you wouldn't have the opportunity

50:51

to otherwise. Like

50:53

I think it's like a little bit imperial a

50:56

little bit imperialist, you know, like it's

50:59

like white savery ory.

51:01

Yeah, yeah,

51:03

you know, it absolutely is. It absolutely is.

51:05

And I think that like even

51:08

though you know, like I didn't go with sort

51:10

of like the idea of like, oh I'm

51:12

gonna go find myself in India or you know, I'm

51:14

going to do this and the other thing, I think just the fact

51:16

that like, um,

51:18

you know, having grown up in the West, like I and

51:21

then like you know, and

51:23

and fairly privileged circumstances, even though

51:25

things were incredibly difficult and we were poor,

51:28

you know, and I had gone through a period of homelessness, like I

51:31

realized in India. You

51:33

know, even at my poorest

51:35

I still had access to more than like what

51:38

some of the families and people I was working

51:40

with had, and like so

51:43

it really, you know, it really kicked my

51:45

ass in a in a pretty big way, and

51:48

and in a way that I think, um

51:51

it was really good and really important because it also taught

51:53

me a lot about colunialism because again, like I was coming

51:55

from this this place of sort of being like I cannot

51:57

perpetuate colunialism. I have

52:00

indigenous and

52:03

then sort of realizing that like in

52:05

India, I just look like another white person basically,

52:08

and being like, oh fuck, actually, you know

52:10

what, I am part of this

52:12

this really terrible thing, and you

52:14

know, having to kind of own that a little bit more

52:16

and and figure myself out through

52:19

that. Um So, I lived

52:21

in Calcutta for like

52:23

a year and a half, and it

52:26

was very fortunate. Like Bengali

52:28

culture is amazing, and there's so

52:30

much poetry and art and cinema

52:33

and cool stuff

52:35

that like I'm so glad that I got to experience,

52:37

you know, And I got to travel around India so much

52:39

a little bit, and so much of that

52:42

country is just like

52:44

mind blowing. The beautiful like sunsets

52:46

that just like brought me to tears because I was like

52:48

it just like it just does

52:50

that here, you know, like the colors

52:53

were so much more alive, you know, and like,

52:55

you know, I think of Europe is being like pretty

52:58

gray, you know, like people were ray,

53:01

everything's made out of stone. Everything was really

53:03

great. And then to go to India where everything was like all

53:05

of a sudden like hypercolor and

53:07

just being like just

53:10

blowing my mind. So I

53:13

came back from India and

53:16

was like, well, now

53:19

what I hadn't lived in Canada for like four years.

53:22

Came back to Canada and was like a little bit had

53:24

a moment of sort of like difficulty adjusting

53:27

because like, also are just

53:29

gotten very used to living

53:31

without a lot of stuff, and

53:33

all of a sudden, it was like it felt like I

53:35

was just like inundated with things, and like

53:37

even just like the idea at one point of like having

53:40

more than like two pairs of pants I was like, why do I need

53:42

more than two pairs of pants? I'm either

53:44

wearing one or I had like, are

53:46

I'm wearing the other one? And it was just like it's

53:48

just fine. So that was kind of

53:50

like a little bit hard to get used to. And then I

53:53

went and studied art at the I

53:55

stayed film and animation at

53:57

the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. And

54:02

coming back to Canada was also really good too, because I could

54:04

kind of reconnect again with um

54:09

like bigma stuff, because like I couldn't

54:11

do that overseas, and like so it

54:13

kind of I came back, I

54:15

dealt with some like lingering

54:19

stuff with my parents, you know, dealt

54:21

with some lingering stuff in terms of like coming out

54:25

and and yeah, and

54:27

again sort of reconnected to culture. And

54:29

then when I was finishing at the university,

54:32

I don't know more happened, and I don't

54:34

know more was a youth

54:36

indigenous activism

54:39

movement looking at issues

54:41

relating to the environment, but it extended

54:44

from there as well, because everything

54:46

is sort of interconnected. So coming back to

54:48

Canada like and being in university sort

54:50

of at this point where like this this big

54:53

indigenous like political movement

54:55

was happening. It was also a catalyst

54:58

for getting me back involved in doing like ganizing

55:00

and activism and stuff like that. And then

55:03

I've bounced between Montreal and Halifax.

55:05

I've lived in Montreal now for four

55:08

years five years, and a lot of what

55:10

I've done sort of like the cultural work that

55:12

I do working for film festivals, but also in

55:14

my practice as an artist has been really

55:17

influenced by everything that like going

55:19

on in the world and trying to be able to use art

55:22

as like a medium to communicate and to

55:25

connect with people around subjects of

55:27

like social justice. I started programming

55:30

films and working for film festivals because I didn't

55:32

see any films about

55:34

people like me. Mm hmm. One

55:37

of the first screenings that I put on in Halifax

55:39

right after university was like a screening of

55:42

all like queer female

55:44

like trans horror shorts

55:47

nice. This was like two thousand and twelve,

55:50

and I remember people saying at the time like, isn't

55:52

it a bit much? And I was like, what's

55:55

a bit much? And they were like, well, you know, you're

55:57

just you're focusing like not

55:59

on men and not a bit much.

56:01

Do we really need a screening that's like women

56:05

yeah, was made by women.

56:08

You know what we do what?

56:12

Yeah. I was surprised at how much

56:14

like resistance there was, Like I thought people would be

56:16

like excited that I was like coming in and being

56:18

like, we need a screen indigenous

56:21

people, we need to screen when we need to screen trans

56:23

people, And they were like, oh,

56:26

so you see, um

56:29

you mean the white man uncomfortable you know, yeah,

56:33

very much. So that was also

56:36

a very formative experience

56:38

of sort of like those early years programming and realizing

56:40

that like like one festival I worked for,

56:42

I worked like a dog. I increased

56:44

the amount of like indigenous filmmakers

56:47

that they were showing to the point where they qualified for a

56:49

grant from the province because they were

56:51

showing more Indigenous filmmakers to

56:53

do like extra programming. And the only

56:56

thing they ever complimented me on it

56:58

was my appearance. Wow. Yeah.

57:01

Yeah. And I didn't wear lipstick

57:03

one day and they asked me if I was sick, and then

57:05

like I just I was like oh no,

57:08

and I you know, and I mean I hope

57:10

though I hope those experiences. If

57:13

anything, eventually, I

57:15

would like I remind you that, like,

57:17

oh, this work is very important, Like I am

57:19

very needed. No one else is doing this.

57:22

That's so disheartening. That's

57:24

so disheartening. So I'm sure you

57:26

both have had like similar sort of experiences in

57:29

certain places. Like the glass ceiling is really real

57:31

and it totally did. It totally like radicalized

57:34

me and in a way and like made

57:37

me dig in. And so I sort

57:39

of stepped back from working from

57:41

from like big mainstream sort of

57:43

festivals, which I had been working for like some

57:45

some very prominent festivals and doing stuff with them

57:48

UM to doing more like independent

57:51

programming where I had a lot more control and also

57:53

where I could provide a lot more community

57:56

support. Like one program that I got to do a

57:58

couple of years ago here in Montreal was all around

58:00

the theme of UM mental

58:02

health, especially like q t bipop

58:05

mental health. And at the end of the screening,

58:07

you know, like we just had like a little listening set

58:10

like a session where

58:12

like people UM could

58:14

come and just like talk and for

58:16

a couple of minutes and like if

58:18

they needed you know, assistance

58:21

was something we could sort of help them up with something. But like

58:25

it was like sort of like peer counseling. Yeah,

58:28

and you can't necessarily do that like with

58:30

a big festival. It's you know, like there's there's

58:32

so much bureaucracy behind all those kind of

58:34

things, where like I could do that if it was just me

58:37

screening you know, some short films in an

58:39

art gallery, um,

58:42

and doing all that kind of stuff is kind of led me

58:44

to the job that I'm in now, which is I'm a lead

58:46

programmer at t QFF, which is the

58:48

Toronto Queer Film Festival,

58:50

and we're a yeah,

58:52

we're like more of a grassroots community

58:56

based, collectively programmed queer

58:58

film festival that really

59:00

centers black and Indigenous perspectives.

59:02

It's the kind of this like nice marriage

59:05

between the work that I was doing independently

59:08

and the like

59:11

festival environment where you sort of have like

59:13

the resources and the structure and the time

59:15

to do things that are really cool. And

59:17

I'm sure what you learned or like gathered

59:20

from those big breocracy kind

59:22

of festivals kind of influenced

59:24

your role in a smaller setting

59:26

and like you can like kind of I

59:28

don't know, merge those worlds together

59:31

even more informed, oh big

59:33

time. I think sometimes like when you're

59:35

not necessarily always provided

59:37

with like the tools that you need in order

59:40

to do something that like sometimes you just have to learn

59:42

through doing things, and so like being able to come

59:44

from this experience of working with big

59:46

festivals and work

59:48

with them at smaller festival. It's sort of like makes

59:51

me a lot more resourceful. I

59:53

think has made me a lot more structured and a lot more organized,

59:55

which is also really to the benefit of a smaller festival.

59:58

I have all the trappings of of bureaucracy,

1:00:00

and I know how to do all the bureaucracy stuff without necessarily

1:00:03

being fully invested in it. Yeah, so

1:00:05

that's pretty like, that's pretty nice. You know, that's

1:00:08

amazing. That's amazing. I'm so grateful

1:00:10

that your life led you to where

1:00:12

you are now, and I'm so

1:00:15

grateful that you shared with us your story. Before

1:00:17

we go, though, I want you to

1:00:19

tell everyone where they can find you on the internet.

1:00:21

But I also want to hear this ghost story. Okay.

1:00:24

I was like, I was waiting for that too. I was like,

1:00:27

ghost story or the internet, whether

1:00:29

you can find me? Um, So this ghost

1:00:32

story. And I've been sitting on this because we

1:00:34

have like a group chat listeners inside

1:00:36

behind the curtain, we have a group chat. I was

1:00:38

like, maybe I should send this via the group

1:00:41

chat. And I was like, no, no, no, I'll

1:00:43

hold on to it. We'll get a chance to talk again. I'll hold

1:00:45

on to it. Oh my god, I'm so happy

1:00:47

to be right here in this moment, so

1:00:50

amazing. Yes, I've been holding on this specifically

1:00:53

for you Shrine. So this

1:00:55

is my ghost story I dedicated to on

1:00:58

Instrine. So, I guess growing

1:01:00

up in Nova Scotia, it's a very spooky place.

1:01:03

I brother think I encourage you about to visit, maybe

1:01:05

in the summertime, because it's really the way

1:01:08

was not great the rest of the year. Yeah, you

1:01:10

know, but it's nice in the summertime. We we do

1:01:12

beaches. I guess

1:01:14

we have those in California too, but we you know, our

1:01:17

beaches are colder and more rocky.

1:01:20

Oh I

1:01:22

can, I can dig it. You know. It's it's a very

1:01:24

spooky place. Like people, you know, everybody's

1:01:27

family has has like a family ghost story or

1:01:29

like a family member that sees for runners,

1:01:31

or you know, a story of a haunting or

1:01:34

possessioners. You know, like that's just part

1:01:36

and parcel coming from the East Coast. And

1:01:38

so I would say that I believed in ghosts,

1:01:40

but like I've never really experienced anything spooky.

1:01:43

I was like, you know, outside

1:01:45

of that story that I told during

1:01:47

the Twilight live stream, like

1:01:49

that was a spooky story. Like,

1:01:52

but like I only had stories like that that were like secondhand

1:01:55

stories from like friends. I had never really experienced

1:01:57

anything on my own. So earlier

1:01:59

this year or this would

1:02:01

have been back in the springtime, I

1:02:04

think just after Lockdown kind of happened. So

1:02:06

it was like maybe like April, I was sleeping

1:02:08

and I woke up because

1:02:10

I felt a man leaning

1:02:13

his arm like into my chest, like somebody,

1:02:15

you know, sort of like putting pressure, so like their

1:02:17

arm would have been like across my chest and was like

1:02:20

holding my right hand,

1:02:23

like had their hand around my fist, and I could

1:02:25

like feel like the warmth

1:02:27

of their body and like the arm hair on their

1:02:29

arm, And I'm like lying in bed being like

1:02:32

this is it? Like in fact,

1:02:34

this is how I go like because

1:02:36

like I also live on the first floor, so I'm like

1:02:38

people could get in my windows. Like I'm you know, I

1:02:41

watched way too much like Unsolved

1:02:44

Mysteries, just like thinking of all the

1:02:46

possibilities and I'm like, oh, well,

1:02:48

it's been nice, it's been fun. I'm saying like

1:02:51

my goodbyes in my head, and this person is just like leaning

1:02:53

into my chest and I was so scared,

1:02:55

and I'm just like okay, and

1:02:57

then I sort of feel like the pressure

1:03:00

come off. Whatever has been on top

1:03:02

of me sort of like moves to the side of the bed. And

1:03:04

it's somehow like I had

1:03:07

noticed this when it was like whatever it was on top of

1:03:09

me, but like now this on the side of bed, it's

1:03:11

somehow like it's like a darker shade

1:03:13

than like the darkness in the room

1:03:15

in a really weird way, Like I don't know if that makes sense,

1:03:17

but yeah, it's like

1:03:20

it's like a darker kind of darkness. You're

1:03:22

just like you're looking at

1:03:24

it and you're like there's something

1:03:26

obviously there, and and like I

1:03:28

was just like at that moment,

1:03:30

I was like, Okay, this is fucking it. I'm gonna like

1:03:32

turn on the light. I'm gonna see who this motherfucker

1:03:35

is in my house. So I reached over and I turn

1:03:37

on my my bedside lamp and

1:03:39

I look back and there's nothing there. Wow.

1:03:42

And so I was like completely freaked

1:03:45

out because I and I was like looking

1:03:47

under the bed. I like went and got like

1:03:49

a knife from the kitchen. It was like doing that thing where

1:03:51

you're like checking the closet, like I'm

1:03:53

gonna like fucking make sure that, like, yeah,

1:03:56

there's nothing in my house. Because I was

1:03:59

convinced. I was absolutely convinced

1:04:01

that. I was like, you know that this had

1:04:03

just happened, and

1:04:06

oh. I like called

1:04:08

up a friend of mine the next day and was

1:04:10

like, you know, my friends a

1:04:12

spooky bitch and she like knows about this stuff.

1:04:14

And I was like, all right, I believed

1:04:17

in ghosts. I especially believe in ghosts.

1:04:19

Now what's going on? What's happening

1:04:21

in my house? And she was like, okay, this

1:04:23

is what you gotta do. And she's also a magma, so

1:04:26

she was like, got you got these herbs? And I

1:04:28

was like, you bet, I got these herbs. And so I

1:04:30

took a bunch of herbs that I had

1:04:32

and I have a drum, and so I got my drum

1:04:34

out and she's like, okay, and this is what you're gonna do. You're gonna burn

1:04:36

these herbs and you're gonna drum and you're gonna just ask the spirit

1:04:38

to leave because it doesn't sound like they're there for any good reason.

1:04:41

I was like, okay, you know what, I hadn't

1:04:43

slept the night before, so I like burnt on

1:04:45

my herbs. I had my drum. I was like drumming

1:04:47

in my house, like you know, just be like

1:04:49

oh wait, go wait. And I was like, this is dumb.

1:04:51

I'm being dumb. It was probably just like an

1:04:53

hallucination. I don't know. And

1:04:56

then a orange orbs shot

1:04:58

down my like hallway, passed my door

1:05:01

and I was like the back of my house and I was like,

1:05:03

I like my cat ran after it. And I was

1:05:05

like, well, fuck, I

1:05:08

don't know that well,

1:05:11

but since then, like I've been ghost free,

1:05:13

so I mean, ghosts

1:05:16

are real, man, like a real

1:05:20

And I was like, are you going to call

1:05:22

my friend Michelle? Well,

1:05:25

now we're going to call you. Yeah,

1:05:27

I'm gonna call Jess.

1:05:31

What experience. I was

1:05:34

very harrowed, and I was like, I've never had

1:05:36

that before where I've woken up and like been so

1:05:38

convinced something was happening. It's

1:05:41

not happening. Oh that's scary, that's

1:05:43

spooky as fun. He sounds like or the

1:05:45

ghost whoever it was sounds like it was

1:05:47

like a like if I was sitting over

1:05:49

you like that. I just imagine all those paintings

1:05:52

with like suck you by or Sucy Busses or whatever.

1:05:54

I've the edge of the bed, that's yeah.

1:05:57

And this was somebody who like felt like they were like

1:06:00

had like slammed into my chest like they're

1:06:02

holding me down, and I'm like, and my

1:06:04

friend Michelle was for saying, like, you know, ghosts

1:06:06

could be doing that, like spirits could be doing that to

1:06:08

get your attention, and I was like,

1:06:11

I don't have a good feeling about this, Like that's

1:06:14

not the way to get my attention. I'm very glad

1:06:16

that you are ghost free since that incident.

1:06:19

That is alarming at least at

1:06:22

least yeah, at least,

1:06:25

at least it wasn't somebody who would like crawled

1:06:27

in through my window. Though. Yeah, that's

1:06:29

very true, that is. I mean, yeah,

1:06:32

at least that's at

1:06:34

least that's not the case. But there's also like

1:06:37

this unexplained I'm I like supernatural

1:06:39

ship, you know, but it's also unexplainable.

1:06:42

You know, it's who knows what that was

1:06:45

and who knows why it was? The Harry you know, yeah,

1:06:48

maybe just wanted to be like, oh may

1:06:51

that or maybe it's like

1:06:54

maybe it was like, hey, you're

1:06:56

snoring, and I don't like, I don't know, you

1:06:58

know, like it was like being a

1:07:00

real edge lord. Yeah, because you're

1:07:03

snoring,

1:07:05

try you out cut

1:07:08

off your breath like, um,

1:07:11

Jess, thank you so much for being

1:07:14

on the show and sharing your life with us.

1:07:17

We didn't even get into I want to talk about fat

1:07:19

Tuesday. I want to talk about all the

1:07:21

stuff you're into. But we'll talk about it

1:07:23

next time because you're gonna get back, all

1:07:25

right, Well, for sure come back, and that would be lovely.

1:07:27

I had time chat with you, Yeah,

1:07:30

I would love that. Um But until

1:07:33

then, I'm kind of excited to see

1:07:35

what else happens to you, ghost wise until

1:07:37

we meet again. Until

1:07:42

that happens, where can the lovely folks

1:07:44

listening find you? Um?

1:07:47

So, the best place to find me is on

1:07:49

Instagram. I used to have Twitter, I

1:07:51

no longer do. I

1:07:53

do not excel on that

1:07:56

platform, so I got rid of my Twitter.

1:07:58

But yeah, people can find me on Instagram. I'm

1:08:00

at Underscore, rad Underscore,

1:08:03

Babe Underscore or Jeff Merwin.

1:08:05

If you search my name, you'll you'll find me. And

1:08:08

right now I'm posting a lot of cat photos

1:08:11

because I just adopted a new kitten, but usually

1:08:13

that's how I post a lot of art stuff. Nice.

1:08:17

I am thinking very hard about

1:08:19

adopting an adult cat right now, so

1:08:22

I'm gonna go stalk your

1:08:24

your page. Anyways. This

1:08:27

is ethnically ambiguous, y'all. It's ethnically

1:08:29

am a m B on Twitter, ethnically am

1:08:31

big a m B I G on Instagram.

1:08:33

This is Sharine shiro hero on Instagram

1:08:36

and shiro hero six six six on Twitter,

1:08:39

and I'm at Anahostian there, and

1:08:42

yeah, check out Jess. They're

1:08:44

up to a bunch of amazing things.

1:08:47

And stay ghost free. Yeah

1:08:49

that's the most important parts. Stay goes free,

1:08:52

because y'all, North America is one big

1:08:55

like this

1:08:58

is all burial ground that the

1:09:00

white man has. It's just I

1:09:02

don't even want to get into that.

1:09:05

Wow, all right. Ethnically

1:09:23

Ambiguous is a production of I Heart Radio.

1:09:25

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1:09:27

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1:09:30

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