What My Mom's Reaction To Jagmeet Singh Taught Me About My Own Privilege

As we do every year, I went to my parents’ home to celebrate Thanksgiving Day (better known as Indigenous People’s Day) with my family.

As dinner wrapped up and everyone sat with full stomachs and heavy eyelids in front of the television, I was in the kitchen with my mom. She was there, washing dishes and chatting idly as I packed up leftovers for baon the next day, an essential of every Filipino gathering.

I love conversations with my mom because she always flits from one topic of conversation to the next, letting out a stream of thoughts that likely stay bottled up until the next time we all come home to visit.

One minute we were talking about the turkey, and the next we were talking about the upcoming federal election in Canada.

“You know, Jagmeet Singh - he seems like a very nice man,” she says. “But people are telling him he should cut his beard and remove his turban so he can look more Canadian.”

She places a freshly washed plate into the drying rack, despite the empty dishwasher beside her.

My parents and I rarely see eye to eye when it comes to politics, so I felt my shoulders tense, already anticipating what she was going to say.

“And what do you think about that, mom?” I ask as nicely as possible, not trying to give myself away just yet.

“Well…” she says, pausing to reflect on the charismatic NDP leader who emerged as the first-ever visible minority leader of a federal political party, with his brown skin, turban, and long beard standing out amongst the other all-white candidates.

“You know… he is supposed to represent all Canadians. He doesn’t really do that now.”

I think about the racist white man who came up to Jagmeet Singh while he was at the Atwater Market in Montreal. How the man whispered into his ear that Mr. Singh should cut off his turban so he could look “more Canadian.”

Jagmeet Singh, with his signature grace and calm which he has no other option but to show, responded simply that he thinks Canadians look like all sorts of people and that’s '“the beauty of Canada.”

I take a breath before I speak.

I acknowledge that I don’t have a deep well of patience when it comes to family and politics. I can talk easily about culture and diversity and racism with strangers (in fact, it’s my job), but I lack the same empathy when it comes to people I’m close with, especially my parents. This is something I’m trying to work on.

I respond to my mom along the same veins as Jagmeet Singh did to that man in Montreal. I tell my mom that I think he does represent all Canadians, that we all look very different, and that in many ways Jagmeet Singh represents Canada better than someone like Andrew Scheer ever will.

Our conversation was light and polite, and I’m sure my mom had already moved on to her next thought before I even reached the end of my sentence, but I couldn’t help replaying our interaction in my head.

Jérôme and I discussed it on the drive home along the 404, our baon containers of leftover turkey sitting contently next to my dad’s pancit and my Tita’s lumpia, FIlipino staples I had grown up with.

Is my mother racist? I wondered aloud. In my heart, I knew it wasn’t true. But what could explain why she thought like this? 

“Well, to her,” Jérôme pondered, “I think it’s about what her definition of Canadian is. She still feels like a guest here who has been invited by the ‘real Canadians’, which to her means white people.” 

This was completely true. Although we had immigrated to Canada in 1993, had our Canadian citizenship, and my two brothers were both born and raised in Toronto, my parents still referred to ourselves as Filipinos in Canada. They only ever reserved the esteemed designation of 'Canadian’ for white people, even when those white people were also immigrants themselves.

In that moment, we drove past a lamp light, the dim beam illuminating my reflection in the rear view mirror, and also laying bear my privilege.

I realized how utterly blind I was to the privilege afforded to me. I had grown up here in Canada. We immigrated when I was just three years old. To me, Canada was home. I was Canadian. We were Canadian. My version of Canada is growing up in the neighbourhood of Scarborough, where my friends were kids of various backgrounds and cultures, where the majority of us were born outside of the country. My version of Canada was also the mostly white suburb of Markham where we moved when I was in Grade 7. I felt out of place for sure, but I never lost my conviction that this was my home.

Yet for my parents, I realized how different our worlds and outlooks were. 

As immigrants, my parents would never feel at home and at ease the same way my siblings and I do. To them, they will always be guests here - very welcomed and happy guests, but visitors nonetheless. And as a visitor, it was your responsibility to be respectful and play by the rules. The rules meant not complaining, not rocking the boat, and definitely not showing up as a Sikh man in a turban and beard when you’re campaigning to be the next ‘Canadian’ Prime Minister. 

I realized in that moment that my mom’s outlook wasn’t motivated by racism, but rather by the rules she’s agreed to play by - rules which dictated how far she and people like her could go in this society. These were rules I was aware existed, but which I never felt bound to follow.

Maclean’s published an article called, Jagmeet Singh’s secret weapon: The way he talks. It spoke of his superpower to be able to speak both formally and at a high-level, and also slip into casual, everyday language. The linguistics term is ‘code-switching’. The article positioned this as Jagmeet Singh having superman capabilities, but to any immigrant kid, this is just called life.

While my parents scraped and saved and struggled to learn a new language and place a stake in the ground of this new and strange land, my siblings and I slipped in and expanded, learning how to mold ourselves into the nooks and crannies of white and non-white spaces like water through bedrock. To me, Canadian was me - was us. I desperately wanted a government that made me feel seen and heard and represented - that represents the kind of Canada I know. 

But to my parents and I, I realize now, that Canada is not the same. 

That was my privilege showing. 

That was my parents’ internalized racism showing. 

I realize now that rather than forcing my definition of Canadianness onto my mom - a definition she could never identify with - I should have instead done what I had learned to do. To code switch and use language that resonated with my parents.

I should have said instead that Jagmeet Singh worked hard and struggled - just like they did. 

That Jagmeet Singh built his career and started his own business - just like I did.

That Jagmeet Singh is involved in his community and wants to give back to his country - just like I do.

That he’s proud of his heritage AND of being Canadian - just like I am.

That he doesn’t look like the ‘typical’ Canadian - but neither do I. 

My mom, even years later from the comfort of her kitchen, continues to teach me about life.