Statement
Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance

Prevent another tragedy! Genuine support and services for Filipino youth now! Heighten our unity against systemic racism!

May 18, 2006

In November 2003, 17 year-old Mao Jomar Lanot was beaten outside of Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School by a group of teens. Nearly three years after his death, we as an organization of Filipino youth and students, still question whether things have improved since Mao Jomar’s death. Have our institutions in Canadian society, like the Vancouver School Board, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and the Vancouver Police Department, learned anything from this tragedy? Do they have a better understanding of systemic racism and its horrible impacts on marginalized communities like ours? Have they looked deeper into the root causes of the violence happening to our youth?

For us in the Filipino community, we believe that learning from the tragic death of Mao Jomar Lanot is of outmost importance especially in our struggle against systemic racism and towards our genuine equality and development in Canadian society.

The tragic death of Mao Jomar Lanot is a concrete example of systemic racism in Canadian institutions such as the Vancouver School Board which puts up barriers to the genuine equality and development of Filipino and other youth of colour. Instead of recognizing the barriers and struggles that youth of colour face which causes alienation within the education system, institutions point fingers at youth caught up in conflict.

One of these barriers is the Vancouver School Board and other institutions’ severe lack of understanding about the realities of Filipino and youth of colour. Without this basic understanding of the realities, struggles, and issues they face day-to-day, our school system will continue to play a role in our communities’ alienation and segregation in Canadian society. Without this basic understanding, our school system will continue to neglect the needs of Filipino and youth of colour. Without this basic understanding, Filipino and youth of colour will continue to be alienated and pushed to the edges of our school system and society.

For Filipino youth in particular, Vancouver schools have shown their severe lack of knowledge about our daily realities and struggles. The majority of Filipino students in Vancouver school are sons and daughters of former live-in domestic workers. Forced from the Philippines because of poverty and lack of opportunity, their mothers came to Canada, many leaving their children behind, to come to Canada to work as live-in domestic workers under Canada Immigration’s temporary foreign workers’ program – the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP). The LCP stipulates that women cannot bring their children with them. Therefore, Filipino youth experience long years of family separation, for some, they are even separated from their families for more than 8 years. When they are finally reunited in Canada, they are reunited as strangers while at the same time our youth must contend with adapting to a new life, culture and society.

This traumatic experience of separation, migration, and family re-unification takes a toll on our youth.

Adding to their trauma is the lack of genuine support, programs, services and understanding in Vancouver schools that are sensitive and appropriate to the experiences of Filipino youth.

However, when we assert ourselves and our youth’s right to education, we are met with musings of the wonders of multiculturalism and the promise that the idea will provide us our equality. Multiculturalism has been a tool of Canada to blind us of the real issues of the marginalized communities of colour. It has alienated people of colour as Canada proclaims that under the so-called multicultural society, ethnic groups live peacefully and equally, while at the same time, Canadian institutions give little to no chances to them.

The case of Mao Jomar Lanot and the systemic racism that Filipino youth face are often addressed as separate, individual cases by institutions such as the Vancouver School Board. Yet these are not isolated incidents. Racism is pervasive in Vancouver schools and there is a crucial need to eliminate systemic racism.

It is therefore not surprising that Filipino youth have the 2nd highest drop out rate from Vancouver high schools and that Filipino youth have one of the lowest grade point averages compared to other youth.

Our group, Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada / the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance, maintains open to continue our dialogue with the Vancouver School Board to make them understand and recognize grassroots-based anti-racism analysis, and listen to the demands of marginalized community like ours for the genuine welfare and empowerment of our community. In the past, we offered grassroots-based anti-racism education, but faced reluctance from the Vancouver School Board.

We will not let Jomar's death be forgotten.   As a community we will come together to continue to educate and organize ourselves and we will continue to reach out to other marginalized communities, but we also demand that Canadian institutions be accountable for the destructive impacts of systemic racism in their words, actions, policies and practices.   In this so-called multicultural and diverse society, it is our right as a community to be treated with respect and dignity.   We deserve no less and we will continue to struggle for our community's future - for its genuine development and equality in Canadian society.

Justice For Jomar!

Provide genuine programs and services for Filipino youth in Vancouver schools!

End systemic racism in Vancouver schools!

Heighten our unity against systemic racism!