Letter to the Editor
Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance/Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada

Letter to the Editor RE: Dalde and Vinluan Family‏

June 1 , 2008

Dear Editors:

The Filipino community mourns the loss of Charle Dalde and Faustino Vinluan, two members of the community whose families held their funerals this past weekend.  The members of the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance would like to express our condolences to the families.  We also would like to acknowledge the families’ strength in asserting their rights and struggling against systemic racism in Canada. 

Charle Dalde’s tragic death will serve as a reminder to Filipino youth to continue educating, organizing, and empowering ourselves to overcome the trend of violence and marginalization facing our community.  The Dalde family’s public statement about the RCMP’s racial profiling and harassment, and against Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s (CIC) discriminatory bureaucracy, remind us the importance of addressing policies that affect our community and advocating for policy change within institutions that enforce them.

We will remember that Faustino Vinluan, a lung cancer-stricken senior and Filipino-Canadian citizen for over 40 years, died without seeing his two brothers because CIC denied them visitor’s visas.  CIC judged that the Vinluan brothers, who live in the Philippines, would illegally extend their stay in Canada.

We believe CIC should be held accountable for racially profiling them as potential criminals.  The Vinluan family’s public protest against this injustice serves as a lesson for the Filipino community to continue challenging systemic racism in Canada.

Sincerely,
Niki Silva,
On behalf of the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance

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