A Woman's Fight and a Girl's Search for Identity

Having moved to Canada at 12 years old from Pakistan, a country with its own issues of colourism and sexism (fairer skin is considered a social and economic boost for women in many South Asian countries), and living with only my brother as my guardian, I have had to develop my identity through my surroundings. That includes my study of Canada's history, realizing that today's well-known multicultural Canada is a contrast to a racist chapter in its history. Yet in its midst, a biracial Canadian woman named Viola Desmond (who would be perceived as "black" by Canadian society despite having a white mother) decided to take a stand against the discriminatory system that existed in Canada in the 1940s. Desmond's defiance against a theatre's segregation laws, her determination to achieve her career goals despite the very limited opportunities that existed for visible minority women in the 1940s, and her entrepreneurialism has most influenced my identity, making values of strong determination, compassion and speaking up amidst injustice central to my identity as a future Canadian citizen who is a visible minority.