yamila

I am traditionally from Quisqueya, which is the Dominican Republic and Haiti, as we know it today. I was born and raised there. I came to Victoria in 2013, in September, for university. My experience was a bit different. I actually came thanks to a scholarship, so from the beginning, I feel I was so focused on meeting the requirements to maintain a scholarship and go to school, that I could never dedicate much time to whatever was externally going on, or if anything weird happened, or if anything made me feel uncomfortable. It was just like, “No, I cannot think about that, I am just going to keep working.” To be honest, my experience here has been really, really beautiful. It has been lonely at times, especially when I experienced the culture shock, and I didn’t realize that…Well, I guess I came with a Canadian dream, and thought, “That will be the best country for me, to bring my family, and to immigrate, and to have a family, and I’m going to have so many opportunities.” Yes, I have had many opportunities, but the things like the unconscious bias that people have or the historical and systemic racism, were things that I wasn’t prepared for. And so, the reason things worked out really well is that I naturally gravitated towards a community that welcomed me, and I found this first with International Student Services and what we called the Global Community, so it’s a lot of people from around the world who came to UVIC, and then through the First Peoples House where I was also welcomed. So, I really rooted myself, and grounded myself in community because it felt good, and it was what I needed. My experience was good overall, and then there were several parts, like when it came to dating, after a while I just stopped dating because I just never thought I would find a partner here, especially with the cultural differences. And then, there was a time, where because of external reasons, I was travelling and doing co-op, but in between that I got deported. And then, I got sent back to Toronto and then back to Dominican Republic, and after that it was really bad. And then again, I just relied on my community and that made me feel better. That is kind of a mumbo-jumbo of my whole experience. It has been good and bad. Overall, I think it has been really positive and good for me, with the small things that just made it awkward. But, I don’t tend to focus on the small things that happened, but more in what is good. My connection first began through the university, and through the First Peoples House, and it was really cool because I would find so many similarities in our cultures, and then it basically led me to researching more about my own culture and my own history and background, which led me to studying more my Indigenous background, and led me to find a group of really supportive Indigenous women and a beautiful Indigenous community that has supported me in reclaiming my Indigeniety, and my power, my sovereignty. A lot of the impact of colonialism actually comes from back home, where I brought with me from back home a set of beliefs. I will give you the example of I used to straighten my hair, and I remember always wanting to look like someone else, who happened to be white, and clear eyes and straight hair, and so when I was younger I would put myself through intense diets, and trying to be skinny, and exercising, and wanting to bleach my hair to make it look blonde. So, just unconsciously, actually aiming to be white. And that is because when colonialism happened, they’re not there, but it is still there. The people who have the power, the people who have the money, they all happen to be European descent or happen to be white, using control of the media. So, then coming here, and I thought I was running away from it. It can feel very oppressive, also as a woman when we have a society that is very rooted in Catholicism, and it can be lived and interpreted in different ways. There are some communities back home that are more rooted in religion, so there are specific rules that men and women have to follow, but if you move away from that community, maybe it’s more African descent practices, and even their religion, it is just not Catholicism, it is Spiritism or Voodoo. So, the first thing was my self-image, because I brought those beliefs that white was better with me. And I came here and everybody, of course, pretty much like 90%, was just white, and then I realized that I had a sense of inferiority, and really doubting  myself. This is something I think with immigrants, we forget and we devalue our lived experiences in the past, because Canada does not recognize those experiences as valuable. If you have a degree, most likely that degree won’t qualify here. So, just think about that, psychologically what does that make you feel about yourself? So, my self worth was very rooted in the way the university saw me, and the way employers saw me. For instance, when I applied for my first job, I applied to over 60 jobs, I had a schedule every morning of applying for jobs. In my first interview, one of the questions was, “Are you Canadian?” And of course, the answer was no. I didn’t think that was a problem at first, but then I found out that depending on the funding, yes, it can be a problem. The other thing was whether you self-identify as Indigenous or not. Well are you Indigenous to Canada? If you are not Indigenous to Canada, then you are not Indigenous. Here, something that I wasn’t expecting was being called Indian. I know why they call people Indian, and why people would say that, based on the history of colonization, but that was something that also happened at home, because when they arrived to my island they thought they had arrived in India. So, then I come here, and they are like, “Are you Indian?” And I’m like, “What?!” So, how has it impacted me? I know I gave you different answers, but I think it was a lot of my self worth. It was way lower at first, and I really had to do a lot of unlearning and dismantling of where my beliefs were coming from, and why did I believe that, and how did that come to be? Was it because my mom taught me? Was it because I saw it in the media? Was it my history book? Also, relying more in my spiritual and wholeness, and in knowledge I know I inherently carry. I came with this belief that Canada is better because of all of the things I had been taught, but upon coming I realized that the society was so broken, and people were so broken because of their lack of connection and that lack of their roots. Not everybody, I mean of course you have communities that are very rooted, and you have Indigenous communities, but then I came and I saw people who were so individualistic they didn’t even have connections to their families, and that was painful to see, and I cannot be that way, I cannot aim to be that way. If that is what is better, then I don’t want what is better. I want all of these other things, which resulted in the community. I like the benefits of this society in terms of having clean water, the access to education, and the safety, which I wouldn’t be able to access back home. Our society, the government for example is so corrupted, that the people themselves are not benefiting from the things that we can offer. To give you an example, we have protected areas. Natural areas that nobody should be using, but the government is using those areas for growing crops that they export out of the country; they don’t even come to us. So, you have farmers that cannot compete with those big corporations. We have Canadian mining companies mining in our protected areas because the government has a deal with them. But, the money doesn’t go the people, it goes to the government. If you think of Latin American countries, and all of the problems that are happening, especially after colonization, there was usually some form of revolution, which then left the country in a mess. Sometimes when I think about back home, here I have the privilege of even having this conversation with you, whereas back home people are grinding, people are struggling to get the money so they can feed their families. Unless they’re one the of wealthy few. So, there is a big socio-economic divide between who has the power. I will go back when I have more money, because I know I will be able to buy a piece of land in the mountains, not near the city, and I want to raise my kids in that culture, but in terms of developing my career and accessing more knowledge or resources, I want to do this here. And even giving birth to my kids, there is a lot of power to having a Canadian passport, and even if we end up moving to Dominican Republic, you are lucky to have that passport because it is going to let you travel.

I’m an entrepreneur and I am working on several projects. One of them is in the area of education, STEM education, so, I focus on delivering life-changing experiential learning opportunities for youth. I am focusing more on girls programming and engaging girls in STEM, so they know their opportunities. I’m partnering and working with a few Indigenous communities, and doing programming with them. That is one of my projects. The other one is that I actually started my business as a financial advisor, so my goal really is to break those barriers and access to financial literacy and education, especially when it comes to women, people of colour, youth, because knowledge is power if we use it. Seeing how this isn’t a structure here, it is just the wealthy few that have access to knowledge, even simple things that everybody could be doing to be more financially secure. So, I want to create a movement in that area, and I have already started. People have to know what they can do to help themselves, and help their communities. And then, the last thing that I’m working on is another business, more in the biotech area. It is a start-up, it’s called Nyoka Design Corp., and the first thing we are offering, is a biodegradable, soon to be compostable, non-toxic, plastic free glow-stick, for musical events, for parties, for parents, for safety. It’s rooted in Indigenous knowledge, so we actually put biochar in the container. Biochar is a treated component that you could add to your soil that allows for aeration, for bacteria to grow, it basically gives home to bacteria and to fungi that is then beneficial to the soil. So, thinking about how consumers work, people usually throw out their glow stick. It is a huge problem if you go back home; it is just plastic waste on the beaches. Here, we already see plastic everywhere, but if you go to the Caribbean, it’s worse. So, this is meant to replace that. So, those are my three main things that I am focusing on, and in all of them I just weave in all the issues of inclusion, and how can we be more inclusive, more welcoming, more open, and more humane. There have been difficulties because of my immigration status, but I am a hustler, I’m resourceful. I was going through the CRA website, it is like my bible now, I just read the CRA website. My difficulties have been more about accessing resources, and then again, what the government considers to qualify for certain things. With my current status in the country, I don’t qualify for a lot of loans, or grants, or courses, or support. I can’t afford to go back to university because my scholarship is done. But, on the other hand I have found a lot of people that are willing to help me, and mentor me, and guide me. I have a co-founder, who is Canadian. I haven’t been much on the frontline of this project, I’ve been more in the back, because I am focusing more on financial advising right now, and setting myself up financially so I can support the other business. So, she has been the one dealing with things. You know biotech, it is mostly male dominated, and with that there’s a lot of weird interactions that might happen, and it has mostly been her. My interactions have been being ignored, but people can ignore me, that’s fine. I’ll get my way anyway. I have found more resistance in financial advising, because I think the image that people see is, “there is a girl, who is really young, and she says she knows about money.” Or, they might have a friend investing in the stock market, and they think that is their only option for getting quick rich. With men, I have found that, I am used to it, but one of the stereotypes I have found when travelling, and sometimes here, if a man has been to the Dominican Republic, and comes here, what they see tends to be a sexualized image of the Caribbean woman, which is what they show in hotels, what they find in the streets, especially if you go as a tourist, there’s a lot of prostitutes, because that is what many tourists go for, it’s called sex tourism. So, they come here, and might meet me and they might expect the same of me. So, I have had that, especially more with white men. But, then I also got used to it, and it doesn’t shock me. If that happens, I am not surprised, because now I know, and I understand it. I also understand because that is the one story that they have heard. No one else has shared a different story, and maybe I am the one that shares that other story. I don’t know if you have heard, “The Danger of a Single Story.” It’s by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, she has a TED Talk about the danger of a single story, and that single story is one of the challenges I have faced: the single story that people have about women from the Caribbean. So, there’s that. Sometimes people will assume that I don’t know things because I look different. But, I have been living here long enough to know a few things. When I don’t know something, I ask for help. But, sometimes people treat me like I don’t know anything at all. I have had people treating me, education wise at university, like I literally don’t know anything at all because I come from an island; I come from a beach, just playing soccer in the sand. Sometimes I do better with my accent. I can actually take time to work to be like, ”I don’t have an accent.” Then, people might forget that I am from another part of the world, and they might make a comment that might be arbitrary, or that might feel kind of racist, but then they remember, and it’s like I am here.

I also have a very sad story. So, I had picked up my cousin and my brother who come up from the Dominican Republic. They volunteer during the summer. One of the things that happened last year was that for the first time, I had both of them in July and August. So, I picked up my cousin, we go straight downtown to eat at Green Cuisine, because I love that place. So, in Green Cuisine, my cousin goes to get water, and I notice someone is watching him. He is a 14 year old, very big guy. He is a normal, young kid. He is my skin colour, and he goes to get water, and this person just moves away and freaks out. And I’m just like staring at this person. The person kind of screams, “Oh fuck,” and goes away. So, I got to my cousin, and he said, “I don’t know why he did that.” And I said, “It’s OK. I don’t know.” Well, we leave the place and that person starts following us. So, we cross the street, and the guy is following us, so we stand in a corner. I had a friend with me, and we were all from the Caribbean. Of course, we all have darker skin. My cousin is darker than me. And in the corner my friend is like, “I’m going to see what he is going to do.” And I say, “We don't want to get into a fight, we can’t, we don’t have papers here.” We are just students! So, then the guy comes and actually wants to have a fight, and he starts saying things like, “why are you looking at me? Why are you getting so close to me?” He is the one walking towards us, and getting in our space. He said, “I am going to hit you! I am going to fucking hit you!” He is so angry, and I just thought, “Wow, what a great impression for my cousin, the first time he goes to Victoria.” So, I said, “Please don’t do anything, just let us be, let us be.” He says, “I’m going to call the police!” The guy starts screaming that he is going to call the police, and then my friend is angry. I am just trying to calm both of them. And then I have my younger cousin, whose first impression of coming to Canada is this guy getting super angry, and following us around downtown. That was bad, that was scary. He looks big, but my cousin was just 14 years old. Here, I guess, 14-year-old kids are more independent; they go out alone. But, back home, we stay at home until we get married. He is a mama’s boy; he is the sweetest boy ever. That was one of the things where I thought, “I am sure skin colour had something to do with it,” but I would rather blame it on him being crazy than having to admit that. I am very in denial. And then some things happen, and I am like, don’t blame it on the colour, and blame it on ignorance or something else. 

I have been paranoid lately, but I don’t want that to hold me back from doing business or growing, or doing a social thing, or whatever. But, I am afraid. Something that I thought was interesting is, you know racism is learned. And then, I had someone telling me their skin colour is white, and they were explaining to me that he was uncomfortable because he thought that people were being very sensitive. And so, because he is a white male, now all of a sudden he feels that people might be racist towards him or be angry towards him because of all the blaming him for things that other people have done. And, so, I found it very interesting. I am very open to communication. I don’t want to blame people, I just want to listen and understand. But, this is something that I find interesting because here I have the other perspective. This is someone who is white and feels threatened, and it is because their privilege is being threatened, or because their privilege is being called out. When I first came, I really wanted to be white. I wanted to blend in, I wanted to get a job, I wanted to have everything that I saw people having because it felt like the dream, and that is why I left my country, I left my whole family. But, it was after I suffered and I went through a lot of struggles that I realized I cannot even be like this because this way of being brings me so much pain, and it brings my relations so much pain. When I think about what capitalism has done to the world, or to nature, or even the unconscious ways of people being, then I started realizing the power in my culture, and the power in my traditional knowledge, and the knowledge my grandparents have passed down to my mom. So, I could skip a university class and I didn’t feel bad, because maybe they were teaching me something that was nothing at all, not even locally, relevant. There was this “click” that made sense. Everything I carry is so valuable, and just because I am in a country-well, now it is being recognized as more valuable-but, when I came I was just trying to blend in. I was always doing volunteering, and going to events, being with people and thought, “I am going to start a business,” but I want to lay low. 

So, the reason I put myself out there and the reason I am doing the work that I do, is to break that single story. People have to see, and they have to know, that the story they see on the media, they see on the news, those mainstream things, that is not the one story of women, of Indigenous women, of Black women. There is diversity in all of us, and I want other people to be empowered by these things. 

It has been a big process of me questioning where does my knowledge come from, why do I do the things I do, and what way I do them. I’m also thinking about relations that come in place with those things-is this effecting someone else, or is this thanks to someone else? If that knowledge comes from someone else, or a different place, then I honor that, whether it is by practicing gratitude to it, or in ceremony, or simply by acknowledging it. Not just the typical, I am going to cite this work, but actually taking the moment to really thank the person. Also, because I work in so many different areas, I have a start-up, but the way the start-up is being built and coming together, we are already looking at ways that we can diverge from the typical corporations that are rooted in systems that favour one group over the other. And also, it is important because the knowledge we are getting is from colonial systems. Even from universities, it is rooted in colonialism. So, we cannot bring those same teachings and beliefs to the work that we are doing. But, we need them to build something in this system, but then internally, how do we structure it and how do we treat people, and how do we make sure we are being respectful of the land, the territory that we are on, to make sure that we are decolonizing through our work, and giving opportunities to many people as well. And then, when it comes to education, I work with youth, but I am also in a position, finally, where I affect people at a higher level. For instance, I am training new staff, or I am doing training for the school district right now in Victoria, and I find this to be really important because I feel that I can bring this different lens, and look at it through more rooted, more grounded way. So, when it comes to training teachers, again it just goes back to questioning how is the school system, which has played a huge part in cultural genocide, and just as a way of colonizing and imposing this world view-but, how do we move away from a system, where we were brought into a system as well. So, it is that part of decolonizing ourselves, but if I go in, and now I have the opportunity to train teachers, how do I make sure that I am not passing those same colonial beliefs. And, the thing is, there was a change in the BC curriculum, which makes the curriculum more holistic, but even then, teachers have not been trained or raised this way, because it’s a cultural difference. So, me having the opportunity to speak and do the trainings are so important because I can bring this shift in the point of view or practice, and shifting what we focus on when we are teaching our youth. And, it goes back into, for instance, Indigenous ways of being, focusing more on our relationships, and remembering that we are humans and our students are all diverse. Not just Indigenous students, but students from all around the world, and that there is power in our unity. Because, this society can be very individualistic, and there is a lot of competition, but not a lot of praise when people work together. 

Another story: Ever since I was very young I have had really intense, painful periods. And I was dealing with this in the Dominican Republic, and usually the pain was so bad that I would get injections of painkillers. I am also allergic to common painkillers like, Advil, acetaminophen, so, I can’t really take those. I can only take those that are sold in Canada with a prescription. So, when I came here, I started doing the pill birth control, and that helped with my pain, but it affected me emotionally, so I wanted to switch to an alternative. I had a history already of fainting in the university, and being taken by campus security to the clinic, there was a record of me being in so much pain that I will pass out, or having side effects like low blood pressure, and all of these things that would happen because of my pain. And so, then I started a process of researching and getting an IUD, and talking to my doctors. This was at the clinic on campus. So, then, throughout the process, my parents couldn’t really help me because the IUD isn’t very common back home, so they were like, “We can’t really help you, ask your doctor over there.” So, of course you have different options, and I was following my doctors advice in a way, but they give you options and say, “If you want this one, or you want that one.” My case was strictly because I had so much pain, and I don’t want to deal with hormonal and emotional changes, so which one should I get? Well, it turned out that I ended up getting a newer IUD, which was smaller, and had less hormonal contents. But, during the process, my body reacted in the way that apparently less than 1% does; I went in to shock, and the pain was so big that I kind of just went into low blood pressure, fainting, intense pain. And so, I got driven home because I couldn’t walk, and I spent a whole week in intense pain. It was so bad that I went back crying the week after, because I couldn’t deal with the pain, and they said it was normal to feel that pain after an IUD. I was also bleeding so much. So, it happened that my pain just kept going, it never really left, for two months, and eventually I went back to the clinic just to check, because I thought there might be something wrong, but it seemed to be fine. I was bleeding throughout that time, which then led me to being almost anemic, but I didn’t think too much about it. The doctors didn’t mention it, but I guess if they forget. And so, basically what happened was that in December when I went home, I went to see my gynecologist, and they pointed out a bunch of things that shouldn’t have happened, beginning with the time when my IUD was inserted, because of the position of my cervix at that time of my cycle. Apparently it was inserted at a time where it would have been prone to it being painful for me. He was saying that the body of black women, they’re different, so they shouldn’t have treated just like any other body, especially when it comes to pain. The other thing was that I was still feeling discomfort, and my discomfort wasn’t actually normal. So, even though at the clinic here they did comfort me, and made me feel good, like it was a normal thing, my gynecologist back home was like, “No, that is not normal. This is not all right. You shouldn’t have been feeling so much pain, you shouldn’t have been bleeding so much.” It all resulted in me getting a surgery to remove that IUD, and getting another IUD inserted, which is a bigger one with more hormones, which has been working perfectly. But, the whole process of dealing with so much pain and so much blood loss, I was taking painkillers daily, which was super expensive as well. I was just medicated most of the time, just to deal with that pain. That is what led me really to continue my diet, and start to exercise, more holistic ways of living. I couldn’t rely on medicine, so it led me to find more traditional ways of healing myself. Food was a big one, but also through dancing, and through using energy. So, that was my scary IUD story. It was really bad, it was horrible, and it was painful for forever, for months, and I was bleeding. I just thought, “this is normal, doctors say it’s normal.” It is a bad story. 

So, when I was back home I had one surgery to check, and it was not endometriosis. And then, while I was home, I was on the waiting list, and I had been on the waiting list for months to see a gynecologist in Canada, and I think it took 6 months, but it was forever. And then, my surgery was not by a gynecologist either, so I don’t know if that had something to do with it. So, then, finally, I met the gynecologist, and she was the one who did the surgery here in Canada, the summer of last year. I do give credit to my gynecologist, because she actually did listen to me when I told her that when they inserted my body went into shock, I felt so much pain, and then all the shit went down. That is why she was decided, “I am going to treat you like this is endometriosis, because your pains have been very severe, and you have a history of fainting, bleeding, pain and everything. She did take everything into account, and that is why she decided to do the surgery, because it would be safer, and that wouldn’t happen again. Whereas, I feel like my doctors originally did not check for any of that. I eventually stopped going to that clinic, and found out about Island Sexual Health, and I started going there, and they referred me to the gynecologist.