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The link is undeniable: Food is at the forefront of India’s cultural landscape, and the complexity and diversity of the Indian identity is reflected in the variety of regional dishes found in Indian cuisine.
It is hard to imagine Vancouver without community gardens, but Joanne Hochu, a founding member of Strathcona Gardens, remembers when the idea was met with confusion and resistance. In 1985, Hochu and a group of community members established Vancouver’s first community garden.
For Michele Fayadas, adjusting to life and a foreign language in Vancouver are still struggles. Originally from France, she left Paris in 2004 to immigrate to Canada with her husband because of safety issues and economic concerns.
There is a growing demand for ethnic faces in the modeling industry, and Vancouver’s eclectic culture provides some of the most diverse-looking models sought after by agencies around the world.
“We have a wonderful melting pot here,” says Tricia Romani, 41, owner and agency director of Vancouver-based InspirationALL Talent and Modeling Group. “Through the generations we’re seeing a lot more mixed partnerships and marriages, and we’re getting more and more children coming up that are mixed races.”
For 21-year-old Salina Dhar-amsi, a member of the Ismaili community in Vancouver, volunteering started early. She was eight years old when she first helped out at her local mosque. It was something that anchored her, she says, and enabled her to give back to her mosque and the community at large.
Salomé Fornier Hanlon, 23, was born and raised in North Vancouver. She is the treasurer of the North Vancouver Folkfest, a festival that has been running since 1974. Folkfest aims to preserve, promote and enrich cultural identities while promoting greater cultural interaction among ethnic groups and by including as many ethno-cultural people in one place as possible.
On Sunday, June 10, “Little Italy” on Commercial Drive will spring to life in an extravaganza of food, music, dance, art, sport, and entertainment. “This is an opportunity,” Brunella Gaudio of the Italian Day Festival Society says, “to revive and remind people of the Italian heritage and culture in Vancouver, and to recognize the accomplishments of the new generation of Italian-Canadians.” [Read more…]
Soccer is my love, it’s my life,” says Christopher, one of several youth gathered in the shadow of Britannia secondary school for a weekly drop-in soccer game.
Polish-Canadians were one of the earliest settlers in North America. [Read more…]
Michelle Vinci, 25, says that since moving to Kitsilano last year she already feels connected to her new community. [Read more…]
