a
cultural canadian
the
the tours are a perfect way to introduce
people to the city to give them a sense
of place to welcome them
and give them some stories to tell
and in 1924 those pasquale bros created
the uniqlo brand i didn't know this
brand was created by two new commerce
italian newcomers italian immigrants
coming to the world in the early 1900s
the tour itself as you move through it
you learn about these four cultural
communities you learn and and what you
learn about them is they faced common
challenges
and they had some common tools to deal
with those challenges which is
finding comfort amongst each other
building institutions to help serve them
and their neighbors
and
working together really to build a
better place and the story of these
cultural communities is they they helped
build the city uh they faced challenges
uh they did their best to overcome them
and uh in doing so they made this place
a better place so we have to the
story of james dear
and this guy he's an irishman
and
he immigrated to toronto from ireland
and he applied to the house of industry
five years after coming to toronto well
the reaction to these walks has been
really really positive people from
different kind of backgrounds are
joining me during the tour so i'm
getting newcomers but i'm also getting
locals from toronto which means that
that discussion about immigration is
consistently during the tours so i
encourage them to
share their thoughts share their
experiences and talk about the current
situation and where we are now and what
are the themes we should talk about i
look into the future at key stops when
stories are told you can see the lights
go on you can see people nodding their
heads and understanding you can see them
connecting with some of the historical
characters that we talk about
and we've had the response that you know
now i know some stories that i can go
home and tell my family and friends and
i think that's that's one of the best
responses you can get you want them to
have to have a sense of the city so now
that they can pass it on and tell
others i think these tours are really
interesting and i think a really good
tool to promote sort of that
understanding of different cultures in
uh certainly a city like vancouver a
population of over 40 percent asian in
vancouver uh we tend to forget sometimes
that the city is actually way more
diverse than that a neighborhood like
strathcona historically has been the
first port of call for many uh folks
that have called vancouver home
and so when you walk through a
neighborhood like this uh you may not
see it you know out front advertising
itself as you know here was the spot
where so and so lived but it is an
immigrant neighborhood and we can see
that on a walk like this and many of the
early ukrainian immigrants the only way
they could get involved in the fishing
was to crew on a japanese boat
and so you had the ukrainians crewing
for the japanese and then you had the
japanese and ukrainians jointly owning
boats and various things like that and
so you had this again
you know cross-cultural things where you
wouldn't actually expect that kind of
thing we have the obvious things that
benny's italian grocery store here we've
got a portuguese grocery further down
the block those are kind of the obvious
hits but we'll walk past the churches
had four five different congregations of
different nationalities
the school was once known as the little
league of nations 33 different languages
at the school so tour like this just
opens up that world and i think shines a
light on stuff that you know people are
kind of vaguely aware with but not
really um
very aware of it so all of a sudden like
51 52 53 the chinese population really
increases here in the neighborhood when
you add in first nations history that's
here
uh the musqueam first nation
uh which we're on traditional territory
of uh they're present on their village
site on the fraser river uh they
actually offer a tour through the
heritage foundation of mosquiam sites
you have places that have first nations
names you have roads that are on top of
trails and so not only do we have our
current history of that short period we
have a history that goes back thousands
of years and i think that combination of
a very present first nations history and
first nations people and the city of
vancouver history makes this place
totally fascinating
multiculturalism
you