“It is our turn to show our support for the Filipino community”: Whitehorse gathers in wake of Vancouver tragedy

Less than a week after a SUV drove into a crowd at a Filipino festival in Vancouver and killed 11, people in Whitehorse gathered to support their Filipino neighbours Yukoners gathered in downtown Whitehorse on the evening of May 2 to support the city’s Filipino community in the wake of the tragedy that took place at the Lapu-Lapu Day Festival in Vancouver on April 26. The annual festival commemorates indigenous Filipino chieftain Datu Lapu-Lapu, who defeated colonial Spanish forces in the 16th century.  At the celebration in Vancouver, a SUV drove into a crowd of people at the festival near 41st Avenue and Fraser Street in Vancouver. Eleven people were killed and many were injured. The alleged driver of the vehicle, Kai-Ji Adam Lo, 30, has been charged with eight counts of second-degree murder. He was arrested on scene. In Whitehorse, where the Filipino community is 2,000 strong per Statistics Canada, around one hundred people gathered around the Healing Totem on Front Street. Under dark, cloudy skies and blustery winds, people connected with friends and acquaintances along the banks of the Yukon River. Children, dressed in bright-coloured coats, shrieked as they played with others, or babbled in the arms of their parents. The activity was true to the name of the gathering that night: I belong to community. Organizer Lianne Charlie, part of mutual aid group Community Cache and a faculty member with the Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning, spoke to the News over the phone the day before the event. She said the name of the gathering was initially We Belong to Community, but was changed to be more inclusive. “James, very much, spoke about all being part of families. We all have, like, children and grandparents and relatives, and we all have community, yeah, so it was important to sort of set that as our tone,” said Charlie, referring to James Antopina, secretary of the Canadian Filipino Association of the Yukon. Representatives from the city’s Sikh, Taiwanese, Japanese, and Muslim communities spoke words of support for their Filipino neighbours around the Healing Totem. Muhammad Javed of the Muslim Society of the Yukon, said the Yukon Filipino community has shown up for others time and time again. “When someone in our community is dealing with with a tragedy, we come together as one,” he said, his daughter Saba Javed standing by his side. “Now it is our turn. It is our turn to show our support for the Filipino community.” Chief Sean Smith of Kwanlin Dün First Nation and Ta’an Kwäch’än activist Christine Genier also spoke at the top of the gathering. “You are our relations, and it is our job to take care of each other,” said Genier. Chief Smith said he was shocked and saddened to hear about the tragedy in Vancouver. He spoke about the similarities between the First Nations of the Yukon and Filipino communities, referencing shared histories of colonization. The Philippines was colonized by the Spanish starting in the 16th century. Lapu-Lapu Day honours Filipino chief Datu Lapu-Lapu, who is “a powerful force that helped shape the Filipino identity in the face of colonization,” according to Charlie. Smith said gathering is an important ceremony. “We’ve had this ceremony for thousands of years. It’s where we come together, where we hold each other, and where we connect in an important way,” he said. “We are bringing things back together again, as we heal, as we decolonize, as we move forward, as we walk and support each other as we take steps moving forward.” Organizer Lianne Charlie told the News she approached the Canadian Filipino Association of the Yukon in the wake of the tragedy and was put in touch with Antopina, the association’s secretary and one of its board members. “I was reaching out as a member of the Indigenous community, and wanting to extend care in the direction of his own community,” said Charlie, who is Northern Tutchone. “And then through conversation, just between the two of us, we started to learn how much our communities are connected through like history of colonization and sort of like a number of shared cultural values around the importance of family and elders and community and spending time together,” she said. “So it seemed that it made sense that we set up a gathering that allowed us to do that all together.” Charlie said there is hope that this is the start of a relationship of sharing between the Yukon First Nations communities and the Filipino community in the city. “We have ideas about just like opportunities to share across our communities, about, I think, hopes, dreams, histories, and get a better sense of like, yeah, who we are, who our families are, what our hopes are here, together,” said Charlie. She said she has been invited to one of the association’s board meetings to discuss possibilities for community education. At the end of the gathering, when all other speakers had spoke in support of the Filipino community, Antopina took to the mic to respond. As he introduced himself, an attendee broke from the front row and hugged him in front of those gathered. As the hugger returned to the audience, Antopina thanked him and then the crowd. At the end of his speech, Antopina encouraged all the Filipinos in the crowd to come to the front and join him. Around twenty people gathered around Antopina. Flanked by his community members, Antopina shared three Tagalog words: bayanihan, a Filipino cultural value emphasizing community spirit, unity and co-operation; bayan, meaning community and bayani, meaning hero. “So hero means the strength and bravery are admired, yes, but not required. What matters is a profound love for one’s bayan, the community and the nation, and this love is the true mark of a bayani,” said Antopina. “So with your love coming here together for us, you are all called bayani.” Contact Talar Stockton at talar.stockton@yukon-news.com