Please join us for...

UGAT: The Fundraiser
a night of spoken word, music and song

The UGAT Conference* is coming up! Preparations are gathering speed and we are very, very excited to see you all between May 22&24 in Cote-des-Neiges.

Ahead of the conference, Kabataang Montreal has cooked up a an evening of spoken word, music and song. In true KM form, expect some soul, harmony and a whole lot of strong talents! All proceeds from the event will go to financing conference costs. Come for beats, rhymes, thoughts, beer, food... and to support!

UGAT: The Fundraiser
Saturday, May 9th @ 8pm
MUCS, 2000 Northcliffe # 218 - NDG
Vendome Metro

Door is 5-10$ sliding scale


* The conference “UGAT: Sharing our Pinoyville Stories, Understanding our Roots” will gather Filipino Youth of Montreal to share their stories and understand one another in their context of migration and settlement in Canada. From the understanding of our roots of migration and the history of the Philippines, conference participants will then explore and discuss the settlement and integration of Filipinos in Canada, and specifically in Montreal. Panel and workshop topics will include racism, identity, gender, language and education. Another goal of the conference is to train youth to engage in discussion on policies affecting the Filipino community in Montreal. For more information or to register, email kabataangmontreal@gmail.com.

"Kuttin it Collectively"

Bitch Magazine, in the Love It / Shove It section of its spring 2009 issue, featured an interview with DJ Kuttin Kandi. I swear, I live off finds like these.

DJ Kuttin Kandi is a battler. A fiercely skilled turntablist, she's one of the first women to bust through the testosterone-laced barriers blocking DJ booths across the land. She's been cutting and spinning since the 1990's, along the way winning a number of prestigious competitions and leaving less skilled DJs - both males and females - in her wake. [...] She's a fighter for social justice as well: on top of her renowned hip hop and spoken word artistry, Kandi is a longtime community and youth organiser. Born as Candice Custodio and raised in NYC, she recently relocated to San Diego. These days much of her activism is carried out on the University of California - San Diego campus, where she works with students at the Women's Centre and helps direct and produce the play Export Quality: Monologues Based on True Stories of Mail Order Brides from the Philippines

You've mentioned not really coming into your Filipina identity until your early 20s.

Hip hop is what started me on my path to political awareness, and connected me with some great social change organisers. But yeah, I was born and raised in NYC, and because of my parents' assimilation to this country, I hadn't heard anything about U.S. Filipina culture, issues of colonization, or the trafficking of women in the Philippines until 2000, when the Gabriela Network [ a Philippine-U.S. women's solidarity organisation] asked me to DJ at their Los Angeles conference. I said, "Sure, but what's Gabriela Network?"

I live, live, live for finds like these. Outreaching in cegeps and high schools recently, I've been doing some weird positive-profiling and getting some well interesting responses from youth - some of whom are maybe reading this, I hope! From looks of dismay (Yeah, you called it I'm Pinoy - ugh) to shy glances (Yes, is that ok?) the common links between many people I approach seems the exact same as what would link me to all of you: I'm sick of being asked! lol

But beside that, I've been getting what I would serve everyone else who was bold enough to ask: "Yes, I'm Filipino but I'm not that involved. So don't ask anything, I've got no more info." "I don't know what Pinoy means." "I'm also other things." "Don't ask me about anything typically Filipino, I'm sick of explaining Pansit." You're Pinoy too... are you asking me to give you money / go to church more?

Nah, none of the above. What took me a while to figure out and what I'm inviting you to do when I'm handing a flyer is really, really simple: to make the link between everything you are and the community you were born out of. It took me a really really long time to realize that what I had, even though it had nothing to do with sashes, crosses and tinikling sticks, could be of some use to the Montreal Pinoy community.

The fact that we're having a hellah good time doing it all helps a little, too. It's taken a few decades, but I've finally become able to look back at the face posing the question "Are you Filipina" with a bit of victorious defiance and give them my own answer to whatever follow up question they may bring my way, and wear my Pinoyness with pride.

On the theme of beat and hip hop, we're having a fundraiser!

It's going to be a spoken word / performance night showcasing some of CDN / NDG's talents. Come for beats, thought, eats, and beer - and come support a good cause as all the proceeds will be going to conference costs.

Place: MUCS (Montreal Urban Community Sustainment)
2000 Northcliffe #218, Metro Vendome
May 9th, @ 8pm
door is 5-10$ sliding scale

McGill Library Exhibit

Thanks to the McGill University Filipino-Asian Students Association (MUFASA), we were able to put up a display in the McLennan-Redpath library.

The display will trace Filipino history, migration to Canada, etc, along with some gorgeous art pieces and photos of our organizations.

Check it out!

April 19-25
pathway between the McGill McLennan and Redpath libraries

Meet the Organizers: Rob and Steph

Registration now open!

Kabataang Montreal, in partnership with the Kapit Bisig Centre member organizations, is pleased to announce UGAT: Sharing our Pinoyville Stories, Understanding our Roots, an intercollegiate and community conference for Filipino youth, taking place May 22-24, 2009, at the Ampitheatre of the Institute of Community and Family Psychiatry, 4300 Cote-Ste-Catherine.

Kabataang Montreal (KM, “Filipino Youth of Montreal”) was formed in 2000 due to the need to address many of the social problems facing the youth, particularly those living in the Cote-des-Neiges area. Today, KM is comprised of a dynamic group of Filipino youth and students who share the desire to build a strong and united Filipino community. KM aims to empower Filipino youth and deepen their understanding of their social, economic and political situation in Canada.

The conference, “UGAT: Sharing our Pinoyville Stories, Understanding our Roots”, follows the Kabataang Montreal Youth Consultation held in 2005 where over 100 youth gathered to discuss their migration stories and explore the settlement and integration of Filipinos in Quebec. Issues such as family separation and reunification, educational barriers, and systemic racism came to the forefront, and there was a general consensus to continue exploring these fields and come together to revisit these issues in a second local conference. We are looking forward to gathering both intercollegiate and community youth to explore these and other issues that have since come up as the Filipino community continues to evolve in Quebec.

This youth conference and consultation is part of our ongoing project to establish full integration, settlement and participation of Filipinos in a multicultural, multi-ethnic Canada. Because we recognize that the issues of Filipino youth in Canada continue to be of major concern to the community, this project includes a component on Filipino Canadian youth. It is our hope that UGAT: Sharing our Pinoyville Stories, Understanding our Roots will encourage further understanding of the issues affecting Filipino Canadian youth, and the particularities of their situation in Quebec thereby asserting their importance in the community's future.

Registration is now open and we are inviting you to join and participate in this two-and-a-half day conference. There will be community-based speakers, resource persons on and workshops and skills development in youth organizing. Topics will touch on major areas of concern to Filipino youth and will be geared towards these three goals of the conference:

- Sharing our migration stories: First, we would like to share our stories and experiences living as Filipinos in Montreal and, in doing so, come to a mutual understanding of our or our parents’ history of migration to Canada.

- Discussing our present realities: Second, we will explore the realities of settlement and integration of Filipino youth in Montreal, and discuss issues such as systemic racism, gender oppression, educational barriers and challenges of migration that the youth face today.

- Planning our future actions: Finally, we will participate in important policy engagement exercises to empower ourselves and strengthen our position here in Canada.

Panel speakers and resource persons include those who have done research and organizing work within the Filipino Canadian community. The three keynote speeches will be delivered by Cecilia Diocson, the Executive Director of the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada; Roderick Carreon, co-founder of Kabataang Montreal and Chairperson of SIKLAB-National; and Carlo Sayo, the National Chairperson of Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada/Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance.

Kabataang Montreal looks forward to your participation at this important gathering. Attached is the registration form. Please confirm your attendance by May 9, 2009. We look forward to hearing from you.

Registration Fee:
Youth and Students: Minimum $20 donation for 2 days (includes conference materials and meals)
Observers: Minimum $40 donation for 2 days (includes conference materials and meals)

Venue Details:
Amphitheatre
Institute of Community and Family Psychiatry
(Jewish General Hospital)
4333 Cote-Ste-Catherine

For more information, please feel free to contact us by email or phone:
Email: kabataangmontreal@gmail.com
Josie Caro: 514-962-9615
Julie Nieto: 514-659-5857
Neil Castro: 514-690-6345

Please email Kabataangmontreal@gmail.com to request a registration form!

Movie Screening: 'When Strangers Reunite"

The Filipino Solidarity Collective, a QPIRG McGill working group, along with the Philippine Women Centre of Quebec and Kabataang Montreal, will be showing "When Strangers Reunite", a video documentary by Florchita Bautista and Marie Boti, highlighting the challenges of family separation and reunification brought on by Canadian immigration policies. A discussion, including some people who appeared in the film, will follow the film showing.

April 7, 2009
McGill University
Leacock 232
6:15 p.m.

Meet the Organizers: Josie

Food for thought: Forced Migration

"Think about this: Why would someone leave their country?"

That's how Roderick Carreon started off our workshop on the History of Filipino Youth organizing in Montreal.

Placing ourselves in the context of our own migration can be a challenging activity, but one that is essential to understanding the experiences of our fellow kababayans. And, speaking as a Canadian-born "second generation" Filipino youth, it is a question with which we are, sadly, rarely presented in our mainstream Canadian education. Instead, we are asked, "Where do your parents come from? What cultures and values (read: food, dances and religion) did they bring with them?"

The thought that they might have left for a reason, that there might have been political upheaval, back-breaking comprador landlords, blinding poverty, a general sense of desperation coupled with the mentality that the land of our colonizers would readily welcome us . . .

"How many Canadians do you know who travel to the Philippines to visit the white-sand beaches of Boracay?"

"How many Filipinos do you know who come to Canada on ski-vacations?"

Damn.

The fact is the Philippines is a land that can sustain its people several times over if only it owned its own haciendas, cultivated its own crops, controlled its own resources. The fact is the Philippines is a land of rich soil, its mountains bursting with precious metals, its waters swimming with sea life, its people some of the most talented in the world.

And yet its people are starving. They are scrambling for the kind of education that will get them out and overseas sending money home to their parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews, sons and daughters. Nursing, teaching, accounting, computer engineering. . . anything to get that higher (English) education that would eventually buy them a plane ticket to Saudi, Hong Kong, the U.S. or Canada.

"Why did your parents leave?"

"And what would it have been like if they had left you behind?"

"And what would it have been like for you to come to Canada/Quebec/Montreal 5 to 8 years later?"

The reality of the Filipino youth arriving in Canada today is that they are living forced separation under conditions of forced migration as their parents make that "choice" between survival or slums. And the further reality is that their arrival in Canada is so often a reunion of strangers trying to figure out what it means to be a family, all parties questioning why they left their homes, and all of them knowing they had no other option.

And in a related reality are the Filipino youth labelled "Canadian" and working through the vast expanse that is the mental distance between their own and their parents' transnational identities.

Think about it. No - do more than think about it: Investigate. Ask your parents why they left. And get back to me at the conference :)

UGAT: Sharing our Pinoyville Stories, Understanding Our Roots.
May 22-24, 2009
4333 Cote-Ste-Catherine