While Humber College’s diverse campus provides comfort for many racialized students, some find it hard to fit in.
Racialized students represent 70 per cent of Humber’s student population and are a core component of the college, according to a 2020 Humber College report. Among them are four per cent who identify as mixed race.
For a mixed-race student, representing one of their cultures may be enough, but for others, it’s important to represent every facet of who they are.
Humber’s website identifies numerous clubs and events available for the diverse network of students, yet there are no communities for students who identify with multiple cultures.
If racialized groups on campus are allowed to connect with students who have the same experience as them, the same option should be available for mixed-race students.
First-year student Jaden Mackenzie said his father told him he would always be black in the eyes of everyone else, but Mackenzie doesn’t care what others think.
“Regardless of how other people view me, I still don’t shun either side, you know what I mean? I embrace both cultures equally,” he said.
Mackenzie said connecting to both cultures is important to him, and finding other people with the same experiences makes that connection easier.
“I could definitely connect them more with my biracial friends because they really knew what it was like being half and half,” he said.
The number of racialized people in Canada increased to 8.87 million in 2021 from 3.85 million in 2001, a 130 per cent increase, according to a report from Statistics Canada.
The population of mixed-race Canadians also increased across every racialized group, the report said.
Liv Chug, a post-grad Journalism student at Humber, comes from a mixed-race background, born to an Indian father and a white Canadian mother.
Chug said finding a place to explore their cultural identity is difficult because they aren’t sure where they would be accepted.
“I think honestly I would feel uncomfortable just because (my) experiences when relating to race or background has been my brown friends telling me that I can’t consider myself brown because I’m not,” they said.
Having a community where cultural experiences can be shared among those who come from mixed-race families is important, Chug said.
“I think there’s an opportunity, as someone who feels like an outsider, to find a group amongst outsiders, and kind of make a smaller community out of that,” they said.
Not everyone is comfortable joining a club they only partially represent and, in some cases, joining that community could do more damage to a person’s identity than good.
With the mixed-race community growing, the need for a community made up of outsiders becomes increasingly important.