I loved my time at McGill. McGill was instrumental in laying the foundations for the person I was inspired to become in this world. I went to a good high school in Ontario that, along with my parents, encouraged me to go to university and choose an institution that would expand my horizons and provide opportunities for personal growth. While I applied to universities in Ontario, friends who went to McGill or lived in Montreal, described McGill as an amazing top tier university in a cosmopolitan city. During March Break, I visited the university and toured the campus – the campus had gargoyles! How cool is that?!?
I majored in Philosophy and minored in Canadian Ethnic Studies. This trajectory of study was an opportunity to study the relationship between power and identity. As a person of colour and son of immigrants, I was interested in how forms of agency – like gender and race – reveal relations of power in democratic society and culture. Race, gender and indigeneity are key to understanding the complexities of the “Canadian experience” and they were at the forefront of many of my conversations in life, and especially so at McGill.
High school develops the beta version of your sense of self while university tests the draft, helping you move closer to the final version of who you are meant to be. McGill helped me grow and evolve. The university sharpened my critical thinking skills and nurtured my belief in the importance of civic engagement. While I was living in the dorm, I co-organized workshops around issues of inclusion (e.g. race, gender, sexuality) and I served as a student representative in the faculty senate.
After McGill, I applied for a master’s degree from the Cultural, Social and Political Thought program at the University of Victoria. My undergraduate advisor at McGill, Dr. James Tully, a professor of philosophy, had accepted a position at UVic and he encouraged me to apply to the university. After UVic, I applied to the doctoral program in political science at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa where I wrote a dissertation on race and cinema. Since then, I have worked in institutions that shape the cultural politics of power in society – as a curator of film and video in a museum, as a professor of creative media at a university and as a museum director – first at the Smithsonian Institution’s Asian Pacific American Center and now at the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design in Honolulu, Hawaii.
What advice would I give to students and recent graduates in these uncertain times? Whenever you feel timid about your work, remember every person has failures even the (now) successful ones. Don’t feel afraid to fail. It’s a lack of trying that keeps people from realizing their true potential. These are challenging times, but they’re also times that invite us to try.