When you are on Facebook, Twitter and other social media, you see all sorts of manipulated information on what Canada is about. People seemed to have selectively forgotten that the first people in Canada did not speak English or French. If you are not from a First Nation Tribe, somewhere on your family tree, you will see you are an immigrant to Canada. Rob and I were both born and raised in Calgary, which is still seen as rare. My mom and dad left Hungary during the Hungarian revolution. They actually did not meet until they were living a house apart from one another in the Calgary Beltline.
My dad told me some pretty awful stories of what it was like in Hungary, as soldiers came through towns and rounded up farm animals, and other belongings, during communism – since those things were shared across the community at a whole. When you don’t have a lot to start, it made it worse when you were left with nothing. Eventually my dad was able to leave Hungary and come to Canada, where he decided to be a farmer, in Kamloops, before moving to Calgary.
My mom has departed some of her crazy stories of what it was like being poor, like going to the well every day for water, and hoping a wasp’s nest had honey in it, since they could not really afford sweets. My mom and my aunt came out to Canada without my grandmother. They lived with a close family friend who helped bring them out as part of the refugee program. My grandmother finally was able to make it out from Hungary with the help of the Canadian Red Cross. My aunt, grandmother and mom actually appeared on a cover of the Calgary Herald back in the late ’50s.
When I was a lot younger, my dad would tell me how difficult it was adjusting to living in Canada prior to him marrying my mom. How retail stores would assume he had no money, or was a shoplifter; that he was dirty and should go back to where he came from. He said he struggled to buy clothes, since store employees would not give him attention, so he had to prove he had cash before he could buy things as simple as shoes.
Close to 10 to 15 years before my dad passed away, it was interesting to see how his mind had changed. After telling me stories of how hard it was for him being a refugee to Canada, and how people treated him, I started hearing some pretty racist and homophobic words. As people began coming from other countries to Canada, he was making similar comments: that they should go back home to where they came from; that they should speak English; that those people were disgusting. Pretty much everything he told me about how people had treated him when he was new to Canada, he was now saying to all the new immigrants that were coming to the country after he did.
Was his hypocritical opinion being influenced by other people? I know he listened to the radio a lot but, as I was a child at the time, I would have not paid attention to any fear or hatred that might have come from it. When I became an adult, I realized that a lot of the people he was listening to were people who appeared on Fox News and other conservative media outlets. Was his opinion also influenced by how he was brought up? Was it just part of the culture of the time?
During the current refugee crisis, I noticed how poorly Hungarians treated the refugees trying to come in or through Hungary to other countries. Did they all have short-term memory loss of how many Hungarians fled to other countries back in the late ’50s? I did some research: after the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, over 100,000 Hungarian refugees came to Canada. To put that into perspective, Calgary’s population was at 181,780 in 1956. How many other people in Canada right now are doing the same thing – forgetting that at some point either they or their ancestors came to Canada as refugee or immigrant, struggling through the same hassles?
I see the comments on Facebook from people that I know – straight or gay – commenting negatively on the Syrians coming to Canada as refugees. As someone who is born in Canada, to parents who left Hungary during its revolution, do I comment on their personal timeline or do I bite my tongue? I decided to stay quite on Facebook, because why fuel the fire of fear. How easy is it to explain that your father went through the same racist crap when he came to Canada but, even so, he grappled through it to attain a better life for himself and his future wife and kids.
When I was in Grade 5 we were told that Canada is a cultural mosaic – a mix of ethnic groups, languages and cultures that coexist within society; and that the United States is a melting pot – a metaphor describing a fusion of nationalities, cultures and ethnicities, also seen as assimilation. Of course this is not a perfect world, and not everyone wants Canada to be a mosaic. But the idea of people being able to keep part of who they were before moving to Canada, and still be able to become a Canadian, is a nice direction.
The LGBTQ community is also a culture on its own, with smaller subgroups inside of it – these contributing to the diversity of who we are as a whole. We are born this way, as the saying goes, but when homophobes attack and persecute us, we try to stand our ground and try to make change. As individuals, we sometimes need to get up and move to somewhere more accepting of who we are so we can live our lives the way we want. We may l distance ourselves from a family that does not accept us, or move away from a small town or village to a bigger city; we may leave our faith to join one that is accepting. So when we see people who were born in a country where they are now unsafe and wish to flee it, why should we say no to them when they are just wanting to live their lives too? The way I have always seen it, as long as we live a life that doesn’t hurt our self or others, then others should be able to do the same.
Past Events
November was mostly quiet but something that did stand out was the closure of Buddy’s Night Club in Edmonton. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the closing party but, from what we have been told, so many people came out for it that there was a two hour wait to get in. In the 12 years the magazine has been running, lots of bars have closed their doors. Some do it quietly, and some go out with a bang. When you see so many people show up to a closing party, you know some of them are there for the first time to finally see the place before the doors close, and others are there to reminisce. When a place has been around for a very long time, like the Calgary Eagle, Roost, Buddy’s, Detours, Arena, Boots, Prism, Boyztown and the Rekroom, it does feel like saying goodbye to a close friend for the last time.
The Alberta Bear’s Singlet Party was extremely successful. The organizers said they sold 70 memberships and that guys from around Alberta – and even from BC and Saskatchewan – attended the event. Check out the photos in this edition. GayCalgary also attended the Goliath’s and the Texas Lounge 28th Anniversary. Past years have had really bad luck, with -25C or colder weather during their Anniversary party, but this year, though the weather was still cold, it did not keep a high volume of people from coming down and enjoying themselves.
Opening Soon!
So, Deva Dave’s new bar is called Le Bar at it is located at 318A 10th Street NW – close to the Safeway and Sunnyside LRT Station. They will be open before Christmas but they won’t be able to serve alcohol until the New Year. The menu so far consists of seasonal food and fresh assorted tacos. Check out their website at http://lebarcalgary.com/ .
Backwards Nightclub is coming. They are still doing renovations to the place and want to ensure they don’t cut corners so, when they do open, everything will be ready to go. In March, 2007, we wrote an article called "Building a Bar: It’s not as easy as you may think" http://www.gaycalgary.com/a1998. It was written because people were complaining that my city needs a new Gay Bar. At the time it was written, we had a lot more gay and lesbian bars in Alberta than we do today. The last gay nightclub to open in the province was Evolution Wonderlounge in Edmonton, and their formula for a nightclub has been different than others, which has worked well for them.
While waiting for something "new" to open, don’t forget to check out the existing gay bars that work with GayCalgary Magazine like the Texas Lounge (Calgary), Backlot (Calgary), Evolution (Edmonton), and Woody’s (Edmonton). Also check out the gay events at gay friendly establishments like Broken City (Calgary), Cowboys Nightclub (Calgary); or events put on by Pure Pride (Calgary/Edmonton), Hot Mess (Calgary), Fruit Loop (Edmonton), ISCWR (Edmonton) and others that pop up throughout the province.
To the New Year
This is our final edition for 2015; our next edition will come out February 2016. Doing 11 editions per year just made things easier, since it just about impossible to get content together in time for January when everyone is away for the last week or so of December for the holidays. I have been working on a side project for GayCalgary – so watch for announcements in the New Year.
This will be a great year for the magazine, with June 2016 being our 150th edition! It will be celebrated during Edmonton Pride, and the Canadian Rockies International Rodeo and Music Festival. Normally in our November issue you would see letters of congratulations and support throughout the magazine from community groups, businesses, politicians and so forth, but with the November 2015 edition being our 12th Anniversary and the 150th edition happening six months later, I decided to hold off with the letters and ads so they will appear in June to celebrate the bigger milestone.
Finally, I want to wish everyone a very happy holiday and a Happy New Year!
