Schema | August 2009 Archives : more than ethnic

August 2009

The underlying concepts: Schema and Cultural Navigators

What makes makes the idea of the ethnic mosaic obsolete?
The ethnic mosaic is based on the idea that you are defined by your ancestry, regardless of how little or how much your ethnicity is a part of your life. For example, if your ancestors came from the Philippines, you are labeled "Filipino Canadian," or an Asian Canadian. But that doesn't really say anything about you or the world you work and live in. The fact is, ethnicity is still important, but it isn't the most important thing in the lives of Canadian youth and young adults, the most culturally diverse and culturally mobile generation in Canadian history.

Founder, Alden E. Habacon speaks at TEDxVancouver on "Multiculturalism 2.0"

Story of Schema

In 2003, Alden E. Habacon, Schema Magazine's founder, began to rethink the idea of the ethno-cultural "mosaic" and concluded that it was an obsolete concept in what he calls Canada's Diversity 2.0. With a handful of like-minded Asian Canadian creative leaders and the support of some of Vancouver's influential mentors, we envisioned a magazine about today's real-life diverse mainstream, aimed at those who recognized that they were informed by their ethnicity, but no longer defined by it. We wanted our magazine to really reflect us—and our cosmology as the most culturally mobile, ethnically diverse, globally connected generation of Canadians to date. We wanted to illuminate the complex diversity we intuitively live everyday. After all, there were cultural spaces to explore, the results of immigration, family roots and our connection to diverse cities all over the world.

We borrowed the term "cultural navigators," to describe our role as travellers through a complex web of communities. We are a generation that can map our fluid cultural identities. We call this dynamic trail schema.

We launched Schema Magazine's Daily Dose of Ethnic Cool in February 2004. This blog explores the unique evolution of diversity in the lives of cultural navigators—through design, food, music, art, film, or comic books—everything that cultural navigators actively consume as part of their daily lives. In June 2009, Schema Magazine expanded to include an editorially-driven section called InDepth, regularly publishing feature articles, profiles, travelogues and commentary. Our first "release" addressed the question "But where are you really from?", speaking to one of the most common experiences of cultural navigators in North America.

Canada is still changing. Cultural navigators, often over-simplified as ethnic or visible minorities, are the fastest growing segment of the general population. Our original intention was to burst through outdated paradigms, but what we have also created is a space where anyone interested in our explorations, our journeys and our complexities can feel included.

The underlying concepts: Schema and Cultural Navigators »

Schema Contributors/Masthead

Left to Right Top Row: Beth Hong, Jocelyn Gan, Rosel Kim, Christina Jung, Devon Wong, Allison Zhou, Mauree Matsusaka, Zi-Ann Lum Bottom Row Jordana Mah, Kayo Homma-Komori, Matthew Tsang, Genie MacLeod, Gayatri Bajpai, Adrian Bailon, Kunny Ma | Enlarge Photo

Senior Editorial Team

Senior Marketing Team

Design

Adrian Bailon | Creative Director

Business Development and Administrative Team

Alden E. Habacon | Founder and Publisher
Midya Tsoy | Publisher's Assistant
Guan Yi | HR Coordinator

Daily Dose Contributors

Jordana Mah | Researcher
Tamiko Ogura | Researcher

Correspondents

FOUNDING CONTRIBUTORS

Jen Sookfong Lee (bio) | Senior Editor, Schema Magazine InDepth
Gloria Wong | Contributing Editor, Film Festivals
Ivy So | (bio)

PARTNERS/SPONSORS

Museum of Vancouver
North American Association of Asian Professionals Vancouver
TheTyee.ca
Irving K Barber Learning Centre (UBC)
Perspectives (UBC)
The Laurier Institution
Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival
United Nations Association of Canada (Me in Media)

SPECIAL THANKS

Bing Thom
Milton Wong
Yosef Wosk
The Laurier Institution

Schema Magazine is Published by Navigate Media Inc.

Jordana Mah

Co-Editor in Chief, Special Events and Social Media Coordinator

The scene was Victoria's Chinatown. The year, 1991. A seven-year-old Jordana crouched by a wooden shelf housing a stack of shiny, multi-colored diaries with her sister. Her sister, being "wiser" by six years, insisted she choose a plain red brocade journal, but Jordana knew better, she had eyes only for the best: a thick glossy lavendar journal with a swan on the cover and hefty padlock, sure to keep out prying sisters and parents. The journal was heavy with the scent of sandalwood and would only become heavier with all the childhood secrets it later contained.

Alden E. Habacon

Founder and Publisher

+ Recently featured in Canadian Immigrant Magazine: Balancing Identity
+ Recently mentioned in the Vancouver Sun: Savvy businesses setting sights on the '1.5 Gen'

Alden is the founder of Schema Magazine (www.schemamag.ca) and for the past five years has served as Manager of Diversity Initiatives for CBC Television, helping Canada's public broadcaster develop and implement its national diversity strategy.

He launched his career through print media and community-based art projects and his current areas of focus are cultural innovation, interculturalism and multi-generational diversity within the new Canadian mainstream.

Alden's goal is to push diversity beyond the traditional mosaic model. As such he has developed the "Schema model" which defines cultural identity in terms that are more than ethnic.

As an expert on Multiculturalism 2.0, Alden regularly speaks to and consults with government agencies, nonprofits and companies around the world on various diversity issues. He has shared his perspective with organizations such as Canadian Heritage, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, The Asia-Pacific Institute of Broadcaster Development, and the Canadian High Commission in Malaysia.

Along with Order of Canada member Milton K. Wong, he has co-presented at the prestigious Couchiching Institute of Public Affairs (CIPA) Summer Conference. He has also delivered keynotes for the Immigrant Services Society of British Columbia and lectured on diversity in broadcasting at various universities in Canada and the UK (complete list of speaking engagements).

His recent speaking engagements include the 2008 ASEAN-Canada Dialogue on Interfaith Initiatives in Indonesia and a special presentation organised to the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association and the International Broadcasters Trust in London, England. His writing has been published in Canadian Diversity Magazine.

Alden is of Filipino ancestry and defines himself as a Cultural Navigator. He was born in Manila and spent much of his childhood living in Western Canada. He graduated from Simon Fraser University with a BFA in Visual Arts and currently lives in Vancouver with his wife.

Matthew Tsang

Video Production

Matthew, a Canadian-born Chinese student, is currently going into his fourth year at the University of British Columbia where he majors in English Literature. Born and raised in the suburbs of Vancouver, his traditional parents never let him forget his roots. While he was growing up, Matthew was always a victim of more than a few stereotypes that Chinese Canadians have to deal with. In elementary, many of his peers assumed that he was a math whiz (he was) and un-athletic (he was). In high school, many of his peers assumed that he had a curfew while there was still light out (he did) and that he was still a math whiz (he still was). Before graduating high school, many of his peers assumed he'd get into UBC (he did) and plan to study something with plenty of money involved in the future (he did, law school).

Gloria Wong

Film Festival Editor

Gloria Wong is one of Schema's most accomplished contributing editors. After completing a BFA in Film, at the School for Contemporary Art (SFU), Gloria directed five films, and has worked on numerous others. She is extremely well connected to Vancouver's film community as a former screener for the Vancouver International Film Festival, the current Programmer and Chair for the Out on Screen Film and Video Society, and Chair of the Programming Committee for the Vancouver Documentary Media Society. In addition to being active in numerous film organizations, Wong is also a graphic designer. She also provides a sophisticated perspective on identity politics with an extremely strong background in critical studies.

Michelle da Silva

Copy Editor

Since completing a B.A. in English and Women's Studies at UVic, Michelle works in Vancouver as a copy editor and freelance writer. She has written for Gloss: The Fashion Magazine, Killahbeez.com, Bodog Nation, and Beyond Robson. Of Portuguese and Chinese ancestry, Michelle is passionate about Swedish pop and French electronic music, high fashion and vintage finds, feminism, gender and sexual identity, modern and post-modern literature, food, wine and good coffee.

Tamiko Ogura

Researcher and Past Managing Editor for Schema Daily Dose of Ethnic Cool

Having recently returned to Vancouver after several years of living in Tokyo, Tami Ogura is most definitely not romantic about Japan. Amongst her many superpowers, Tami can smell a "rice chaser" far away. Tami previously worked as a business editor for a communications firm in Tokyo (clients included Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nissan and Warner Brothers) and she has also been around the world as a web reporter for Peace Boat, covering humanitarian, environmental and developmental issues, such as Sri Lanka's tsunami, Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, and the efforts of Amnesty International and Oxfam in Dublin. When she's not teaching, she is advocating for peace education with the World Peace Forum.

Ivy So

Founder, Former Associate Publisher, Advisor

Behind her background in business, Ivy is one with many hidden passions - graphic design, writing, among others. A designer at heart with a passion for expressing herself with words, Ivy also has a secret love affair with academia, with academic interests in cult branding, online communit ies, and organizational culture. Ivy is currently a co-host on "Youth in 57 Minutes" on 102.7FM and is the Managing Editor of The Catalyst, a monthly e-publication from the non-profit Agents of Change.

Jen Sookfong Lee

Senior Editor, Schema InDepth

Schema Magazine