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Alden E. Habacon | Bio and Speaking Engagements

Founder

Ivy So

Associate Publisher

Jen Sookfong Lee | Bio

Senior Articles Editor

Tamiko Ogura,

Managing Editor

Michelle da Silva

Assignment Editor

Gloria Wong

Film Editor

CONTRIBUTORS
Anu Sahota
Geraldine Anderson
Hansol Lee
Jordana Mah
Matthew Tsang
Nikki Reimer

Marketing & Outreach
Ivy So
Jason Wong
Karen Fung
Tammy Tsang
Tamiko Ogura

Navigate Media Inc.

Alden E. Habacon
Ivy So
Lara Honrado
Susanna Tam

 

Selected Biographies

Founder & Publisher

Alden E. Habacon

Complete Bio and Speaking Engagements

Alden is currently the Manager of Diversity Initiatives for CBC Television. In this role, Habacon contributes to program development, various community partnerships, new media applications and other CBC Television initiatives that advance the reflection of Canada’s diversity on-air and behind the scenes.

 

Associate Publisher

Ivy So

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.

Senior Articles Editor

Jen Sookfong Lee

Managing Editor

Tami Ogura

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.

 

Assignment Editor

Michelle da Silva

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.

 

Film Editor / Contributor

Gloria Wong

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.

 

Web Contributor

Matthew Tsang

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 unathletic (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 highschool, 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).

Before last year, Matthew had been dedicated to pursue a career in Law to fulfill what he thought was his mother's wish for him. Ideally, it wasn't the best career for him. He didn't like knowing that his future might involve getting up in front of an entire room of people and pointing a finger at someone and telling the entire room that this person he hardly knows “deserves to go to be imprisoned because...” It wasn't his ideal. He's not excited by the thought of trying to figure out what comes after “because”. However, he did enjoy going home and telling his family the story of how he decided that he didn't want to be a lawyer anymore. He had always had a passion to tell stories – whether they be made up or from experience.

All this has led to many “aiyah's” and “what are you going to do with your life” lectures from his mother. However, despite all this supposed “change”, Matthew was not just an angry child rebelling against all chinese tradition, nor was he the stereotypical conservative asian math whiz of the past. Because although to others he may have been just that “Canadian Born Chinese kid”, to himself, he knew he was, as always, just being Matthew Tsang. And Matthew Tsang never fit into just one category.

Matthew believes stories provide not only life lessons, but life itself. It gives the ability of an audience to be consumed by another person and driven into a world one could only imagine. Stories teach about love, empathy, imagination, and most importantly, it teaches us who we truly are. A story breathes the breath of a person we have never met and may never meet, but whatever we take from each story shapes our identity. A story gave Matthew life by telling him who he wanted to be, and more importantly, it taught him who he really is. And, to him, stories are selfless and generous, they only give and teach, and he doesn't mind dedicating his life to that. Oh yeah, and his mother doesn't mind either.

 

 

 

 

Web Contributor

Geraldine Anderson

Raised in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, (before it went on steroids) Geraldine Anderson moved to Canada when she was 15. She has a BA in English, and Professional Writing & Communications from the University of Toronto and is currently working on her Master of Journalism at Ryerson University.

When she was eight-and-a-half, she woke up in the middle of the night bursting to write down what she had dreamt. Disoriented and clinging to what she’d composed in her sleep, she ran to her parents’ room and announced, much like a surgeon announces the next instrument he needs during an operation, she needed a pencil and paper. Her father jumped out of bed, provided his young writer with a pencil and the nearest scrap paper her could find. She wrote. A poem, about a man in chains, who escapes his bonds to become a bird. And she never stopped.

Fast forward to her first day of high-school, in Canada: Science class. Seated in the first row, near the cutest boy, with darkest hair and darkest eyes and porcelain skin and freckles, yes, perfectly placed freckles on his nose, she asked him to pass her the rubber. He turned to her and asked, “Aren’t you being a little forward.” She didn’t understand. So, she repeated her request, a little louder this time. He looked at her and grinned. Now she knew she was missing something. But what? The grin widened and so did the growing feeling of unease inside of her. After what must have been about four minutes, but seems like four days the teacher leaned forward and said, “You must mean the eraser, Sweetheart. A rubber is a contraceptive here.” The boy with the dark hair and dark eyes and porcelain skin and freckled nose, laughed and dropped the white eraser into Geraldine’s hand.

Being "Anglo-Indian," and never fully understanding what that meant she, and moving, literally, from East to West, from mere terminology to deeper cultural references Geraldine has existed between worlds, ethnically and geographically. She has struggled with her hybrid identity, resisted it, rejected it and finally, accepted and embraced it. Now, she understands that it makes her the person, and the writer she is today.

 

Web Contributor

Jordana Mah

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.

Since that fateful evening, Jordana fell in love with the art of pouring her thoughts onto paper. It was only in writing that she could confess the things she could not say, from her childhood aversion of her Chinese heritage, to her recent realization of how much that heritage was written upon her. As a 5th generation Chinese-Canadian, she has struggled against what others thought she should be - too white for most Asians, but not enough to be Canadian either. Throughout her life, Jordana has has been asked "What are you?" without having any real answer. However, this has only strengthened her resolve to forge her own path, and through her writing, to show others that people cannot be put so easily into molds

Jordana is currently finishing her Engineering degree at UVic while pursuing her dreams of being an Asian Carrie Bradshaw. When not studying or working, she is writing for her personal style blog. Her vices include over-sleeping, gangsta rap, shopping, bbt, and cheesy kung-fu movies. She has travelled throughout Europe and Asia, but she will never call home anywhere that is not near the ocean.

 

Web Contributor

Nikki Reimer

Nikki Reimer was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta and now lives and writes in Vancouver. A founding and managing editor of (orange) magazine, she has also co-edited (with Jonathon Wilcke) and designed the 12th issue of the Kootenay School of Writing's W magazine and currently runs the disjunct! performance series. Her poetry has appeared in filling Station, Queen Street Quarterly, Prism International and BafterC. Her work has also been featured in the dance show "Larimer St." performed by the Decidedly Jazz Danceworks troupe in Calgary.