Three black Nunavut residents reflect on their history

Francisca Mandeya of Iqaluit performs with the Inuksuk Drummers at the opening ceremony for Black History Month at Iqaluit’s Inuksuk High School Feb. 1. Mandeya, who moved from Zimbabwe to Iqaluit in 2015, spent the last year working with high school students to teach them a song in her first language, Shona. Over that period, Mandeya learned songs in Inuktitut. Above, she performs wearing a traditional Zimbabwean headdress and an Inuit amauti. (PHOTO BY MIKE SALOMONIE, CBC NUNAVUT)

When Kuthula Matshazi, an Iqaluit city councillor who grew up in Zimbabwe, took his nine-year-old daughter to see the giant Antonov plane that recently landed in Nunavut’s capital, he was reminded of the different worlds he and his daughter grew up in.

“I told her the plane was gigantic,” Matshazi said from his office in Iqaluit Feb. 7, pronouncing the word with two soft “g” sounds.

His daughter gave him a strange look.

“It’s pronounced gigantic,” she said, pronouncing the word in standard Canadian English.

“Your English is weird,” said the young girl, raised mostly in Iqaluit.

To mark Black History Month, held across Canada every February, Nunatsiaq News spoke to three members of Iqaluit’s black community Feb. 7.

And three diverse perspectives emerged from those conversations.

But Matshazi, who now works for the territorial education department, said that despite the diversity of home countries that form the black community in Iqaluit, similarities are easy to find.

“The differences in culture I would say are subtle. Fundamentally, we are all the same. Even the food we eat is more or less the same. If you look at languages, there are common elements. And we’re all community-based, not individualistic. Families and family units are very important.”

One key unifier in the Iqaluit community is religion, he added.

“We’re very religious people, which is an interesting thing because religion in Zimbabwe came in as a colonization tool.”

That’s one of the reasons why African immigrants fit in well in Nunavut, Matshazi said.

As in Zimbabwe, religion has been used as a colonial tool among Inuit, many of whom are still devout Christians.

There are other lived colonial experiences that many in the black community share with Inuit, he said.

“I think [Zimbabweans] have a distrust in public institutions in common [with Inuit]. Secondly, a disproportionate representation in terms of poverty and being disadvantaged. And the psychological effect colonization has on people—it degrades you, and you measure your own self-worth through the eyes of the colonizer.”

Matshazi said he emigrated to Toronto in 2001 when he was 32, leaving behind his entire family in Zimbabwe as well as careers as a policeman, journalist and professional soccer player.

In Canada, he had to “start again from scratch,” working in factories for three years before returning to school and eventually getting a master’s degree from York University.

But a history of suffering has made many African immigrants to Canada more resilient, Matshazi said.

“And out of all that adversity, we are still a happy people who enjoy relationships across races,” said Matshazi, who arrived in Iqaluit in 2012.

Francisca Mandeya, also originally from Zimbabwe, arrived straight from her home country to Nunavut’s capital in 2015.

Mandeya and members of the Inuksuk High School choir shared songs in Shona, Mandeya’s first language, and Inuktitut during the opening ceremony of Black History Month at the high school Feb. 1.

“We’re busy connecting, transcending those barriers of race and culture and language, barriers to humanity,” she said.

But Mandeya, who has shared her poetry and musical talents at numerous Iqaluit performances, aims to challenge people’s perceptions of race and colour.

“What is ‘white’ and ‘black,’ really? I have never seen a person as white as snow or black as charcoal. Therein is a lie… It’s a deep lie and mischief to call people ‘white’ and ‘black’ and I’ll maintain that at the risk of being called a rebel,” she said.

Growing up in Zimbabwe, Mandeya, who has the darkest skin colour in her family, was made to feel uglier because of her darker skin, an effect of colonization, she said.

Some girls she knew would try to bleach their skin, Mandeya said.

“Beauty should come from inside, where real love and concern lives for issues that affect us as the human race… That’s when we begin to see each other as citizens in the same world.”

Lekan Thomas, raised in Toronto by Nigerian parents before moving to Iqaluit eight years ago, said Iqalungmiut of all colours should come out to dance at this year’s Jabula.

Jabula, which means to rejoice in Ndebele, a Zulu dialect, will take place Feb. 25 at the Iqaluit Legion and feature live rap performances as well African music.

“My father was a DJ, my friends in Toronto were DJs and I’m a DJ and a rapper too,” said Thomas from Inuksuk High School, where he works as a part-time substitute teacher and janitor.

“My mandate is to start Hip Hop in Nunavut. Nothing wrong with country music, but after eight songs in a row, I’m like, I can’t dance.”

Not long after arriving in Iqaluit, where his mother and brother also live, Thomas said he took to walking outside to practice his rapping.

Soon, others eager to learn rapping joined him. Performers like Mr. Lee Cloutier, Shawn Inukshuk and Nelson Tagoona joined Thomas, giving rise to the “Rappers in the Tundra.”

“That’s what I want Jabula to be—a spotlight every year for hardworking rappers from Iqaluit’s own rap scene.”

After Jabula on Feb. 25, this year’s Black History Month’s finale will take place Feb. 26 at the Cadet Hall in Iqaluit.

Other events during the month-long celebration can be found on Iqaluit’s Public Service Announcement Facebook page and on the Facebook page of the Nunavut Black History Society.