As a visible minority living in Alberta, this referendum left me feeling as though I lost far more than I gained.
The possibility of racism has always been there, simmering beneath the surface. Like many visible minorities, I've experienced moments that remind me of that reality. A passing truck shouts a racial slur. Someone asks an offensive question rooted in stereotypes as though it is perfectly acceptable. A judgment is made about who you are based solely on the colour of your skin or where your family comes from.
Whenever I expressed my exhaustion with these experiences, I was often told that I was taking things too personally. I was told I was looking for racism where none existed. And if I'm being honest, I sometimes questioned myself. Maybe they were right, I thought. Maybe I was being overly sensitive. Maybe I was misinterpreting people's intentions.
That changed after this referendum.
What was once easy to dismiss as anecdotal now feels impossible to ignore. Racist comments and behaviours can no longer be explained away as the insecurities of those who experience them. The referendum produced numbers. Real numbers. Numbers that suggest more than half of those who voted supported a position that many immigrants and visible minorities perceived as a direct rejection of their place in this province.
When discussing the result with a co-worker who voted against immigration, I was told that I was not the target because I am now a Canadian citizen. But becoming a citizen does not erase the fact that I was once an immigrant. Being an immigrant is part of my identity. More importantly, let's be honest about how prejudice often works. It rarely pauses to check someone's passport before making assumptions. It reacts to what it sees.
And when many people marked their ballots, I find it difficult to believe they were picturing Ukrainian refugees or immigrants from Europe. They were thinking about people who look like me and other visible minorities.
Since the referendum, it has become difficult not to view every interaction through a new lens, wondering whether one in two people I encounter looks at me and thinks, "You are not one of us. And you never will be."
That is a difficult feeling to carry.
In a strange way, there is a sense of vindication. For years, visible minorities have been told that concerns about racism are exaggerated or imagined. Yet this result suggests that the discomfort many of us have felt was not entirely in our heads. The fear that someone might casually hurl a racial slur, make a degrading comment, or question whether we belong here no longer feels like an isolated concern. It feels connected to something larger.
But alongside that vindication comes disappointment.
What troubles me most is the thought that so many Albertans may have reached this conclusion without truly knowing the people affected by it. Have they never worked alongside immigrants? Lived next door to them? Sat beside them at a hockey game? Shared a classroom, a workplace, or a community with them?
I have always valued my cultural heritage and remained connected to my community. At the same time, I have always considered myself Canadian. If my country ever needed me, my loyalty would be to Canada. I planned to raise my children with Canadian values alongside the traditions of our family's background.
I still believe those things.
What has changed is my understanding of how some of my fellow Albertans see me.
I may consider myself Canadian, but this referendum has left me questioning whether many Canadians would ever see me the same way. It has made me feel that, when hard choices are made, people like me are viewed as expendable, regardless of how long we have lived here, how much we contribute, or how deeply we identify with this country.
So, thank you, Alberta.
Thank you for the honesty.
If nothing else, this referendum has brought certain attitudes into the open. Please do not tell visible minorities that we misunderstood what we saw. Do not tell us we are imagining prejudice where none exists. Do not insist that we were never part of the conversation.
Many of us heard the message loud and clear.
And now that it has been said openly, it is much harder to pretend it was never there.
