TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO:

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Hamza: Hi, my name is Hamza. My mom's from Ecuador. I was born in Houston, Texas. My dad's from Karachi, Pakistan. Growing up in that household was, I'm not going to say difficult, but definitely gonna say something like, like enlightening would probably be the best descriptive word for it. My mom's Catholic, my dad's Sunni Muslim. So, not only on like, the multicultural basis is that different, but also like on a religious basis, just you get like two very different understandings of the world that kind of come together. And you get to understand both aspects of it. So, whenever I go for like Christmas in Texas, or whenever I go for, like Eid in Pakistan, you know, you get a pretty diverse mix of different values.

 

Hamza’s dad: Hi, my name is Naim Mohammed. My son, he is Hamza Naim. This outfit, I brought it from Pakistan, this is called shawar kameez and, and the waistcoat, he has is called prince coat, basically, they have the tradition, traditional wearing in Pakistan at the parties or the weddings. And it's coming from the background from Mughal emperors before, before even Pakistan was born in 1947 there was one India and the Mughal emperors, they have ruled that territory for 300 years. So, they have those special kind of clothing, we are still wearing, we are forming those traditions.

 

Hamza: Growing up in a place like, like Ajax, Ontario, where the majority of my peers were, you know, of like six generation Canadians, for example, this kind of attire wasn't something that you would regularly see somebody wearing. But then you'd have like one or two, or maybe three odd people in my class, who'd be like, yeah, you know, I'm Pakistani, or I'm Indian, or, you know, whatever, South Asian descent. And then you have some, like, mutual understanding, and you'd be able to, like, relate to that one person, or those two people. It was like, I was living like two different lives growing up. I'd come home and then have like, you know, my culture in a silo, and then I'd walk outside and then have to conduct myself entirely differently. I think like any immigrant child can relate to this, right?

 

At first, there was definitely a sense of discomfort. It's, it's very different from what I'm used to. And also, it's like really putting yourself out there, right. Like I said, when you grew up in Ajax, you know and everybody sees you as different. And then you go to like a community centre or something where somebody is having wedding and you know, you're physically displaying yourself as even further different. But then I guess you end up learning to embrace it. So, like, I went to Pakistan, I went to Ecuador, and you realize how remarkable these places are, and how remarkable these people are, right?

 

Hamza’s dad: Hamza, I would like to teach him some cultural background. I'm from Pakistan, I would love to teach him, how we live, what we talk, what we eat, and how we behave. And he's pretty good. He's learning like, three different cultures: North American culture, Pakistani, traditional, culture, some Spanish culture. And he is speaking four languages also, which is English, Urdu, Spanish, and a little bit of French now. Now we are so used to it when I talk to my wife with one sentence, we use three or four different languages and we all understand what we're what we're talking about. My wife does the same thing. She speaks Urdu one word, Spanish one word, English one word.

 

Hamza: It's actually a very interesting story. My dad and my uncle used to work for the Merchant Marines from Pakistan and my mom was interning in Houston to become a doctor. So, she was actually in her last year, but she was transitioning between going back to Ecuador and Houston. So, you know the life of a student and you could be in like any given place in the world, right? At a given time. So, when she was in Ecuador, she spoke very fluent English. So, when she was interning at a hospital there, they used her as a translator, my uncle who worked for the Merchant Marines apparently got hit by a bus and he got sent to the hospital and my mom was supposed to be the one who was translating for him. And so then my dad ended up going to the hospital see his brother, and then they met that way. It's a wacky story. Most people don't believe it when they hear it for the first time. But that's actually what happened. Yeah.

 

Hamza’s dad: I still visit my family, visit my mom, visit my brother, and siblings. Half of my family in Canada, half of my family in Pakistan, so I frequently visit, and Hamza also went there two, three times. Whenever I go, my wife and daughter and Hamza, they, they make sure you know I bring the clothing, whatever is the latest fashion, there, so I bring clothing for them.

 

Hamza: You start to realize that there's like, there's not much of a difference in between the people that are here and in between the people that are there. Just sometimes it happens to be a difference in opportunity and difference environment that sort of dictates how, how we perceive them and how we perceive ourselves.