I’m a mixed-race Muslim woman who tries to make space for others to tell their story. Stories matter to me because they provide both conduit and content for social justice matters.
One of my favourite stories is from my Mom. She told me that when I was four years old, my Montessori teacher turned to her and said, “Little pitchers have big ears,” meaning me. Apparently, I was constantly eavesdropping, even back then.
She wasn’t far from wrong. I was the shy, quiet and meek kid in school, never saying a word in class. Since then, I’ve awkwardly learned how to develop more of a voice.
I’m thrilled to announce that I’m going to be an Associate Professor at University of British Columbia in the Department of Gender, Race and Social Justice starting in the Fall of 2018.
I’ll also be Special Advisor to the Provost on Racialized Faculty at UBC.
I’ve happily spent the last fourteen years in my hometown, at University of Toronto Scarborough, where I was Associate Professor in the Department of Human Geography and the Programme in Planning.
Before that, I was an Assistant Visiting Professor at the New School for Social Research, Lang College in New York City, and before that, I was strategic counsel for IMPACS – the Institute for Media and Public Policy in Vancouver.
I’m the author of two books about critical mixed race theory and cultural forgetting (check them out here).
The last few years, I’ve been hosting a radio show called “Sense of Place” which has led to two spinoff programmes: “This Neighbourhood Life,” a series where we went live from locations in the Hastings-Sunrise neighbourhood in Vancouver; and “Acknowledgements” – a programme where I interview novelists and memoirists about the mentors who shape them, exploring the story behind the story.
“Acknowledgements” will launch as a podcast in the Fall of 2018.