Category: News

Home / Category: News

OTTAWA — Mail service will resume all across the country at noon Tuesday after the Senate passed legislation ordering an end to five weeks of rotating strikes by postal workers.

Royal assent was granted late Monday shortly after senators approved Bill C-89 by a vote of 53-25. Four senators abstained.

The government had deemed passage of the bill to be urgent due to the economic impact of continued mail disruptions during the busy holiday season. It rushed the bill through the House of Commons last week.

But senators, after holding a special sitting Saturday to debate the bill, insisted on taking a little more time to reflect on the constitutionality of stripping postal workers of their right to strike.

Special sitting

They held another special sitting Monday and only put the bill to a vote after more than five hours of additional debate.

“I thought the extra time we took was valuable and was a demonstration of how the Senate should be reviewing government bills,” said Sen. Yuen Pau Woo, leader of the independent senators’ group.

Sen. Peter Harder, the government’s representative in the Senate, urged senators earlier Monday not to delay any further.

“I’m gratified that after two days of intense debate the Senate did what, in my view, is the right thing and passed this legislation,” he said after the vote.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers issue a statement declaring that it is “exploring all options to fight the back-to-work legislation.”

“Postal workers are rightly dismayed and outraged,” said CUPW national president Mike Palecek. “This law violates our right to free collective bargaining under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Some senators — independents, Liberal independents and even some Conservatives — agreed with that assessment and voted against the bill.

But the majority either disagreed or concluded that it’s up to the courts, not senators, to rule on constitutionality.

An amendment by independent Sen. Murray Sinclair, who proposed delaying implementation of the back-to-work order for at least seven days after royal assent, was rejected.

Earlier Monday, Labour Minister Patti Hajdu said that the special mediator had concluded his work and the two sides were no longer negotiating.

Negotiations have been underway for nearly a year, but the dispute escalated more recently when CUPW members launched rotating strikes Oct. 22.

Those walkouts have led to backlogs of mail and parcel deliveries at the Crown corporation’s main sorting plants in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.

Picket lines were up Monday in parts of British Columbia, including Vancouver, Richmond and Surrey, and in parts of Ontario, including Hamilton, Ajax, North York, Pickering and London. Workers also walked off the job in Halifax and Dartmouth, N.S.

During debate, Harder told senators that failure to speedily pass Bill C-89 would have severe consequences for those who rely on stable mail delivery service, including the elderly, residents in rural and remote areas and, most especially, retailers who use Canada Post to deliver online purchases.

“It is the government’s strong view that if it does not act now to protect the public interest, it will have acted too late,” he told the Senate, arguing that postal disruptions are “not merely inconvenient.”

“The strikes come at a critical period for retailers,” Harder said.

“Unlike other kinds of e-commerce transactions … lost holiday sales are unlikely to be deferred to a later date. They represent real and actual lost business for these companies.”

Canada Post said Monday that the backlog of mail and parcels is “severe” and expected to “worsen significantly” once online orders from Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales are processed.

In a statement, the post office said it is experiencing delivery delays across the country and that’s expected to continue throughout the holiday season and into January.

Back-to-work with old agreement

The union wants better pay and job security, guaranteed hours for its 8,000 rural and suburban carriers, and equality for those workers with the corporation’s 42,000 urban employees.

CUPW also wants Canada Post to adopt rules that it says would cut down on workplace injuries — an issue the union has said is now at a “crisis” level.

Under the new legislation, the union said postal workers will be forced to go back to work under the old collective agreement, which it asserted would result in at least 315 disabling injuries and thousands of hours of forced, unpaid overtime.

The previous Conservative government forced an end to a lockout of postal workers during a 2011 dispute by enacting back-to-work legislation, which was later declared by a court to be unconstitutional.

But the Liberal government argues Bill C-89 is different, in that it does not impose immediate outcomes affecting postal contracts.

Whereas the 2011 bill imposed a settlement that favoured Canada Post, the current legislation would give a mediator-arbitrator appointed by the government 90 days to try and reach contract settlements. Failing that, a settlement could be imposed either through a decision from the arbitrator or by choosing from one of the final proposals put forward by Canada Post or CUPW.

In drafting the bill, Harder said the government has taken into account court rulings and is confident that its limitations on the right to strike would be upheld as a reasonably justifiable infringement of charter rights in a free and democratic society.

Independent Sen. Marc Gold, a former constitutional law professor, said he’s inclined to agree with the government.

But another independent, Sen. Andre Pratte, said the bill makes “a fair, negotiated agreement impossible by depriving workers of the lone source of their bargaining power, their right to strike.”

“Because the right to strike is a fundamental right … I am convinced that more time should be allowed for negotiations to come to a fruitful conclusions,” he said.

While not all Conservative senators supported the bill, several of their colleagues slammed the Liberal government for failing to put an end to the strikes sooner.

“This government was so concerned with appearances, not wanting to look like previous governments, wanting instead ‘to wag their finger and lift their chin in righteous indignation, that they sat on their hands until it was almost too late. And it still might be too late,” Conservative Sen. Leo Housakos told the upper house.

Fellow Conservative Sen. Don Plett said “the government sat on its hands until the 11th hour and then in a panicked rush suddenly decided something needed to be done.”

The US should not abandon Kurdish and Arab allies who led the fight against Isil, British officials have said, warning a rapid withdrawal of its troops would risk a resurgence of the jihadists.

Western-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are expected to announce the territorial defeat of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) in the coming days, after a four-and-a-half year battle against the group spanning Syria and Iraq.

Some 2,000 US special forces supporting the Kurdish-led forces will be brought home by April, after US President Donald Trump declared the fight against Isil was “99 per cent complete”.

Washington has not outlined any plans to support SDF efforts to combat Isil after their exit.

“President Trump’s decision to withdraw so quickly is as bizarre as it is short-sighted,” Bob Seely, Conservative MP and member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, told the Telegraph.

“We need to be realistic but supportive. Syrian Kurdish territory is part of Syria. However, we, the US and France need to be willing to repay that debt of thanks to the Kurds and make sure that in Syria they are not left to the mercy of (Isil) or the Assad government,” he said.

“If we are not willing to stand by our allies, we will find we have fewer of them.”

Officials from the SDF, which is thought to have lost as many as 10,000 fighters battling Isil, said that they had been left feeling abandoned.

“I’m worried about the US withdrawal, we fought together and I don’t believe it was a wise decision,” said Commander Adnan Afrin. “As I see it, it’s a decision to leave halfway through.”

Once the "caliphate" is declared over, Commander Afrin said his forces will face another fight against Isil’s toxic ideology.

Jeremy Hunt, Foreign Secretary, on Monday said the world should not “mistake territorial defeat for final defeat” and that forces fighting Isil should not claim “victory too quickly”.

A Pentagon report published this month warned that Isil "could likely resurge in Syria within six to 12 months and regain limited territory" if sustained pressure is not maintained.

Islamic State losing its grip on Syria

The jihadist group retains a presence in eastern Syria’s vast Badia desert as well as remote territory in western Iraq, and has continued to claim deadly attacks in SDF-held areas.

While Isil will soon no longer have fixed positions anywhere in Iraq or Syria, its surviving fighters have reverted to guerrilla warfare and remain a potent force.

The jihadists maintain sleeper cells along the border with Iraq, as well as in cities they once ruled, and have carried out a number of IED and suicide attacks.

The SDF arrested 63 suspected militants in Isil’s former Syrian capital Raqqa, which fell more than a year ago, last week.

The war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says sleeper cells are suspected of assassinating at least 50 civilians and 135 SDF fighters in Kurdish-held territory since August.

Mr Trump’s decision has also left Syria’s Kurds scrambling for safeguards against a threatened Turkish offensive along its border.

Ankara considers the Kurds fighting with the SDF terrorists, claiming they have organisational links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – which has led a decades-long insurgency in Turkey.

Kurdish leaders spent the past two weeks in Washington meeting with US officials in an effort to secure assurances they would be safe.

There is also the unresolved issue of the thousands of foreign Isil suspects and their families being held by the SDF.

The UK and a number of other countries have so far resisted calls to repatriate their nationals, despite warnings from the SDF that they have neither the space or resources to hold them forever.

Like many professional athletes, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes plays Fortnite. Thanks to Epic Games’ new partnership with the NFL, Mahomes and other NFL players can encounter people wearing their jerseys on the battlefield. It already happened for Mahomes, who was killed by someone wearing his No. 15 Chiefs jersey.

Mahomes posted about the bizarre encounter on Twitter.

Mahomes is having a breakout season for the Chiefs, leading the NFL in passing yards and touchdowns. As an up-and-coming star, it’s no surprise people are choosing to wear Mahomes’ jersey in Fortnite. What is surprising is that in a match filled with 100 players, a fan found and eliminated the real Patrick Mahomes.

Mahomes and the wide receivers he slings touchdowns to regularly play Fortnite. After Mahomes posted about his recent Fortnite session, Chiefs receiver Tyreek Hill joked that he was the one wearing the Mahomes jersey.

NFL jerseys were added to Fortnite’s in-game store last week. Users can purchase jerseys from all 32 teams. Though player names do not appear on the backs of jerseys, you can choose the number and switch it between matches.

Steven Petite is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter @steven_petite.

TORONTO — Jeremy Dutcher has won the 2018 Polaris Music Prize for his album “Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa.”

The project, which is performed in the Wolastoq language, was selected by an 11-member jury as the Canadian album of the year based on its artistic merit.

The winner receives a $50,000 cash prize and heightened awareness for their album.

At the ceremony in Toronto Monday night, Dutcher began his acceptance speech in his first language, speaking to his community, before addressing the audience in English.

“Music is changing this land,” he said. “And what you see on this stage tonight, this is the future. This is what’s to come.”

The Polaris prize is considered one of the country’s most prestigious music awards. Former winners include Arcade Fire, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Kaytranada and Lido Pimienta.

“Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa” was a culmination of five years of work that involved Dutcher diving into an archive of recordings of his ancestors dating back nearly a century.

The trained operatic singer, who was raised partly in the Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick, sang the album entirely in the endangered Wolastoq language in hopes of preserving its roots.

The idea began as an offshoot of Dutcher’s degree at Dalhousie University in Halifax, where he’d switched from studying music to anthropological research on his Wolastoq community.

A suggestion by one of his elders pointed him towards a bountiful resource of information about his ancestors stored at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Que.

Dutcher has said he wanted the album to help preserve the language as he saw elders dying and few young people learning to speak it.

“To do this record in my language and have it witnessed not just by my people, but people from every nation, from coast to coast, up and down Turtle Island — we’re at the precipice of something,” he said.

Dutcher said he hopes his win marks a step in the “continuum of Indigenous excellence” that honours both the people who have come before him and the generation that follows.

A statue showing a sailor passionately kissing a nurse at the end of Second World War was vandalised with the #MeToo hashtag one day after the serviceman’s death.

The statue is based on the well known picture, V-J Day in Times Square, taken on August 14, 1945 in New York by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt.

Unconditional Surrender in Sarasota, Florida, became a new platform for the #MeToo protest movement against on Monday, when authorities found the nurse’s leg had been sprayed with #MeToo in bright red paint. 

For many, the image of George Mendonsa kissing Greta Zimmer Friedman captures the joy felt across the US on the day Japan surrendered. But the picture has recently come under scrutiny, with the kiss seen as an act of sexual assault. 

In 2005, during an interview for the Veteran’s History Project, Ms Friedman said that the kiss was non-consensual and that Mr Mendonsa "grabbed" her.  

Nevertheless, she said that she understood the kiss to be a "jubilant act" adding, "it was just an event of ‘thank god the war is over".

After Ms Zimmer’s death in 2016, her son told The New York Times that his mother did not view the kiss negatively. 

Mr Mendonsa died on Sunday, two days before his 96th birthday. 

The #MeToo movement began a debate about consent and violence against women following the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

Sarasota police shared the images of the vandalised statue, with some social media users expressing indignation at the graffiti, and others applauding the protest.

Etanda Arden’s phone used to ring constantly with calls from bill collectors.

The single mother was studying full-time at Lakehead University, paying for rent and groceries with payments from the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). She was behind by $300 every month, so she’d pay half her bills one month and half the next, never catching up.

Arden struggled with depression and anxiety.

“I found that it really affected me as a student and as a parent. I was always preoccupied, thinking about how we were going to maintain our life. And not wanting my kid to suffer either.”

Since being on Ontario’s basic income pilot project, life is different.

“It just alleviates a lot of stress,” Arden told HuffPost Canada by phone from Thunder Bay, Ont.

She said she feels like a better parent, too, now that she can afford extras like field trips for her 13-year-old daughter, Tyler-Rose.

Her experience is typical for people who enrolled in the basic income pilot, new data shows. Eighty-one per cent of participants reported moderate or severe “psychological distress,” according to a survey obtained by a recipient.

The pilot gave no-strings-attached payments to people living on low incomes in exchange for their participation in a research study. Single people living on less than $34,000 were eligible for up to $16,989 a year and couples living on less than $48,000 were eligible for as much as $24,027 a year. People who are working will see that amount reduced by 50 per cent of their income.

Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government announced in July that it would cancel the payments and the research. This baseline survey provides the first public information about the pilot’s participants. It doesn’t measure the effects of the program, but it sheds a light on who signed up. The introductory survey was completed by 5,077 participants in December 2017.

Watch HuffPost Canada’s video series on the basic income project:

The psychological distress statistic is the most significant piece of information in the survey, said Sheila Regehr, an advocate with the Basic Income Canada Network. She spent more than 30 years working with the federal government on welfare, employment insurance, pensions and poverty solutions.

“If you are distracted in your job you can’t do well. If you’re worried constantly about the daily effort to just put food on the table … you can’t be a good parent or good daughter or a good friend to somebody,” Regehr told HuffPost Canada.

That makes it harder for people on social assistance to land jobs and for people in low-wage jobs to get promotions, she said.

Regehr said she was also “struck” to see that more than 56 per cent of the participants had only a high school diploma or less.

“Education is really important and yet there are so many barriers to actually improving your education, especially for people with low income and especially for people who have had the misfortune to enter the social assistance system.”

For Arden, the stress of not having enough money almost drove her to quit university and go back to work. She decided to stay in school because she wants a different type of job than her previous minimum wage gigs at Chester Fried Chicken and Robin’s Donuts.

“If you don’t have any education, you only qualify for a minimum wage job, which I have done for years and years,” Arden said. “You can’t get ahead.”

Arden’s plans are up in the air now that basic income ends in March. She said she wanted to stay at Lakehead to get an Honours Bachelor of Arts, but that’ll take another year. So instead, she may graduate with her Bachelor of Arts this year and start the search for work.

“What they’re doing is making it harder because they’re putting back that stress and anxiety about not having any money, which is almost what made me drop out in the first place,” she said.

“I don’t know if they’re worried that people will take advantage and nothing will ever come of it. But my plan was to get as much education as I can in three years. So once the three years was up, I’d be self-sufficient. And okay.”

OKLAHOMA CITY — Single session tickets for the 2015 WBSC Junior Women’s World Championship (JWWC), which will be held August 9-15 in Oklahoma City, Okla., are available for purchase online, the Amateur Softball Association (ASA) of America and USA Softball announced today. The Junior World Championship, a World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) sanctioned event, will include 18 of the top teams in the world.

 

The following countries are scheduled to appear: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Chinese Taipei, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, United States and Venezuela.

Click here to place your order or CALL 1-800-654-8337 (8 am-4 pm CST Monday-Friday).

“We’re excited to host the WBSC Junior Women’s World Championship for the first time at the ASA Hall of Fame Complex,” said Craig Cress, Executive Director of ASA/USA Softball. “Oklahoma City is known to many as the ‘Softball Capital of the World.’ Hosting this Championship further cements that legacy. Fans of the sport will be exposed to the future stars of international softball. The single-session ticket will provide spectators the chance to see whichever games they are most interested in or come the days that best suit their schedule.”

The general admission single-session tickets will allow fans the opportunity to pick which days they plan on attending during the Championship. All single-session tickets are good for the entire day and can be picked up at ticket will-call at the ASA Hall of Fame Complex. There are no shipping options for single-session tickets.

In addition to single-session tickets, fans have the option to purchase the Gold Pass. The Gold Pass includes all-session tickets for the seven day event, official event t-shirt, and a program for the international event. This Pass also will provide fans with the opportunity to have a personalized name slide on the video board at OG&E Energy Field at the ASA Hall of Fame Stadium, with additional photo opportunities. Fans that hold the Gold Pass will also have open seating in the reserved Gold Pass section (click here to view seating chart), providing spectators the chance to see every pitch from the best seats in the house. Tickets will be shipped out in July.

The WBSC JWWC, will include some of the top teams in the world, including Team USA who will look to reclaim the Gold Medal after falling 4-0 to Japan at the 2013 WBSC JWWC in Brampton, Ontario, Canada.  This also marks the first time since 1987 that the WBSC JWWC has been held in Oklahoma City.  The complete game schedule for the WBSC JWWC will be announced at a later date.

For updates, including the future announcement of participating countries, check or the tournament website 2015JWWC.com. Fans can also visit www.wbsc.co for more information.

About ASA/USA Softball
Founded in 1933, the Amateur Softball Association (ASA)/USA Softball is the National Governing Body Softball in the United States and a member of the United States Olympic Committee. One of the nation’s largest sports organizations, ASA/USA Softball sanctions competition in every state through a network of 74 local associations and has grown from a few hundred teams in the early days to over 165,000 teams today, representing a membership of more than 2.5 million.  ASA/USA is responsible for training, equipping and promoting the six USA Softball National Teams that compete in international and domestic competitions. The USA Softball Women’s National Team is one of only two women’s sports involved in the Olympic movement to capture three consecutive gold medals at the Olympic Games since 1996. The U.S. women have also won nine World Championship titles as well as claimed eight World Cup of Softball titles. For more information about ASA/USA Softball, please visit http://www.asausasoftball.com/.

 

About the World Baseball Softball Confederation

Headquartered in the Olympic Capital city of Lausanne, Switzerland, the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) was established in April 2013 and granted recognition as the sole competent authority in baseball and softball by the International Olympic Committee at the 125th IOC Session in September 2013. The WBSC represents a united baseball/softball sports movement that encompasses over 65 million athletes worldwide. The WBSC governs all international competitions involving any of the National Teams of its 141 National Federation members.  The WBSC oversees the Softball World Championships, The Premier 12, the World Baseball Classic, and the U12, U15, U18, U21 and Women’s Baseball World Cups.  For further information, please go to www.WBSC.co or follow the WBSC on Twitter at @WBSC_co

— Courtesy of ASA/USA Softball

Tufts Still Tops NFCA Division III Top 25

April 4, 2019 | News | No Comments

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — For the eighth week this season and the 11th consecutive week overall, unbeaten two-time defending national champion Tufts University is the unanimous choice atop the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Division III Top 25 softball rankings.

 

Tufts (16-0) swept Babson in its only games last week to extend its win streak to 18 games. The Jumbos have now won 49 of their last 50 and have received all eight first-place votes going back to last April. They have been ranked No. 1 in 12 of the last 15 polls and 17 of the last 21.

Texas-Tyler (25-1) suffered its first loss of the season to No. 3 East Texas Baptist (17-2), but took two of three in that series and had a 5-1 week overall to wrest the No. 2 spot from last year’s Division III runner-up Salisbury (20-3). The Sea Gulls were swept by new No. 15 Christopher Newport (19-6) in a 2-2 week to drop to sixth after holding at least a share of the No. 2 spot for the past nine weeks, going back to May 30, 2014.

The Captains’ two wins over Salisbury were part of a 4-0 week and eight-game win streak that moved them up six places in the poll. Luther (25-1) lost its first game on Monday against Wisconsin-Stevens Point, while Rowan (25-0) remained unbeaten to each continue their climb up the rankings, to fourth and fifth, respectively.

Virginia Wesleyan (22-4) added four more wins to go from 11th to sixth, while No. 13 Central (23-6) extended its win streak to seven games to gain another three places this week.

Texas Lutheran (26-4) — which has won 23 straight games — debuts appropriately in the No. 23 spot, while Birmingham-Southern (22-6-1) — the winner of 14 of its last 15 — picked up its first votes of the season. Lake Forest (18-4) returns in the receiving votes category following an one-week hiatus on the strength of a 4-0 week and eight-game win streak.

Four schools — No. 10 North Central (15-1), No. 11 Wisconsin-Whitewater (15-3), No. 18 Augustana (18-7-1) and No. 19 Rochester (10-7) — picked up two spots apiece this week.

Simpson (22-6) tumbled 12 places to No. 22 following an 1-3 week, while last week’s No. 24 Kean (12-5), and No. 25 schools George Fox (24-8) and The College of New Jersey (12-6) dropped out of the rankings entirely.

The NFCA Division III Top 25 Poll is selected by eight NCAA Division III head coaches representing the eight NCAA regions. Current records are listed, with first-place votes in parentheses.

For the complete poll, click HERE

Be aware that SPOILERS are ahead for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Continue at your own peril.

Creator J.K. Rowling is known for adding intense plot twists in the Harry Potter universe, and the narrative for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is no different.

At the end of the film, the kind-hearted and upbeat Queenie Goldstein, portrayed by Alison Sudol, can be seen joining Grindelwald on the “dark side,” shocking everyone but herself.

In an interview with EW, Sudol spoke about her character’s twist, and why she understands the decision Queenie makes.

Sudol first heard about Queenie’s eventual change while promoting the first Fantastic Beasts film, and like fans reactions, was shocked.

“I was like, wait, how did this happen?” Sudol said. “It took a long time in my imagination to even begin to understand. And throughout the course of the film, to just begin to reconcile who she was in the beginning with the choices that she makes and realize she isn’t a different person she’s just abandoned in a really untenable circumstance.”

“I feel like in some ways she’s too there and that’s part of the problem,” Sudol continued. “She’s tapping into all human beings at all times and that’s a lot for one person to hold and everybody closest to her is always going, ‘Don’t read my mind.’ So she has a huge power and yet is made to feel like she’s nothing and that’s bad. That could make anyone feel crazy. And women historically have this huge intuition and have been punished for that intuition forever. How many women have been in a mental institution because they’ve been called crazy when they’re just not allowed to be honest or be who they are?”

Warner Bros.

In terms of why Queenie stepped through the blue flames to join Grindelwald in his circle, she explains that came down to her feeling abandoned by those closest to her.

“Jacob doesn’t come with her,” Sudol said. “It’s not so much about Jacob not coming with her to the dark side, it’s like, ‘Jacob, walk with me, we’re in this together.’ And she doesn’t have those two, so who does she have? Newt’s kind of betrayed her — he called her out, it was embarrassing. What does she have?”

Overall, Sudol thinks Queenie is going to fight for what’s right, but that right now, Grindelwald is the only one giving her hope – even though he’s really just trying to manipulate her.

“I still believe in her heart of hearts she’s going over to fight what she believes in,” she said. “Grindelwald is saying, ‘we’re creating a different world’ and the world that she is in is broken. I don’t believe she’s turning evil. It’s more like she’s trying to find somebody who is giving her an option. He’s manipulating her but he’s manipulating everybody. He even did that with Dumbledore.”

For more on the second installment in the Fantastic Beasts franchise, read our review of The Crimes of Grindelwald, and find out how Ezra Miller completely misunderstood the film’s plot twist at first, and why the cameo of Professor McGonagall has fans upset.

Jessie Wade is a Ravenclaw news writer for IGN, but is also part Hufflepuff. Follow her on Twitter @jessieannwade and let her know which house you were sorted into on Pottermore.

Note: This blog contains spoilers.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from “Crazy Rich Asians.”

In case you haven’t read up on the hype, the movie is kind of a big deal as far as diverse representation goes (and a big deal, full stop, given how it smashed box office expectations on its opening weekend). It’s the first mainstream Hollywood feature film with an all-Asian cast in 25 years.

On Sunday, I went to my hometown of Markham, Ont. to watch it with my mom, you know, for the culture. Despite the hype, I didn’t really expect to love it as much as I did.

The experience of watching it was a bit surreal. I almost forgot the cast was all Asian. Rather than searching for the faintest glimmer of representation — the Asian sidekick, the nerd, or some other stereotype or trope — all of the main and supporting characters were Asians from different backgrounds. It was the first time in my life where I watched a movie and wasn’t searching for the token Asian character and how they may or may not be a trope or stereotype.

Although my mom definitely liked it too, and teared up about three or four times while watching, she essentially admitted she didn’t feel the same elated, warm, fuzzy fullness the movie left me with.

My mom and I are blood, but our experiences as youth resulted in our differences. I’m from Markham, Ont.— a city of 330,000 just north of Toronto with no racial majority, but a massive East Asian population. I grew up with many other Chinese classmates, but none who shared my particular heritage: Hakka Chinese, with parents who were born and raised in Jamaica, not China or Hong Kong. I was often told I was “not real Chinese” because I spoke English at home and didn’t speak Cantonese.

That rejection from my peers made me embarrassed by my culture, and I shunned cultural (read: delicious) foods and opportunities to learn more about my lineage. Until I was in my early twenties, I desperately want to be “Canadian.” Despite my family owning a Jamaican restaurant and maintaining deep ties to the Jamaican-Chinese community, I only sought out books, media and pop culture that was Western and overwhelmingly white.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve developed a greater appreciation for my heritage. Moving to Ottawa — a wonderful city, but far less diverse than my Toronto-area suburb — and being forced into the cultural isolation made me wish I knew more about myself, especially when I was asked to share with others.

The beautiful thing about “Crazy Rich Asians” is how well the movie illustrates the experiences of second-gens like me. For many second-gens, our lives are made up of blended ideas; the ones we choose to keep from our parents and those we accept from the country in which we are born and raised.

My mom, on the other hand, grew up in Kingston, Jamaica. While she was hardly one of a majority, Jamaica in the 1960s had a sizeable Chinese population, many of them Hakka. My mom, her brothers and their first cousins are only one generation removed from China and Hong Kong, where their parents are from. My mother understands Hakka Chinese, grew up eating the foods whose names I don’t know in English, and had (and still has) many Hakka friends.

My parents came to Canada as teenagers, and both have a lot of Western cultural references from their youth. My mom, for example, was a mullet-sporting punk in the 80s who listened to Billy Idol and went to regular showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show when she attended the University of Western Ontario.

But both my parents, whether by circumstance or choice, maintained stronger ties to their culture than I ever did. It was presumably less important to them to see themselves reflected on screen. They assimilated without losing their culture, which remained a pervasive force in their lives even after they immigrated.

The movie does have a lot of appeal for different generations, and I’d recommend seeing it with your mom too, if you can. Even though I’d argue it had more impact for me, the jokes and tear-jerking moments are commentaries on the family life we have together. And for those who don’t share the same experiences of making dumplings or playing mahjong, it’s a poignant, much-needed glimpse into aspects of a culture that are sometimes hard to describe.

Born And Raised is an ongoing series by HuffPost Canada that shares the experiences of second-generation Canadians. Part reflection, part storytelling, this series on the children of immigrants explores what it means to be born and raised in Canada. We want to hear your stories — join the conversation on Twitter at #BornandRaised or send us an email at [email protected].