Mesatizaje

What would Calgary, Alberta or even Canada look like 5, 10 or even 20 years from now, without a strong vibrant Latino community?

This  is a provocative question, and one I would never have asked myself as a young white Calgarian growing up in a pulsating town of 400, 000 other white Calgarians. I never had the experience of meeting blacks, Asians, or Latinos until I left Calgary for 25 years of travel and education in diverse towns and regions like Omsk, Manila, Gdansk, Tbilisi, Daejon, Iserlohn, and some very small Japanese villages.

Upon my return to Calgary 2 years ago, I noticed an astonishing change in Calgary’s complexion – a Latino community had sprouted up from nowhere – and had begun to be accepted by the locals. Quite a change for me, the last time I visited Calgary, 10 years previously, with my now Korean ex-wife, we were stared at, pointed at, and talked about as we strolled down Stephen Avenue Mall hand in hand; an unnerving feeling to have.

This feeling of uneasiness in one’s own culture, and the changing face of Calgary’s ethnic blend was a topic of discussion last Sunday over a bottle of wine with some of my new Latino friends. Dair, a Temporary Foreign Worker from Mexico and now unemployed, introduced me to a wine called Mesatizaje. He explained that Mesatizaje has a particular connotation in Spanish – a mixture of 2 or more cultures producing a completely new culture, or as in this case, a mixture of 2 or more varieties of grapes producing a delicious full bodied wine.