DIVERSITY has always been a part of my life

Diversity photo from July 2019 Ensign

I guess I am very lucky that all my life I have lived with people of diversity.

From the day I was born I  lived with people of all colors, creeds and religions  and never once has it been a problem for me. Quite the contrary it has been an advantage.

I have two aboriginal children and my son married a Chinese woman.

DENMARK 1937-1966

Danes helping Jews escape to Sweden

I was born and raised in Denmark and never once did I hear any negative comments about people of other races, religions, creeds or colors. Everybody was just people.

Nor did my parents or anybody I know speak negative about people because their skin had a different color.

We lived through the war where the Danish people helped a lot of Jews escape to Sweden.  We learned to have compassion for the Jews.

Yes, it is true that at that time black people were called “Negros ”, but we never thought about that name as a derogatory name.  It was just a name.

LETHBRIDGE - CANADA – ALBERTA 1966

Linda with her friend Aurie - a native girl

There were “some diversity” in Alberta, Canada where we first lived when I immigrated, but not much except for aboriginal people. At that time, they were called "Indians and nobody thought it was a bad or negative name.

As a matter of fact, our main reason for immigrating to Canada was to adopt an aboriginal boy, which we did. My daughter Linda was so excited about her little brother and she made best friend with an aboriginal girl “Aurie”.

I am also proud to say that later another aboriginal gal came in to my life at the age of 11.  She is still hanging around now at the age of 54 with five children and eight grandchildren.

I love my two kids and my "aboriginal grandchildren".

CASTLEGAR, BRITISH COLUMBIA 1967-1974

Photo I took of my daughter Linda - bottom to the right - with her friend Charlotte, my little son Harly, with some Russian Douhkebors and two LDS missionaries.

After we adopted our boy, we moved to Castlegar, British Columbia. Castlegar at that time had a large population of Doukhobors- which were people who had fled Russia around 1910 – before the 2017 revolution.

There was an offshoot of the Doukhobors, called “The Sons of Freedom”. Except for being a little shocked when “The Son’s Of Freedom”’s wives were walking downtown in Castlegar naked to demonstrate against the Doukhobors, we enjoyed these Russian people.

As a matter of fact, when we moved to Blueberry Creek – a little subdivision – our next-door neighbor was Doukhobor.

TRAIL, BRITISH COLUMBIA

We had a 20 minute drive to Trail from Castlegar where we had a music store “Columbia Music” for seven years. Trail was also diverse.  It was built by Italians. Unfortunately, many of them died from working at Comingo.

VANCOUVER. RICHMOND and SURREY, BRITISH COLUMBIA

I lived in Vancouver from 1992-1997 and at that time 50% of Vancouver and RICHMOND at that time were about 80 Chinese. 

Most of the populations of Surrey were East Indians. It is called "Little India".

I never though about it.  That was “just the way it was”.

I made very good friends with a young woman from Mexico when I lived in Vancouver.
We are still friends.  As a matter of fact I went to visit her in Mexico.

CALGARY, ALBERTA

I lived in Calgary many year and of course Calgary is known for their Cowboys with the biggest cowboy show in the world.  Nevertheless, Calgary by now also have people from all over the world.

When I lived in Huntington by Center street, I lived close to big Super store on  Center street. Most of the customers there were Chinese. As a matter of fact I enjoyed being able to purchase food from all different countries.

I believe that Canada enjoy the diversity of their population.  It is extremely seldom that you hear the world racism.  As a matter of fact the first Muslim mayor in the western world lived in Calgary.

LETHBRIDGE, ALBERTA

Hutterite women selling their vegetables at the Farmers Market

Even though Lethbridge only have a population of 100.000, it is very versatile with people from many countries. We have a lot of Hutterites and Mennonites here.

There are different kinds of Mennonites. I have been lucky getting to know a young "low German" Mennonite girl in Stirling.

I have also been so lucky as to have a East Indian student staying with me.  She has taught me how to make Samosa and other East Indian dishes.

I believe people are all the same all over the world, no matter our color, religion or creed and it is very sad to see the hurt that a lot of people have to go through, just because of the color of their skin or difference in religion.

Vibeke Lindhardt

2 August 2019