My name is Hiroyasu Percival Chávez Sakano also known as Inti Amaterasu. I am an immigrant. I have been a guest on this land since 1980, at the age of 4. Although I have never felt at home, or welcomed by the demographic group in power. I have stayed here for many a year, because of hope. A false hope.
I am from Peru. I am multiracial. My mother is from a tiny island in the most northern part of the most northern part of Japan. My grandfather in Japan was an engineer, and a former officer of the imperial Japanese army. A colonizer. My grandfather in Peru, is a mix of the native peoples of the land, the Incas, and their Spaniard conquistadors. My last name of Chávez can be traced to a city in, now Portugal. I have a complicated relationship with colonization. I would not exist if not for it, but my existence does not justify what was wrought upon the world. If my existence ceasing could decolonize Turtle Island, I would gladly give it up.
We left Peru, according to the adults that brought me here, because Peru was an unsafe terrible place. My young, 4-year-old brain couldn’t help but wonder, if it is such a place, why are we leaving family behind? I understand my parents’ choice. It was not necessarily illogical but why then are we leaving family behind? I believe the core of my anxiety is having survivors’ guilt. It has manifested itself, with the help of mentally abusive parents, and a nation of racists, into massive anxiety, agoraphobic with panic disorder. It is something that since its diagnosis, I have brought under control with medication and lifestyle. Though lately, it has become much worse. A genocide of an indigenous group, being document by human rights groups, the UN, and even genocidal oppressors, who seem to enjoy outing themselves on social media as war criminals, will test anyone’s mental fortitude.
We gave up everything coming to these lands, and with it I learned that to be a citizen of these lands is to adopt the sin of these lands. To understand that although I am not of these lands, I will bring it upon myself to make right the injustices held to the original people of these lands.
My daughter, who is first nations via her mother, also suffers from anxiety. She is no longer able to go to school because of it. Because of the genocide. Because of the monsters that allow this to continue, and worse, fund it. Even my non-verbal autistic son can feel our mutual anguish. I cannot face them and tell them that this nation we live in, is not only guilty of genocide of her ancestors, but are now doing it again. I can’t imagine any Canadian facing an indigenous person and proclaiming that this genocide is acceptable, but they do.
When it comes down to basic human dignity, Canada has failed me, and you, and despite no longer being of such things… I can no longer be affiliated with this. Thus, I have decided to start the process of renouncing my Canadian citizenship. I will not become a monster.
