I arrived in Canada with an English polished to near perfection—not by chance, but by survival. Back home, I had trained myself to speak without a Filipino accent because I had seen what happened to those who didn’t. The way their words were met with laughter, the way their intelligence was measured not by what they said but by how they said it. I learned to soften my vowels, to round my r’s, to listen closely to how native speakers formed their sentences so that I could do the same.
It worked, mostly. People didn’t ask me to repeat myself. They didn’t tilt their heads, trying to place my accent. But the cost of that effort never left me. Even now, when I introduce myself, when I speak in meetings, when I pitch my writing, there’s always a part of me that’s watching, guarding, making sure I sound like I belong. Because I know that if I slip, if I reveal too much of where I come from, I risk being othered.
That is why Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) matters to me. It’s why I have been watching, with growing unease, the backlash against it.
In the United States, the backlash against DEI is open and aggressive. Laws banning DEI offices in universities, corporations cutting diversity programs overnight, politicians railing against “woke ideology”—as though fairness and inclusion were acts of radicalism. The fight is loud there, unavoidable.
In Canada, the fight is quieter. A murmur rather than a roar. The policies haven’t been slashed—not yet—but the sentiment is shifting. It’s probably just a matter of time before boardrooms and hiring panels say phrases like We don’t want to focus too much on identity or Shouldn’t we just hire the most qualified person?
As though fairness and diversity cannot coexist.
As though we haven’t spent decades being told we are not quite the right fit for rooms that were never meant to include us in the first place.
It’s easy to say that the backlash is about protecting meritocracy, about making sure “everyone gets a fair chance.” But whose fairness are we talking about?
I think about the Filipino nurses who filled Canadian hospitals at the height of the pandemic, their accents mocked even as their hands saved lives. I think about the immigrants who scrub the floors of downtown office towers, their contributions invisible to the men in suits who argue that DEI is unnecessary. I think about the young queer kid, new to this country, sitting in a classroom where no one looks like them, waiting for a world that makes space for them to exist without apology.
I think about myself—applying for jobs, sitting in waiting rooms where my worth is measured not by what I bring but by how seamlessly I can disappear into the backdrop.
If DEI is eliminated, it won’t be with fire and brimstone. It will happen in boardrooms where people like me are never considered for the job. It will happen in classrooms where racialized students stop seeing themselves in leadership positions. It will happen in silence, in the closing of doors, in the slow and steady erasure of the progress we fought so hard for.
And no one will have to take responsibility for it.
I am not naïve. I know that diversity makes people uncomfortable. I know that equity requires more than just good intentions. But I also know what happens when we stop trying.
DEI isn’t about taking opportunities away from anyone—it’s about making sure that people like me, people who don’t fit the old mould, finally have a chance to be seen, heard, and valued.
There was a time when I believed that my ability to speak English without an accent would be enough, that if I worked hard enough, wrote well enough, I could belong. But belonging isn’t something you earn through performance. It’s something that is either granted or denied.
The people attacking DEI want us to believe that diversity is a threat. But the real threat is a world where only certain voices matter. And that’s a world we should all refuse to accept.
Renato Gandia 