Gurpreet:

The early days of the Punjabi Market were a special moment in time. But not everything was sweet like gulab jamans. Those days were also marred by murders and domestic abuses, including a shooting at the Skeena Temple.

In fact, there was a Feminist March that was held in the area, and to tell us more about it is Daisy Kler, a community advocate and organizer of this movement.

Daisy:

My name's Daisy Kler. I work at the multicultural family center within Reach Community
Health Clinic.

I started a group called the South Asian Women Against Male Violence. Probably about six months before we held the rally here in Little India. And we...I decided that we needed a particular voice, which is the South Asian women's voice, because there had been a spat of attacks on South Asian women. Most of the attacks ended up in murder and they were domestic violence cases. And so there was a lot of media frenzy and a lot of discussion that...I found [was] racialized, and quite racist actually, about South Asian men being particularly violent; [and] this being a problem in the South Asian community.

And so, I wanted to be a voice and have a voice as a South Asian feminist, and to speak out against that, but also to challenge south Asian men to not be complacent and to speak out about violence against women, and to obviously not perpetuate violence against women. So a group of us organized the South Asian Woman Against Male Violence, and then another attack happened — and these were quite brutal.

One woman was found...her burned body was found in a car. Another one was stabbed multiple times. One woman was blinded. So these were quite severe. And so we decided to hold a rally. And that's how it started.

There has been a long history of a feminist movement in Vancouver and South Asian women have always been a part of it. India Mahila Association started in the early seventies. Where I was working at the time, Vancouver Rape Relief, had started in the seventies. So there was a lot of strong backing for the anti-violence movement. So, when we created the South Asian women against male violence, we had great allies. And we wanted to be in the heart of what we called little India at the time — now the Punjabi Market — and we wanted to be here because it was our space.

What violence against women tells women is be silent, don't take up space, don't talk, don't be in a public area and we wanted to rebel against that. We wanted to say we're strong, we're here, we have a voice — and we also wanted to challenge the racist and sexist ideas within the media and the South Asian community. And so we held the rally here without permission. We just picked a spot and called our allies together to hear what we had to say.

It was a warm April day, unusually warm, actually. I remember getting here and being nervous. Our stage was basically a pallet, one of those wooden pallets, and we had a portable mic. It was very grassroots done quite quickly. We knew that it was going to be marking the anniversary of the Gakhal massacre, or the Vernon massacre. Where an ex-husband killed his ex-wife and her family when they were at a wedding...celebrating a wedding. And so for us, that date meant something.

The weather really cooperated with us. I remember feeling really, really proud because the South Asian community and organizers came out. So we had, you know, members of India Mahila Association, Raminder Dosanjh, Harjeet, Ujjal Dosnajh, Sharn Gill and a lot of political activists from the South Asian community came to acknowledge that this was a political moment and that we needed to do something about it.

I remember the restaurant setting up a table and bringing out chai for everybody. We didn't ask them to do that, it was a very nice gesture that they did that for us.

And lots of media. I probably took 26 media calls that day. So we had a lot of interest even though it was called together very quickly, there were probably about 70 to a hundred people. And we invited also other allies like the Asian Women's Coalition Against Prostitution — spoke about Asian specific violence — India Mahila and the South Asian Women Against Male Violence

Feminism is part of the South Asian community and I wanted all of that to be a model for other women to come forward, to organize, to speak out. My grandfather came here in 1905 so my family has a long history in Vancouver; specifically East Vancouver. And I think as the prices here in Vancouver become higher and higher for real estate, Immigrant communities that are starting out are being pushed out. But there has always been a long and strong history of South Asian organizing, South Asian community in Vancouver. And the market has always played a role in having South Asians feel like they have a place that's their own.

Gurpreet:

Thank you Daisy.

Food and fashion were always two of the biggest draws of the Punjabi Market.