Vincent Asquiro is from the Taku River Tlingit First Nation and identifies with the term two-spirit. He travels frequently but resides in Atlin during the Atlin Music Festival in British Columbia, where he runs a successful restaurant just outside of the festival grounds during the summers.
Click play below to hear Vincent introduce himself:
There are many people who ascribe to the nation Tlingit. Their traditional territories span across the Yukon. Importantly, there are many different nations under the name Tlingit.
Click play below to hear Vincent explain this:
The traditional territory of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation is actually just under the Yukon, with a focus on the Taku River. The Taku River runs from British Columbia, Canada, to the northwestern coast of North America, at Juneau, Alaska. The river is 27,500 square kilometres and is known for having a very productive salmon population. Coincidentally, Vincent's restaurant is known for its salmon burgers. According to the Taku River Tlingit First Nation, the First Nation is a small remote community of approximately 400 people. Their territory spans 40,000 square kilometres and crosses borders with British Columbia, Yukon, and Alaska. The territory is known for high mountains, forests rich with wildlife, and salmon-filled wild rivers. This is where Vince, his family, and his people are from.
Vincent says he knew he was different from his friends around ten or eleven-years-old.
Click play below to hear Vincent discuss his sexuality, and two-spirit history:
Vincent says he came out officially at 16. When telling his father about his sexuality, his father said he'd been waiting for Vince to come out to him. He said he'd known since Vince was about five-years-old.
"I just about fell off the couch," Vince says, "it was a bit anti-climactic. He told me he loved me no matter what. It was an amazing experience." Vincent has a close relationship with his father who helps him with setting up the restaurant around festival season. Unfortunately, Vincent's father was in residential school.
Click play below to hear Vincent talk about his father's experience and participating in a resurgence of his culture:
He says being two-spirit means he's set apart in ways other than being First Nation, or of being just gay. He says being two-spirit means there's a duality within him and he walks in two worlds.
"Bringing back my culture, bringing back some of that history, and First Nations history specifically towards two-spirit culture and history, is really important to me," he says.
Vincent says he witnessed kids who are two-spirit getting picked on. He got picked on too, but he says his family and close friends were his pillars of support. He says he sees people like him without those supports struggle with addiction and poverty.
"A lot of the times it has something to do with not having people there for them. It's very prevalent. I was just extremely lucky that my family was so supportive," he says.
While Vincent could get to a place of understanding with his family, he says there needs to be more empathy and understanding within Canada.
Click play below to hear Vincent's thoughts on reconciliation:
Vincent has been a part of reconciliation efforts at the Atlin Music Festival in British Columbia which happens every summer. This year, he was a part of an effort to bring a blanket exercise to the festival.
A blanket exercise is a phenomenon which involves people standing on blankets which have been laid out in a particular manner to represent the lands inhabited by Indigenous people in Canada before contact.
Throughout the exercise, more and more blankets are taken away as a facilitator narrates the process of colonization and assimilation which robbed Indigenous people of their land. Vincent says the blanket exercise is an important tangible practice of empathy and understanding, which is why he helped bring it to the Atlin Music Festival.
Click play below to hear Vincent talk about the blanket exercise:
Vince says he is a part of reconciliation and inclusion efforts not only at the festival but also everywhere possible in his own life. He is very active in his community and always tries to be a mentor and leader to those around him.
Click play below to hear Vincent's advice to Indigenous people like him:
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