First Person | The irony of living in the ‘Texas of Canada’ as a Black woman is not lost on me

I was 19 years old when I first heard about Amber Valley.

I was sitting in my Middle Eastern and African studies class in university when my professor casually mentioned a settlement right here in Alberta — one of the largest Black settlements in Western Canada. In my subsequent research, I was floored to realize that this settlement was only a two-hour drive from Edmonton.

How had I never heard of this place or these people? Sure, they weren’t ancestors by blood, but we shared an ancestral journey — a similar unlikely quest that my parents and so many other Ethiopian immigrants that settled on the Prairies shared in.

I understand that when others refer to this place as the “Texas of Canada,” it’s more to do with our staunchly conservative politics. I agree on that count. But there’s also an accidental invocation in that moniker.

One of the great lies and legacies of white supremacy is two-fold. First, we were made to believe that the southern states are somehow more inherently racist and unforgiving for Black folks than the north. Second, when we look at the southern states today with disdain, the Black families and communities that have made homes, cultures and places have been erased from our collective memory and official records . This same erasure happens in Canada with Black people on the Prairies.

It’s a common refrain that there are no Black people out here. To be Black on the Prairies is to be both the secret and the secret-keeper.