Asian Heritage Month is “a time to reflect on and recognize the many contributions that people of Asian origin have made and continue to make to Canada.” May is dedicated to celebrating the diversity—the many languages, ethnicities and religious traditions—of the East Asian, South Asian, Western, Central and Southeast Asian Canadians who are so integral to our province and country’s rich cultural heritage and society. We have four stories from Alberta’s magazines that celebrate Canada’s diverse Asian heritage. 

This year, we recognize the need for commemoration alongside celebration, in light of the tragic deaths at the Lapu Lapu festival on April 27, 2025 in Vancouver. Ayra Bukhari, president of the University of Calgary Filipino Students’ Association, emphasized in The Calgary Herald that even as the community grieves there is a need to continue the festival’s celebration of Filipino culture: “The Philippines and Filipinos just love to celebrate that we’re resilient and can thrive even through hard times.” You can support the broader Filipino community, and join in the celebration of a vibrant culture, by visiting one of the many Filipino restaurants in Calgary, as shared by Avenue in their Calgary’s Best Restaurants 2025 series.

The title of The Polyglot’s Issue 11 is 用心 (yong sum) in Cantonese, meaning “using your heart together with your head,” and is inspired by the three-way collaborate translation between Kathryn Gwun-Yeen 君妍 Lennon, Wai-Ling Lennon 姚慧玲, and Yilin Wang 王艺霖. This issue features work that incorporates an impressive seventeen languages: Anishnaabemowin, Afrikaans, Arabic, Belarusian, Cantonese, Efik, English, French, Galician, isiXhosa, K’iche’, Mandarin, nêhiyawêwin, Persian, Russian, Setswana, and Tagalog. 

Galleries West features the work of Afghan-Canadian artist Hangama Amiri, and her exhibition PARTING/فراق that was recently at the Esker Foundation in Calgary. Her multimedia work—a blend of painting, printmaking, and textile techniques—is inspired by her homeland. Amiri’s work, writes Lissa Robinson, “highlights the enduring bonds between loved ones across distance and time. These richly nuanced narratives–stitched together with love, loss, and longing–open a space for viewers to reflect on the complexities and challenges of the Afghan diaspora through enduring concepts of home, memory, identity and belonging.”

In a filling Station interview with Dr. Lily Cho, University of Alberta alumna and scholar, we learn about her work on the reissued book Cattle by Chinese Canadian novelist Winnifred Eaton (1875-1954) about ranching life in southern Alberta. Dr. Cho’s introduction to the new edition describes “how revolutionary it would have been to introduce explicitly Asian characters and Asian material in fiction for a broad readership at that time.”

This is of course just a small sample of all there is to learn and celebrate about Canada’s Asian heritage!