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Scolded for eating Pinoy way, Fil-Canadian boy wins case vs school


CHICAGO – A Filipino-Canadian boy reprimanded by his teacher for eating with fork and spoon has won the discrimination case he and his parents filed against his school in Quebec, its principal and his teacher. In a decision dated April 21 by Quebec Human Rights Tribunal Judge Michele Rivet, 11-year-old Luc Joachim Cagadoc and his mother Maria Gallardo were awarded 17,000 Canadian dollars (over P750,000) in moral and punitive damages. Luc, who was born in Manila but went to Canada at the age of nine months, was reprimanded by his teacher, Martine Bertrand, for eating in the Filipino customary way with fork and spoon in school in 2006. “For the family and Montreal's Filipino community, the decision is a victory for Filipinos in Canada and the rest of the world. For CRARR, the decision reaffirms educational institutions' legal responsibility in matters of discrimination," said Fo Niemi, executive director of human rights advocacy group Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR).


In May 2006, CRARR filed a complaint with the Quebec Human Rights Commission on behalf of Gallardo, who complained that her son suffered discriminatory remarks and treatment at Lalande school, part of the Marguerite Bourgeoys School Board, for eating with a fork and spoon. Bertrand reportedly said Luc's eating habit was "disgusting" and "dirty." When Gallardo brought the situation to the attention of school principal Norman Bergeron, she was reportedly told, "You are in Canada and you should eat the way Canadians eat." The principal was also quoted in a local newspaper that he didn't like the manner Cagadoc ate. "I want them [students] to eat intelligently at the table," he was quoted as saying. In its decision, the Tribunal recognized that Luc had been singled out on at least two occasions because of how he eats. It also found that the seven-year-old boy at the time saw the treatment as being connected to his ethnic origin. “The words used by Ms. Bertrand confirmed Luc's feelings of shame toward his ethnic origin and reinforced the idea that he had been isolated because of his culturally specific way of eating," Rivet wrote in the decision. In addition, the Tribunal recognized that the school board had failed in its duty to implement its policy of integration and intercultural education. Last March, CRARR also won another victory against the Marguerite-Bourgeoys School Board on behalf of a student of Latino-Iranian origin who was removed from a Spanish class because of his ethnic origin without any assessment of his language skills, and harassed by the deputy principal until he eventually dropped out. The Commission recommended $20,000 in damages, and the case is now before the Human Rights Tribunal. —JA/KBK/HGS, GMANews.TV
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