Queeribbean

In the final episode of Season 3, Hema and Shaharah Gaznabbi, a Toronto-based Indo-Caribbean theatre creator and drag performer, talk about the history, language, and cultural nuances of being queer in the Caribbean diaspora, how colonization has shaped attitudes towards queeribbean folks, and the evolving acceptance within communities and families.

Shaharah shares their personal coming out experience, their role as the Chair of the Indo-Caribbean Canadian Association’s group EPIC (Equality and Pride for Indo-Caribbeans), and provides some insight into acceptable language in the LGBTQ+ community and relclaiming the term ‘queer’.

About Shaharah: Shaharah "Gaz" Gaznabbi (They/Them) is an ACTRA & Equity Actor, Playwright, Puppeteer, Comedian, Deviser, Dramaturg, Drag Artist, (you name it!) based in Toronto.

They were an Artist-In-Residence at Tarragon Theatre as a recipient of the Ellen Ross Stuart Award, and was part of Tarragon Theatre’s Young Playwrights Unit. Shaharah received The Neurodiverse Review's Birds of Paradise Emerging Talent Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2023, where they presented their solo-show "What Can Indian Look Like? Can It Look Caribbean?". They have also received TO Live’s “Best of Fringe”, as well as the Canadian Green Alliance’s “Greenest In The Fringe” at the Toronto Fringe Festival 2025 for their solo puppet filled musical comedy “My Pet Lizard, Liz: The Shakespearean Existential Crisis that Led to his Ultimate Demise”. They additionally received the inaugural Gerda Hynatyshyn Launch Grant for English Theatre.

Recent Credits: Noor in Season 3 of CBC's run The Burbs, Ontario and US tour of "Jungle book" Directed by Rick Miller & Craig Francis, 4 city tour of “Quest for The Moon, and 5 city tour of “Old Man and the River” both with WeeFestival.

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Shaharah's current work:

BrOWN//Out Stage at Toronto Pride 2026

Go-Between Girl (Audiobook Narration) by Andrea Gunraj

Belly Button at Toronto Fringe 2026

Cheers! The ORDA Podcast

Indo-Caribbean Canadian Association

Resources

Wotless info and tickets

An Ordinary Landscape of Violence by Preity R. Kumar

Guy Anabella

377: The British colonial law that left an anti-LGBTQ legacy in Asia

Episodes referenced

Indo-Caribbean Canadian Culture & Community with Ryan Singh

The role of the British Royals in the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Dr. Brooke N. Newman discusses her book The Crown's Silence: The Hidden History of the British Monarchy and Slavery in the Americas in which she explores the British monarchy's involvement in slavery and the transatlantic slave trade.

Spanning hundreds of years and drawing on thousands of pages of archival records, the book starts with Queen Elizabeth I, the first British monarch to knowingly invest in and profit from the transatlantic slave trade and brings us all the way to present day. In this episode, Brooke shares her thoughts on the actions that the Crown, King Charles, and the British government can take to acknowledge this history and respond to the call for reparations.

About Brooke N. Newman

Dr. Brooke Newman is an Associate Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She specializes in the history of early modern Britain and the British Atlantic, with a focus on slavery and its legacies. She is the author of the award-winning book, A Dark Inheritance: Blood, Race, and Sex in Colonial Jamaica (Yale, 2018) and The Crown's Silence: The Hidden History of the British Monarchy and Slavery in the Americas (Mariner, 2026). Her writing and research have been featured in the Guardian, the Washington Post, Der Spiegel, and Smithsonian Magazine, and she has served as a historical expert for HBO's Last Week Tonight, Vox, the BBC, and NPR, among others.

Website

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Bluesky

Resources

The Royal Archives

Georgian Papers Programme

The Spirit of Laws

Slave Voyages database

The Interest: How the British Establishment Resisted the Abolition of Slavery,, Michael Taylor

Padraic X. Scanlan

The Whiteness of Wealth, Dorothy Brown

Episodes Referenced

Slave Voyages: Documenting the Transatlantic Slave Trade

The Repair Campaign: Caribbean Reparations Explained

Exploring Caribbean migration experiences and barrel children through short stories

In this episode, Hema talks to Chanel Sutherland about her first book, Layaway Child, a collection of short stories exploring the Caribbean immigrant experience.

Chanel shares her personal journey of being a ‘layaway child’ (often called barrel children), growing up in St. Vincent and the Grenadines with her grandparents while her mother migrated to Montreal, Quebec (Canada) to set up a new life for her family, and travelling with her younger sister to reunite with their mother.

The discussion delves into the themes of sacrifice, resilience, and the impact of colonial legacies, and the emotional complexities of family relationships once children migrate to reunite with their parents in a new country.

Chanel weaves her own experiences into this collection of short stories, as well as those of people she has met. From colourism to the cultural silence in Caribbean families and seeming lack of emotion, to the importance of community and empathy in understanding the immigrant experience, she encourages open dialogue about the emotional toll of migration.

Chanel Sutherland

Born in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Chanel Sutherland moved to Montreal, Quebec (Canada) when she was ten years old. She holds a BA in English Literature from Concordia University. Her first book, Layaway Child, is a collection of short stories exploring the Caribbean immigrant experience, especially those dealing with girlhood.

She is the winner of the 2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize, and the 2021 CBC Nonfiction Prize.

In addition, she was awarded the 2022 Mariruth Sarsfield Mentorship, longlisted for the 2022 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and shortlisted for the Max Margles Fiction Prize. Chanel was also included on the CBC Books 30 Writers to Watch list for 2022.

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Layaway Child is a luminous debut short story collection by award-winning writer Chanel Sutherland that explores the emotional landscapes of Caribbean families fractured by migration, especially the harrowing yet resilient journeys of Black girls and women. In lyrical, linked stories, Sutherland traces the lives of mothers working abroad as housekeepers and nannies, and the children they left behind.

From lush island childhoods marked by absence and community to the cold, alienating spaces of Canadian cities, Layaway Child captures the complexity of growing up between worlds. A mother, newly arrived in Montreal, is kept from speaking to her daughters by her own mother’s misguided attempt to help her let go of home. A schoolgirl becomes a spectacle under the gaze of white classmates. A young girl’s curiosity about the cosmos collides with the confusion of puberty. Sutherland brings deep compassion and sharp insight to each moment, revealing both the beauty of island life and the harshness of immigration’s toll.