You can see hints of the woman Orene Askew was about to become in her high school yearbook photos.
It鈥檚 the early aughts of a new millennium. Askew is a student at Carson Graham Secondary in North Vancouver. One year she decides to go for a sporty look. It鈥檚 just a head shot so you can鈥檛 tell she鈥檚 6鈥�2鈥� tall but you can definitely tell she loves basketball. In another photo, she鈥檚 about to graduate. Her smile is joy-filled. Is it the future she鈥檚 excited about or just the thought of leaving high school?
Almost 20 years later, musicians Tegan and Sara asked Askew to look at her high school photos and think about what she鈥檇 like to tell her teenaged self.
Askew was 25 when she plucked up the courage to tell her parents that she was , a sexual identity exclusive to First Nations people. They were eating dinner at their home on the Capilano reserve and her parents didn鈥檛 skip a beat. 鈥淲e know,鈥� they said, and continued eating as if everything was normal. And that鈥檚 because there is nothing abnormal about being LGBQT+.
鈥淲hen I finally did come out, it felt like a 50-pound weight was off my shoulders,鈥� Askew says in an interview with the North Shore News. 鈥淚 know that coming out seems like a simple concept but it鈥檚 not. It would be difficult to tell a teenager today, 鈥楯ust come out. Just be who you are.鈥� Everyone has to go through it on their own.鈥�
Askew is Afro-Indigenous. She might have seen herself as a follower when she was a teenager but today she is known as . She鈥檚 a first-term councillor with Squamish Nation. In 2018, the Vancouver Pride Society presented her with the Kimberly Nixon Trans, Two-Spirit, Gender Non-Conforming Contribution to Community Award. Vancouver Pride also invited her to be the first-ever Squamish Nation member to be grand marshal of the annual parade. She shares her love of music and dancing as and has performed at Rogers Arena.
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That鈥檚 why she was a natural 鈥渁sk鈥� to be part of Tegan and Sara鈥檚 new music video. Filmed in Vancouver in March, just before the coronavirus shut down the very idea of having a group of people in the same room, the video features a song that Tegan and Sara wrote when they were in high school. It鈥檚 part of their Hey, I鈥檓 Just Like You album which is itself a complement to their memoir, High School, about the Grammy-nominated and Juno-winning twins鈥� early life in Calgary.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know much about the music video but when I heard it was by Tegan and Sara, I love them so much that I just went running,鈥� Askew says of her reaction to being invited to the video shoot along with other performers and activists such as Dan Mangan and MasterChef Canada鈥檚 Matthew Astorga.
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Each participant was asked to wear something reminiscent of their high school days. Tegan wears a Nirvana T-shirt. Sara wears an over-sized green hoodie. Askew chose a black DJ O Show T-shirt and a beaded indigenous medallion. And, yes, her smile shows that whatever she was thinking about on photo day was warranted.
鈥淚 haven鈥檛 changed that much,鈥� she says with a laugh.
What she yearned for then is what she鈥檚 able to fulfill today 鈥� having visible LGBQT+ role models in her life and as part of the greater community.
鈥淲hen I was a teenager, I didn鈥檛 really see anybody like me or even the definitions of what it was to be LGBQT+. We鈥檝e come so far, which is why I think the theme of this album is brilliant.鈥�
Now that she鈥檚 thought of what she鈥檇 like to say to her teenaged self, what would she like to say to the Orene Askew of 2040? 鈥淚t would be really hard to achieve because of the pandemic, but I鈥檇 like her to be someone who has seen the world and done everything she wanted to do.鈥�
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