Every Tamang family in Canada carries a journey. Behind each membership card is a story of courage — of leaving the terraced hillsides of Sindhupalchok, Nuwakot, or Rasuwa, crossing oceans, and rebuilding life in a country where winter lasts longer than any mountain season back home.
This month we share three of those stories, told by members who agreed to speak openly about the triumphs and the quiet difficulties of diaspora life.
Sanu Lama, Scarborough — “The first winter broke me. The community rebuilt me.”
Sanu arrived in Toronto in November 2017 with her husband and two young children. She knew no one outside her immediate family. The first Tamang Society gathering she attended — a small Losar dinner in someone’s basement apartment — changed everything. “I heard our language. I tasted Gundruk. I felt, for the first time in months, that I was not invisible.”
Kamal Tamang, Mississauga — “I became Canadian, but I did not stop being Tamang.”
Kamal has lived in Mississauga for eleven years and became a Canadian citizen in 2019. He now serves on the Society’s executive committee. “There is a false idea that to belong here, you must erase where you came from. We are proving that is wrong. You can be fully Canadian and fully Tamang. They do not compete.”
Do you have a story to share? We are collecting diaspora narratives for an upcoming community archive. Reach out to us — every story matters.
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