Kimchee to Latkes – German President visits Kensington Market

Kensington Market is the symbolic streetscape of diversity in Toronto, the nation’s most diverse city with half its population born outside Canada. Here is where Jamaican cuisine collides with Italian, and Hungarian with Thai. Where an elderly couple speaking Portuguese can rub shoulders with their Mandarin-speaking peers. Where students sip kimchi soup and families share latkes.

It is also where the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Joachim Gauck, sat down with local community leaders and immigration experts for a discussion on Canada’s immigration system. Ratna Omidvar, a Torontonian and executive director of the Global Diversity Exchange, led the discussion between the German and Canadian delegations at St. Stephen’s Community House in the heart of the Market.

Gauck stopped in Toronto during a state visit in September to learn about Canada’s experiences with immigration and inclusion. Germany, he said, had taken its “first steps in recent years to create an open-minded society.” He implied there is still much to learn.

Read the full article on the Cities and Migration website.