Cataloguing history
For a half-century, Ceta Ramkhalawansingh has been one of the city’s most-esteemed human-rights advocates. Steph Davidson hears about her latest archival project
Ceta Ramkhalawansingh’s impact can be seen in many facets of the city more than 50 years after her activism first began.
She went toe-to-toe with a male-dominated university in the ’70s to create a women’s studies course when she was just an undergrad. And as one of Toronto’s pre-eminent feminist human-rights advocates, she still contributes to the city: currently, she’s archiving her overflowing boxes of local history.
“My big pandemic project,” she says, “has been trying to make that knowledge and information available and not lost.”
After nearly 30 years of managing the city’s corporate programs on equity, diversity and human rights, and a stint as councillor for Ward 20 (Trinity-Spadina) in 2014, Ramkhalawansingh has amassed a treasure trove of physical archives.
“I have been cataloguing the millions of pieces of paper I have,” she says. “I shipped 30 cartons to the U of T Archives, all which I’ve annotated.”
She still has to sort through about 50 cartons of correspondence, reports and essays she collected over her lifetime as a student, feminist, activist and public servant.
She also sent 17 boxes of feminist-theory and Caribbean-studies books to the New College library at U of T. During her academic work in the ’70s, Ramkhalawansingh often struggled to find materials on women’s history. “It was just kind of impossible to find the archives,” she says, “so that taught me a few things about what gets written into history and what gets excluded and what’s not known.” She cites one striking example: “how the census recorded — or did not record — women’s participation in the workforce,” noting the historical trend of only recording paid work, excluding unpaid work done by women.
Ramkhalawansingh moved to Toronto from Trinidad and Tobago in 1967 and received her undergraduate degree in political science and economics from U of T. She went on to receive post-graduate degrees and became a university lecturer.
It was during her time as an undergrad that her activism began: Women’s studies was founded in 1971, and Ramkhalawansingh played a part in creating one of its first interdisciplinary courses, Women in the Twentieth Century. She later established a scholarship for students of women and gender studies or Caribbean studies. But her efforts didn’t stop at academia.
In 1971, Ramkhalawansingh moved to the Grange Park neighbourhood. When the student-filled block she lived on faced a redesign that would remove gathering spots like the wading pool, she began organizing public meetings and distributing pamphlets to bring awareness to the community. “My neighbourhood activism arose out of necessity,” she says.
She spent subsequent years advocating for Grange Park. “The most recent brawl began in 2003,” she says, referring to ongoing, decades-long renovations at the AGO and her efforts to ensure the gallery expansion doesn’t negatively impact residents with increased traffic, light pollution and disruptions to community resources during construction.
Ramkhalawansingh now serves as the honorary president of the Grange Community Association and as a member of the Grange Park Community Council, where she participated in the 13-year-long project to revitalize the neighbourhood, which won a Toronto Urban Design award in 2019.
She also spent 30 years working at city hall as the manager of diversity management and community engagement. She monitored hiring processes to ensure all job candidates received equal consideration, got sexual orientation included in the Ontario Human Rights code in 1981 and spearheaded the mandatory adoption of anti-discrimination policies for recipients of city grants.
Talking to Ramkhalawansingh is like getting a crash course in Toronto activist history, and her current project will help ensure some of that valuable information makes it into the public record.
“If I could make a contribution to increasing that knowledge,” she says, “I’m more than happy to spend the time doing it.”
My big pandemic project has been trying to make that knowledge and information available and not lost.
RAMKHALAWANSINGH