Gloria O’koye (Aka Glowz) – Sharing the voices and stories of the unheard

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

“Your art will save lives, your art is powerful and, in this field,, time is everything.” Gloria O’koye

The art of storytelling has for centuries earned its place as a crucial element of the human experience. Why? Each and every story incorporates lessons that are received when someone is ready to learn it. Some of these stories teach us how to love. Some of these stories teach us how to forgive. Some stories teach us how to strive for better than we have.

For our Woman Empowered Gloria Okoye, storytelling has become a way to share her trauma, her pains, her lessons, and her victories. She has found a way to use the written word to create ambience for the characters in her stories. Short stories, spoken word, poetry, fiction and non-fiction, Gloria has found a way to utilize penned applications to captivate an entire generation. Toronto Caribbean Newspaper would like to present our first Woman Empowered Feature of 2020, Ms. Gloria Okoye.

 “Most of the black community didn’t accept me because I was mixed. There are times I did not feel accepted anywhere.”

Born and raised in Toronto, Gloria O’koye’s life began with her having to accept who she was. Her mom (born and raised in Hong Kong), and her dad (born and raised in Nigeria), may not have realized how difficult it would be to raise a mixed-race child in Canada. With her father travelling frequently, Gloria grew up surrounded by the Chinese culture. There are aspects of her life that are a direct reflection of the environment she was raised in. Cantonese is her first language, and by the age of three or four, she was playing the piano, and did so for most of her elementary school career. “I am more comfortable playing the flute,” Gloria tells me. “My mom was a piano teacher back home, so naturally she taught it to me the first chance she got. I may not remember everything about playing the piano, but I have never forgotten the theory.”

Gloria recalls when she finally had a chance to learn more about her father’s side of the family. “I was in Grade 6 when my dad came back to Canada. I had so many questions for him: Where is my tribe? What part of Nigeria am I from? I know I was Chinese, but my skin tone was different, and this was very difficult for me. For a long time, I wasn’t accepted into the black community, and although I felt more accepted by the Chinese side of the family, I still had to deal with smart remarks, and those comments that you knew were racist if you read between the lines.”

Her father saw her urgency to learn more about her African side, so from that day on, he educated her on her ancestral history. Gloria found out that her father’s side of the family was from the Igbo (also called Ibo) Tribe, people living chiefly in South Eastern Nigeria. “I started to learn how to make Nigerian food, and speak Igbo.”

*Writers Note* Igbo is a language of the Benue-Congo Branch of the Niger-Congo language family.

“My mom enrolled me in Chinese School, and I asked my dad to enrol me in Igbo classes. This is where I learned to read and write in Igbo. I didn’t get a chance to meet my Nigerian side of the family until after my dad’s passing. My half sister reached out to me and finally we spoke.”

Gloria spoke about her difficulties with being accepted and acceptance of self. “It was not until I became a part of RISE (Reaching Intelligent Souls Everywhere), that I finally felt fully accepted by the African community in Toronto. I used to hang out with a lot of East Indians when I was growing up. This turned into me also hanging out with a lot of West Indians as well. I will always be thankful to DJ Chrissay, and Willay. I can’t forget my girls Nesha and Tae who also treated me like I was their equal and not less. Even though they were not the same tribe, I got to learn more about who I was. My Culture. My people!”

Like most of us, Gloria had to deal with some trying times in her life. She briefly speaks with me about losing her virginity at a young age, and the impact it had on her life. I can tell that this is still a very painful topic for Gloria still, and she provides some details, but not the entire experience. “I was fighting to keep my purity, but I looked very mature for my age. I was raped when I was younger, and this has impacted the way that I look at sexual relationships to this day.”

Being introduced to sex at such a young age does have its repercussions. Being a teenage mom is not easy, but her daughters turned out to be the joys of her life. “I have three daughters. My first daughter was born when I was 15 turning 16 years old. I had my second two daughters at 21 years of age. The relationships did not work out, but they were lessons for me, lessons that I can share with my daughters and other young women in the community.

Many of her stories can be found in her two recent self-published books: A Kintsugi Memoir, and Hood Chronicles, both collections of short stories, reflections, and poems that tell the stories of young people in the Toronto community. “The streets are cold, and many people have no idea what it is like out here. I have lived in many different neighbourhoods, and I wanted to share the stories of these neighbourhoods. I have lost friends to gun violence, and I really wanted to give them a voice in Hood Chronicles even though they are no longer with us.”

I asked Gloria what she wants to share with other young women reading this article. “Know your value. Know that your voice matters, and that your story matters.”