Mable Elmore was interviewed on November 12, 2009 by Queer History Project volunteer Alex Leslie.

The interview, running approximately 40 minutes, can be listened to here.

Mable Elmore is a second generation Filipina-Canadian and an out lesbian who has worked for over 20 years as an activist and community organizer in Greater Vancouver. She is the first Filipino elected to the Provincial Legislature (as the MLA for Vancouver-Kensington) and the second out lesbian elected to the Provincial Legislature. Elmore has been active in the peace movement and on immigrant, social justice, women’s and gay, lesbian and transgendered issues.

In this interview she discusses: anti-homophobia workshops she helped design and run in the Canada Auto Workers Union, to which she belonged for 10 years while working as a bus driver; her transition from activism to establishment politics; the challenges in running an election campaign as an out lesbian candidate; her current political role as MLA and the situation of Queers in BC’s Legislature; and her philosophy of how political change happens — through optimistic persistence and discussions that draw out prejudiced views in order to talk them through alongside progressive principles.

After our interview Elmore related the anecdote of a supporter from the Filipina community who repeatedly told her that she would win the election because she was the “the Filipino Ellen” — this would be her winning political strategy. To me this anecdote whimsically summed up Elmore’s challenging role as an out politician in a conservative community. In person she is humourous and positive — qualities which she emphasized as necessary to her political commitment to promoting dialogue across lines of different cultural codes and personal formations. To be the Filipino Ellen is to be both a beloved ambassador but also a public figure continually testing the sometimes ambiguous limitations of dialogue and acceptance.

Mable Elmore’s community office website is here, with information about many of her current political and cultural initiatives.

Photo courtesy of Mabel Elmore.