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Elisa Hategan

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Elisa Romero Hategan[1] known professionally as Elisa Hategan (born December 17, 1974),[2] formerly known as Elisse Hategan,[3] is a Romanian-Canadian antiracist activist, educator, and author. As a teenager she was a member and spokesperson for the Heritage Front, a now-defunct white supremacist organization in Canada. She broke with the group and testified against them in court, and has been credited for causing the organization's demise.

Early life

Hategan was born in Bucharest, Romania in 1974. When she was 11 years old, she emigrated to Canada with her father, joining her mother who had moved to Canada earlier. Her father returned to Romania, where he died in 1988, leaving Elisa with her mother in Toronto, where they lived in the Regent Park neighborhood.[2] She grew up in poverty and was a victim of domestic violence.

Involvement with the Heritage Front

She was recruited by the Heritage Front in 1991, when she was 16 years old,[4] after running away from home and being placed in foster care. She was "groomed to be the young, female voice of the movement".[2][3][5]

Speaking later to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation about her recruitment, she said: "By the time I was 16, I was really angry... I had dropped out of high school and I didn't have any friends and I didn't feel like I belonged. I wasn't quite Canadian, I wasn't Romanian anymore and so I had a lot of the same [risk] factors that drive other people to radicalization — and the Heritage Front happened to be there".[5]

Hategan turned on the group in 1993 after it became increasingly violent and began targetting LGBT activists and she came to the realization that she was gay herself. She began secretly passing information on the Heritage Front to anti-racist activists.[2][5]

In the same year she was charged with hate crimes for distributing a Heritage Front leaflet. The charges were later dropped after it was revealed she gave the document to anti-racist activists in order to warn them.[2] When Heritage Front leader Wolfgang Droege and other figures in the organization were tried for criminal offences, she testified against them in court.[3][5]

In 1995, she appeared as a witness before a parliamentary subcommittee investigating the Heritage Front and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's involvement in the Grant Bristow affair.[2]

Education

Hategan graduated magna cum laude from the University of Ottawa in 1999 with a degree in criminology and psychology.[2]

Antiracism activism

Her book, Race Traitor: The True Story Of Canadian Intelligence Service’s Greatest Cover-up (2014),[2] is a memoir of her experiences and won grants and awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council. She is also the author of Alice in Writerland: A Writer's Adventures in the Ugly World of Publishing (2012).[6][7]

In recent years, Hategan has given speeches and been active as an educator against racism, extremism, and the white supremacist movement.[5][8]

In early 2022, Hategan filed a lawsuit in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice against Elizabeth Moore, who had been part of the Heritage Front at the same time as Hategan, and Bernie Farber.[9] Hategan alleged that Moore, who had also left the Heritage Front and campaigned against anti-semitism afterwards,[10] "appropriated aspects of Hategan’s life and identity for Moore’s benefit and financial gain."[9]

The suit was dismissed, with presiding Justice Jane Ferguson arguing that Hategan had failed to provide sufficient evidence to support her claims.[11] Ferguson called the suit "frivolous" and a "waste of time".[9][10] This ruling was upheld on appeal by the Court of Appeal for Ontario.[10] Hategan was ordered to pay CA$200,000 in damages and permanently barred from making any public statements about Moore.[10]

Personal life

In 2001, she discovered that her father had Jewish roots. In 2006, she changed her first name to Elisa. She converted to Judaism in 2013.[2]

References

  1. ^ "Literary Creation Projects Competition results Deadline: October 19, 2017". Ontario Arts Council. Retrieved May 28, 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Mandelson, Rachel (May 5, 2015). "Timeline: Elisa Hategan's journey". Toronto Star. Retrieved May 28, 2023.
  3. ^ a b c Mandelson, Rachel (May 4, 2015). "Former white supremacist probes the personal roots of hatred". Toronto Star. Retrieved May 28, 2023.
  4. ^ "How to spot a neo-Nazi and other lessons from a former white supremacist". Global News. May 30, 2019. Retrieved May 29, 2023.
  5. ^ a b c d e Fraser, Laura (August 17, 2017). "A former white supremacist explains how radicals recruit and who they target". CBC News. Retrieved May 28, 2023.
  6. ^ Hategan, Elisa (17 June 2012). Alice in Writerland A Writer's Adventures in the Ugly World of Publishing. ISBN 9781477558645.
  7. ^ Hategan, Elisa (8 October 2014). Race Traitor: the True Story of Canadian Intelligence's Greatest Cover-Up. ISBN 9781502779717.
  8. ^ "'I was really angry': Canadian former white supremacist shares story". CTV News. August 21, 2017. Retrieved May 28, 2023.
  9. ^ a b c "Lawsuit pitting reformed Heritage Front members dismissed". The Canadian Jewish News. 2021-02-04. Retrieved 2023-06-10.
  10. ^ a b c d "Talking about one's own life not an actionable wrong: Ontario court". www.canadianlawyermag.com. Retrieved 2023-06-10.
  11. ^ "She wanted credit for bringing down a white supremacy group. The judge dismissed her case". nationalpost. Retrieved 2023-06-10.
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