Aarti Patel has been told, a few times, to go back to where she came from.

Patel, a student of R.H. King Academy, has brown skin, looks like an Indian and speaks with a Canadian accent.

She translated her confusion about her cultural identity into words at her school newspaper, the Kingsley Voice.

She and the student staff came together to create a powerful graphic with people of different backgrounds standing in the shape of a maple leaf, with a graffiti-like font that read “Go Back Home.”

The edition with the graphic won the Best Newspaper (over 15 staff) honour at the Toronto Star’s high school journalism awards held at the Toronto Reference Library on Monday.

This year, judges sifted through about 600 submissions in 21 categories ranging from comics to critical writing, and from humour to best electronic newspaper.

Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute won the most awards with eight first place awards followed by North Toronto Collegiate Institute with four.

This was the 21st year of the awards that give student journalists a voice and recognition.

A number of students identified with the editorial written by Patel, said Ali Javeed, co-editor in chief of the Kingsley Voice.

“As second-generation immigrants, which is most of us in Scarborough and in our school, this is relevant for the majority of us,” he said.

Patel’s editorial was the resultof a recent trip to India where she said her identity came to the fore. She said she was considered a “foreigner” in India not just because of her accent, but also because of how she dressed and how she thought.

“I didn’t exactly feel like I fit in Indian society,” she said. “But while I’m in Canada, sometimes, I’m told to go back home, go back to the country I came from.”

A person can have both — the culture adopted from their parents and Canadian culture, Patel said.

“And they don’t have to be mutually exclusive, they can be a bit of both,” she said.

Sahar Abdalla, a student of Leaside High School, won first place in feature writing (short) for a feature that showed people may be superficially different but are human at their core. Abdalla, senior editor at the Leaside Chronicle, wrote a feature about a Syrian refugee family she met, and their journey to Canada.

“Even though they seem different, they have the same needs as us, they have the same feelings as us and they are human, too,” she said.

This was the first time the Leaside Chronicle entered the competition.

Marc Garneau’s the Reckoner, which has become the Meryl Streep of high school journalism awards, walked away with the prize for best electronic newspaper.

The edition that was submitted featured a lengthy analytical piece on U.S. President Donald Trump’s win, said Grade 11 student Varun Venkataramanan, incoming editor of the Reckoner. The piece was a product of data mining and graphics heavy, he said.

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Apart from telling stories, students said working on the student newspapers helped them learn life skills, how to manage people and the importance of interpersonal communication while getting a glimpse into the world of journalism.

“We learned new techniques, learned about ourselves,” said Faith Rahman, another senior editor at the Leaside Chronicle.

Correction – May 30, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version that referred to racial slurs in the background image of a graphic in R.H. King Academy’s the Kingsley Voice. In fact, the graphic showed text of statements by students regarding their cultural identity.