“So, how do you find it here?”
Canadians love asking this question to newcomers. Their country is a nation of immigrants, so long-timers seem unusually curious about whether their digs are up to scratch.
I used to dread this question. What was “it”? How did I find what here? The question reminded me of my early days in Johannesburg a dozen years ago, when people would constantly ask, “Howzit?” How was what?
To the South Africans, I soon realized, “it” was life in general. “Howzit,” in fact, was a greeting. They hardly expected an answer.
To the Canadians, “it” is Canada. “It” is their beloved country – the place where inhabitants are supposed to be kinder and gentler (per my September blog). The great people who regained their prowess in the world of sport (per the February one) and somehow convinced my Canadian-American daughter that she’s not one of my tribe but one of theirs (March). The nation that’s luxuriantly green on garbage (December). The one that’s keenly interested in what outsiders think of them, or so one of Canada’s top editors told me a few months ago.
Worse, Canadians expect a reply to their question. They want to know what I think about living in their motherland. And of course, Canadians are proud of their wide-sweeping territory. Being the kinder and gentler sort, they really want to hear how much I, too, love their country.
I’ve chosen my words carefully. Right now, the end of May 2010, seems an appropriate juncture to delve into this issue. As my family’s thoughts begin to look eastward to France – the origin of this blog, French Lessons – it’s time to take stock of my first 10 months in Canada. To see how I actually “find it” here.
Very Welcoming: That’s how I described Canada in the early days. But the words were code for the multi-tiered and endless welcoming that a brand new inhabitant encounters here.
Think about it. First off, I shared my home with builders (and their stream of “hellos” and “’morning, ma’ams”), and their drills and their dust. Venturing out from my construction site, I scratched around in Government waiting rooms, fighting bureaucracy to earn immigration papers, health cards, a driving license, and postal delivery. I endured one, enormous, welcome-to-Canada party, mingling with usually pleasant Government bureaucrats in a most leisurely (and I do mean leisurely) manner.
And maple-leaf-flag-flying Canucks dared to ask what I thought of their country. Very Welcoming seemed to do the job.
But time passes. I managed some sort of legal status in Canada. A driver’s license. Even a medical card that buys free health care – unless, of course, I die waiting for it (per my April blog). Rid of the Government’s eternal and conscientiously bilingual waiting rooms, I took up a new concern: the encroaching winter in the Great White North, punctuated by locals’ favourite stories about just how bad it gets in this place (per my January blog). The kinder and gentler brigade goes native. Winter is one, huge inside joke in Canada.
Just wait, they said. I would see.
And then the Canadians would ask: So how did I find it here? They’d pose the question on sunnier winter days, ones that were only modestly frostbite-inducing. They’d celebrate their good fortune: What an “easy” winter we’re enjoying this year! We can park our cars along the streets! We can still drive them! We are so lucky! We should celebrate global warming!
Yes, indeed. Break out the aerosol cans. It’s great living in Canada, I had to say. It’s Rather Cold, to me anyway – but that’s just the weather. The people are hardly cold, I’d insist. They’re kind and gentle, right?
But frankly, the Canucks’ warm words about their easy winter just made me worry more about what’s coming next year.
At this point, mid-winter, this newcomer may have appeared less of a newcomer. I no longer supported Government ministry wait times on a daily basis. Instead I ran around town in goose down and Uggs. When I’d get lost in the car that I was fortunate enough to keep on the road this wintertime, and when I’d have no idea where to park it, only then would I explain that I was, in fact, new to town.
How long had I lived here, the kind and gentle Canadians would ask?
Suddenly I was a new mother all over again. How old was my baby, people were asking? The automatic response of “seven months” (or whatever the latest calculation) held firm until this new parent took time to do the math again.
Today my baby – my tenure on Canadian soil – is just over 10 months old. In the eyes of Canadians, yes, I’m still a real newbie. But it seems that loads of folks call themselves “new” here – and they hold onto that moniker for years.
Canada is, after all, a land of migrants. The influx is reflected in the country’s ethnic diversity. According to Canada’s 2001 census, 16.2% of its population belonged to what is labeled “visible minorities” (the biggest groups being South Asian, Chinese, Black and Filipino). These figures, however, excluded the country’s large, “invisible” influx of Germans, Italians, Ukrainians, Dutch and Polish. Doing the math on these census results, visible and invisible minorities tallied to 47% of Canada’s overall population in 2001. What’s more, census statisticians omitted several ethnic groups altogether, no matter whether the immigrants landed five generations ago or just last year; these were people who arrived from the United States (the fifth top sending nation in 2006), Britain (the sixth), France (the eleventh) and Ireland. And the census’ classification of “North American Indian” included indigenous migrants from the US and Mexico, but none in this group – another 4% of the overall population – is normally considered as immigrants.
So what? This is what. Adding all these figures together, the kind Canadian quite possibly was a minority in his own country way back in 2001! And with the world’s continuing economic and political upheavals, everyone knows what direction the country’s diversity statistics have travelled over the last decade. Canada, no matter how you cut it, enjoys a rich legacy.
But never mind. Spring is finally beating out (that allegedly easy) winter. Summer is virtually here. Our builders are gone and I’ve shed my parka. At last, with clearer head, thawed feet and dust-free sinuses, I can consider Canada, this wonderful nation of newbies, in all its welcoming glory.
The country is exceedingly welcoming to new residents. The Government sends leaflets to us newcomers about English and French classes, and bureaus that will assist us in job searches. This central outreach reminds me, in diluted form, of my family’s prior year living in France, where there’s a ministry or association for everything – including a Government-organized welcome group for newcomers. And a printed pamphlet to explain every last detail.
But newcomers in Canada enjoy a private welcoming effort, too. Birgitta, a Swede who returned to Canada after a lengthy absence, invites me to the so-called Toronto Newcomers Club. The world of new immigrants meets there, she says. “New,” I learn, is defined as those folks who have resided in the area for fewer than three years. Together these newcomers play bridge, read books, converse in German, scrapbook, check out Toronto and share their various cultural traditions.
Part of this mission – the walkabouts in Toronto’s Portuguese, Ethiopian and Korean sections – intrigues me. But I put my foot down (or zip my parka up?) on a proposed evening of belly-dancing.
Some newcomers prefer to join Canada without assimilating. Others shove off their roots completely. Jean-François, my French teacher, talks about his in-laws who emigrated from Portugal several decades ago. They quickly paved over their Portuguese ways with Canadian ones. Jean-François himself, on the other hand, arrived from France in the 90s – but we know Canada’s statisticians hardly consider him un-Canadian. And he does like Canada alright. He likes it a whole lot – but he’s only too happy to hoist his bleu-blanc-rouge.
Sandra, a woman at the local salon, grew up in Jamaica. Her kids are first generation Canadians. She plays on the Canadian side of the fence now, picking out newcomers by the clothes they wear in winter. What new arrival from the islands, she asks me, knows how to interpret “3⁰C with a wind chill of -2⁰C”?
The stories circle the globe. Aida, our housekeeper, travels each year to visit her family in the Philippines. But after a few days “back home,” she’s anxious to return. “Canada’s my home now,” she says. She’s part of a growing contingent of Filipinos who form vast social networks and sink deep roots within the Great White North.
Alison’s story takes a different tack. She returned to Canada several years ago, but getting re-rooted in her native country wasn’t so straightforward. For her, making contacts in South America was easier because she was part of an expatriate community. Expats, by definition, have space in their lives for new arrivals, she says. They’re launched into far-flung places and excel in forming bridges and sprouting communities. But that world is hardly reality. Reacquiring normal life in Canada (or anywhere else, for that matter) isn’t quite so instant.
Their stories differ but share one strand: Newcomers eventually feel settled and welcomed in Canada. They join their customs and colours and cultures into the fabric of this diversifying nation. And as for me, well, I’m just another set of new boots marching along that well-trod pavement.
Today, 10-some months on, I can report that Canada is – it truly is – Very Welcoming, For Real. Part of my ease in acclimatizing has to be Laurelle. If your kid is happy – as mine is – then a parent has the hope of being happy herself. And on the side, I reap connections from her school.
I must come clean about another joker that not all Canadian newcomers share: A Canadian spouse. Pierre knows Toronto. He knows Quebec. He has Canadian friends and connections and knowledge and history. I’m hardly lingering over lattes here, hoping to make eye contact with somebody…anybody.
And one more thing. Marion, a new Canadian friend – one who lived in the US for 15 years before returning to her native country – points out that my American passport probably helps, too. Canadians are interested in what outsiders think of them, sure, but they are particularly interested in what American outsiders think. She mentions Pierre Trudeau, Canada’s former Prime Minister, who likened Canada’s relationship with the US as that of “a mouse in bed with an elephant…no matter how friendly the beast…one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”
But as this elephant settles into Canada – as an individual person who happens to be a wife and a mother and a US passport holder – I believe there is another element more fundamental than all the others in the welcoming process. And that kingpin is intent.
For the first time in my post-adolescent life, I’m supposed to be staying somewhere. I’m meant to be here, in Canada, in Toronto, for the rest of my life. All previous forays into foreign lands and new cities started out as temporary. Some grew to half a decade, or even a dozen years. But they all began as transitory.
Landing in Canada, our family has moved in forever. We have no already-identified intent to uproot. This design alone, I am quite sure, affects how the good Canadians receive me.
London was different. Initially a ten-month residence, it became what I still, statistically, can call home for the bulk of my adult years. Finally, after several years in this world-class hub to the world, I flipped to the opposite side of the welcoming wall. I had gone from a temporary resident to an established, anglophile American with no intent of leaving. And when well-meaning acquaintances would introduce me to So-and-So, who’d just arrived from the United-States-of-America for a few months’ stay, I frankly had no interest. Why make big efforts, I’d ask myself, to build successive bridges with folks who’d only uproot themselves after all the hard work?
Arriving in Canada – with the intent to stay – is a wholly different animal. Far-flung friends dig into bulging rolodexes and iphone directories to search out Canadian names and contact numbers. New acquaintances become friends, like Karen – the one Pierre considers the nucleus of my new social network. (Truth be told, she also is an American, and with three years’ tenure on Canadian soil, she still considers herself a newcomer.) Karen whips through her own circles and offers new links with like-minded people. Parties are planned. Friendships are formed. And, well, Canada becomes Very Welcoming, For Real.
No more beating around the bush. No more double entendre. I can truly reply to these kind and gentle Canadians that yes, “it” is going well for me here in their darling and diversified country.
Confession: Now that my intent is established, and my own address book is beginning to swell, my family and I are high-tailing it to France. But just for the summer months. Canada is now, truly, our Very Welcoming and Rather Cold home.
Stay posted, dear readers. French Lessons will return shortly in its full, Francophile force.
Exactly, if I may say so, in the form of its original intent.
