Canada's Immigrants, Heroes & Countrymen (Vol.II)

It’s been said in so many splendid ways. The writer V.S. Naipaul who moved from Trinidad to rural England, spoke of the transition as the “enigma of arrival.”  Nino Ricci, a Canadian novelist, whose parents came to Canada leaving their home in northern Italy, and who tells his story in this book, says that without a point of departure there can be no arrival. 

       When Ricci was writing his first novel, he says he was somewhat surprised to find himself going back for his material to that very first visit to his parents’ home in northern Italy. “That first novel ended with a sea journey aboard a ship called Saturnia; and now in retrospect it almost seems to me that my real passage to Canada came exactly in that fictive voyage, at the point when I had finally been able to fully imagine the place I needed to set out from, since without a point of departure there could be no arrival.”

      Others have likened emigration to the trauma of changing one’s religion. And yet some others call this sense of nationalism the bane of the twenty first century. Tetsuro Shigematsu, a famous TV broadcaster in Vancouver told the authors of this book: “This sense of nationalism is blind sentiment and has nothing to do with right or wrong. I am Japanese genetically, but not Japanese at all. The Japanese wouldn’t include me in their definition of the Japanese identity. So what is this thing about identity. I cherish being Canadian, but we keep that to ourselves. This notion of  dying  for one’s  country is truly the scourge of this century. This is political nationalism.”

     That truly is the challenge of change for people landing on their feet in Canada. It’s about leaving roots and adopting another country. It’s about appearing Chinese but feeling very Canadian. It’s about raising your hand at a citizenship ceremony and swearing allegiance to the Queen, when once you swore allegiance to the soil of whose son you were. It’s about respecting another set of values, while you keep your own,  appearing to integrate and become socially inclusive, while feeling alone in a crowd. It’s about  coping with a new way of working, talking, praying or doing business.  Canadians find themselves at that crossroad today. That is the challenge. In the end, getting into the workplace and making life work would seem like applesauce five years down the road.

     Canada is a country of immigrants and almost everyone recognizes the fact that whether one got to this country three hundred years ago or three months ago, we all came to these shores for the same reasons, whether that be poverty from the era of potato famines, political repression during  the world wars and today’s civil strife or the need for a better sense of life.  Canada’s early history may have been scarred by stories of land-grabbing, prejudiced treaties with the First Nations peoples, ugly Anglo-French battles and, up until the middle of the twentieth century, the perpetuation of race-driven legislation. The segregation of Chinese schools, the isolation of  its citizens of Japanese descent after the bombing of Pearl Harbour during World War II or the infamous “continuous journey” regulation to bar East Indian emigration to Canada are some of those many scars. But Canadians cannot be hung on a guilt cross forever. Canada has made  amends.

     With a Charter that guarantees rights and freedoms to all Canadians today, regardless of race or faith, Canada is truly becoming a template for the model state.  It''s political role on the world stage and its commitment to be a peacekeeper, rather than an aggressor - the majority of Canadians voted against going to war in Iraq - make it stand out from the comity of nations. It has thrown its weight behind UN conventions that have addressed the problems of war-displaced refugees and is a champion of human rights.

     But fitting one’s hand into this glove is not an onus that’s t