Today is my fifteen year Canada-versary

I woke up with a wish to unpack the process that in so many ways shaped who I am today. I am overwhelmed with love and tenderness over the richness of my lived experience; the beauty in every single moment that I spent in this country, on this powerful land and most importantly with these incredible people. Canada is where I feel at ease, Toronto is my home.

At the same time, I am sobbing like a little child, like the one that I remember leaving Russia so many years ago. He couldn’t have known. I am overcome with emotion built up over years and years of struggle, of anger, of uncertainty, of isolation, of humiliation and despair. Overwhelmed with the life-shaping decision who’s weight could not have been explained, and agency to which I can never fully claim.

I found myself in Canada.

That is my immigrant story. For the thousands upon thousands stories similar to mine, it is yet another shade of humanity in motion. Of humanity seeking to find a better place. A place where we can be at peace.

For many years I’ve struggled to share the experience of my family out of fear, shame, guilt, anger and isolation. I understand well that for every immigrant success story, there is a story like ours. I hope this piece brings you strength, courage and resolve through these challenging times.

I was looking for the CN tower

That’s my first memory driving in the car from the Pearson Airport. I would peak out the window and exclaim: “Oh there it is!”

Only to look closer and realize: may be that’s actually just a highway light pole…

“You won’t be able to see the CN tower today, we’re actually very far from downtown right now” explained the woman now driving us from the airport. A work friend of my mom’s, she was our first point of contact in Toronto. For a decent sum of money she helped us rent an apartment, picked us up from the airport and even invited us to her house the following week for avocado and toast. (My mom and I were dumbfounded by an avocado never having eaten one before in our lives, I actually hated it at first) Unfortunately that’s where her contract expired and after a few more weeks she left us with these words of wisdom and community:

“We had to struggle to figure it all out, you will too”

A common eastern european technique of teaching beginner swimmers is to toss you as far as possible into the river and have you struggle to swim back ashore. I remember that feeling vividly. Cruel yes, but certainly effective. I was familiarized with the sink or swim mentality very early on. The first lessons are always the harshest: don’t trust anyone.

As any immigrant knows, no one will fuck you over more than another immigrant. That is a disturbing reality which few of us care to admit, as it lies beyond the identity politics of being a “white” or “black” a “commie” or a “fob.” The truth is that underneath every identity is a human being capable of immense goodness and exceptional cruelty. That choice is on every single person, without discrimination. Absolute self-responsibility is the path to liberation, it always has been.

“You know Olga, it’s just this job is usually better suited for a man”

The contract for my mom first job in Canada as an engineer in her field of expertise was not renewed with these words. She was let go from the one of the two firms in Canada that performs the disadvantageously specific type of work that she was trained to do. An American conglomerate now owns both of those firms. A rather common Canadian theme as I came to learn.

Reflecting on a journey spanning so many years it’s difficult to pin point when things went “wrong” or how. Was it the fact that my mom was in her fifties and my dad in his sixties? Was it when they didn’t buy a home after only a couple of months of being in the country: knowing no-one and nothing about the future? Was it when they sold everything they owned and burned any bridges leading back to Russia? These poisonous what-if have ruled our lives for far too long, I dispel them all with one deep breath. As they are just that: words, ideas, thoughts, they crumble under the weight of life, they stand in awe of the patience, the courage, the resilience and hard work that shaped the reality that my family has lived these past 15 years.

The man who let her go was an immigrant of five years, with a family and kids and significantly less education than my mom. He let her go on a simple business decision and a good dose of fear. They hired a younger, cheaper, male new grad to replace her. Appealing to the Canadian government with pleas of discrimination by gender or age was not in her vocabulary, she had rights but what are those worth when you don’t even know that they exist.

That was the last resemblance of a “normal” 9–5, health benefits and vocation type of life, and it ended all ended within the first two years of our time here. Then came the ’08 crisis, trainings, courses, night shifts, academies, 3 house cleanings a day, bookkeeping, an endless array of small businesses, eviction notices, fines, late charges, check bounces, interest, interest, interest, more courses, more validation from the Canadian flavour of the English bureaucratic system.

“Swim Sanya, come on, just try to do the frog legs and swim back to me”

So far I’ve managed to avoid talking about integration with “Canadians” or the relationship with the Canadian government. Partially because I am not really sure what that means anymore. The Canadian government’s approach to immigration is another topic all together and I would love address in more detail in another essay. However my personal experience is definitely a mixed bag: of gratitude, of feeling of fortunate to even have a reliable government, to have rights and freedoms, to have social and health care. But all that is not to exclude the feelings of being used, of being isolated, being turned the cold shoulder after an intense and passionate for-play that is the immigration process. Let’s not forget that from the thousands of immigrants, Canada picks the most educated, the healthiest, the most ambitious, the most patient people from across the world. Brain-drain is real, but I’d argue it’s not only a loss for the countries of the émigrés, but also for Canada and how it integrates these people once they are here. We are all intimately familiar with the PhD weilding taxi drivers, the doctors working as security guards and brilliant scientists serving you Tim Hortons coffee. Canada seems to be really good at picking the best people, now what happens to them once they are here, is a whole other story.

“10 years, oh so you’re not really Russian, you’re basically Canadian now!”

How eager we seem to label the experience of others. As if packaging it away with a simple explanation does any one of us a real favour. When I passed 10 years in Canada, exactly half my life, I was Canadian through and through, and yet I was also living the immigrant experience every single day, to say that something has “disappeared” or changed would be dishonest. I was Alex first and foremost and forever will be, and so this experience was an inseparable part of how I understand the world. I discovered that my life was immensely easier than my parents’, to extents that blew me away time after time. I was “well assimilated” with local education and an English sounding pronounceable name. I never struggled with an interview, I was never talked down to based on my accent, I was able to navigate the Canadian form of politeness that many immigrants struggle to connect with. The infamous “Canadian politeness” comes from a level of security and stability that someone who is struggling to pay rent and communicate with the outside world simply does not feel, and that is ok. It’s a humbling reality we have to remember. We are all having very different experiences here in Canada. I’ve been very fortunate to have one foot in one world and one in the other.

A lot of my appreciation also came from travelling abroad, from seeing the rest of the world, from leaving Canada and coming back with a deep sigh of relief. A relief that I can navigate the streets safely at night, that I can interact with any race, ethnicity, region, gender or sexual orientation. I can speak my mind openly and freely and I can hope and build for a brighter future. That is the real power of Canada.

A common insult to Canadians is this: “Canada has no history”

My response is two-fold:

One, that’s absolutely not true having passionately passed all my Canadian history courses in school, I know every well that Canada does indeed have a rich history: a tale of deep loss of the Native peoples of these lands, of immense struggles of displaced Europeans, of perseverance and of unprecedented form of collaboration and co-creation of waves upon waves of immigrants. It is also important to remember that a good portion of Canadian history is not as rosy as so many people imagine: Canada enslaved, persecuted, discriminated, killed and repressed like many countries who’s examples we are so familiar with. Being aware of that history (the good and the bad) is absolutely essential in the understand of how we move forward as a country.

Two, the statement “Canada has no history” can be taken as a compliment. Rather than a “black slate” (which it’s really not) it is however a fresh start, a new beginning, a formation and reconsideration of how we live and share space as human beings. This openness and flexibility allows us to accomplish things that very few countries are capable of doing. We truly can and should empower ourselves to shape the lives that we want to lead. We can shape the “history” in our shared loving vision of the future.

After 15 years, I finally feel confident in playing my part in shaping this future

What pains me so much today is reflecting on the self-sabotage and cruelty that the immigrant community commits onto itself. As with any self-harm, it is to be approached carefully, with love and understanding. Stuck in a survival mode, clenched in a sink or swim, we so often disconnect from what makes life worth living in the first place. What my family lost the most in the past 15 years was just that, a sense of purpose and a sense community. This is very interesting to observe across a variety of cultural communities in Toronto. Those who are able to create a common purpose, a sense of togetherness, are able to be successful, to be productive, to feel loved and loving. I’ve been blessed to experience that through my life in Canada with Jewish, Italian, Phillipino and Latin American communities. But it’s important to remember that I was welcomed to participate in all of these on an even more fundamental level: because I too was human. My dream for Canada is for more and more people to reach that common understanding connecting us all.

Through this event we are once again reminded that we are all human and we are all vulnerable. Let’s not forget that. Let’s not rush back to normal.

Here I do not wish to fortify any stereotype of the ex-Soviet communities and its people, many of whom are exceptionally strong and loving humans who work hard to build community where-ever they may be. However there is an undeniable baggage of hundreds of years of destructive history: of fear, of war, of broken families and broken lives, of children who told on their parents, of neighbours who reported on their neighbours. The slavic people carry this with them where-ever they go. I cary that in me today, even after 15 years in Canada. They may flee that land, but the unconscious baggage is weighting heavy on their interactions where-ever they find themselves. I can only imagine the same for the thousands upon thousands of different communities that find themselves in this new land.

My vision of Toronto as “the meeting place”, “where there are trees standing in the water” has always been the same. I see a place of healing for all humans. A chance to start over, to ground our actions in the common experience we all share coming to this land, whether it was 1,000 years ago or last year. To ground us in the love for what is, for one another, for this beautiful land and treat it with attention and care it deserves.

Much love to you all

- Sanya, March 28, 2020