Totally worth it! You read a lot, so definitely add it to the list. Kitty says meow.

Cute kitty!

Thanks for stopping by

OK…those pictures made me giggle out loud!

As someone with some roots to the immigrant community I hear similar stories a lot. Many of my friends’ parents came over as farmers others as skilled workers, some as engineers and doctors. All of them had to learn an entire new way to live, and it’s often the small things that trip up newcomers, not the big ones. There are many tragicomic stories of people going for a swim in the water reservoir and getting arrested because they didn’t know that was not allowed, or the embarrassment of not knowing how to navigate a salad bar. It’s the smallest details that add up and end up as the proverbial straw that push immigrants into segregation.

Employees still take advantage of immigrant workers who are predominantly seen as janitorial staff, gas station staff and factory workers. That would be fine as a temporary measure, allowing them to earn a wage while learning the language and taking say ONE exam to allow them to enter their profession for which they have qualifications in, but to keep them there is unfortunate both for them and for us as a country.

I don’t even know what to say about your volunteer experience, just shake my head. No wonder those women will likely not see Canada as a friendly place, and keep more to their ‘own’ community as time goes on, becoming alienated not just from us, but from their own kids who have to learn to fit it and become more different than their parents.

And yes, cats rock – especially in pots.

You know, I was reading your post and nodding my head in agreement through the whole thing. While I didn’t have to face any problems that immigrants face because I was born here, my parents and their relatives and friends did. When they came here in the 50s from a war-torn, poverty-stricken Europe, it was a tremendous culture shock. Yes, they did not need to learn about parliament, as my mother says, but rather about day to day living. She tells me stories about those years that are amusing as well as disturbing. They didn’t speak the language, which made it so hard to get around, whether to sign the kids up for school or to ask where they can buy groceries. The worst part was being taken advantage of at work, especially in factories. A lot of the people my mother and father arrived with – from different parts of Europe – were highly-skilled in construction or sewing and so on. My father, for example was a cabinet maker; he also built houses in Greece before his arrival; even had his own workers. My mother was a pattern maker, which was supposed to be a high-paying position back in the early days of their arrival. And yet, most of the newly-arrived were taken advantage of; either not paid what they should have, or made to work more than necessary; no over-time! And let’s not forget about the bigotry. They were immigrants, after all, right? So they were talked down to or treated rudely or treated unfairly by employees, neighbours, citizens. They didn’t know the laws, the language, where they could go for help, so it was easy for them to be taken advantage of. In fact, because schools were divided by religions, we weren’t allowed to enroll in some of them.

Anyhow, the point I’m trying to make is that this is a problem that has existed for a long time and continues to go on. My parents were marginalized 50 years ago, so they chose to stick together with their own kind. To find friends. To find help. To find understanding. And most of all, to find acceptance. 50 years later and nothing much has changed. It’s sad.

I was once part of a group that consisted of women volunteering their time to better their community. We were all from different backgrounds; some newly-arrived, some a few generations of citizenship, some just a couple of generations here. The newly-arrived were no different than anyone else in that group; all they wanted was to find their place in this country. And yet, one day when we put together a small party with the community center’s workers, I heard a few girls whisper “What are THEY doing here?” As if, for whatever reason, the immigrant women didn’t warrant a place amongst the rest of us ‘real Canadians’. I can’t tell you how disgusted I was. This is not to say that there aren’t wonderful people in our country; there are. It’s just that we still have a lot of work to do.

Great post! It brought my parents and their beginnings in Canada to mind. This is exactly how they lived. And how they were treated.

On a lighter note, I love the cat pics! Don’t you just love cats? They have such character.