I’m first generation CBC – not the network, but Canadian born Chinese. The US elections and their focus on immigration has had me thinking, and to be honest, I really don’t know WHAT to think. My views on this topic probably lean more right than where it’s “supposed to be” for someone who is a child of immigrants. Maybe it’s the privileged life I’ve had, and because I somehow use MY family as benchmark of how integrated someone in my situation SHOULD be. Perhaps that’s unfair. I don’t know.
What I know, however, is this: Neither Canada nor the United States (and probably other countries as well) do a very good job in helping immigrants integrate. We have low benchmarks in terms of language skills, despite our points system. And I think the outright fear some people have of newcomers make them nervous, so they also become nervous and, thus, hold on to their cultures even MORE. Every immigrant knows that there’s a “time warp” – people often hold on to what was was “the thing” when they left. So if people leave their birth countries in, say, 1985, they STILL think it’s 1985 in terms of what was considered their culture. They don’t realize that THEIR countries have also changed unless they REALLY keep up with how things have evolved (i.e. they fly back to their homelands, say, every other year). However, it’s now 2018 and there’s something called the internet. Just talk to people. I’m sure many would be shocked to find that that their homelands have changed, culturally speaking.
At the same time, there’s the issue with cultural sensitivity. It’s gone too far, in many cases. People who’ve been there longer seem to feel that they have to tread VERY CAREFULLY around newcomers so that they don’t insult them. It’s to a point that some are surprised, shocked, even, that there are people like me who are “more integrated” than they think. And they make comments about how it’s “wrong” because we’re “losing touch” with our heritages. WTF??!!! It’s how we were raised, and often, part of our culture (e.g. I have both a Chinese and a western name, something very common in Hong Kong culture (blame colonialism). A woman once asked me WHY I choose to call myself “Cynthia” over a cultural name and that I should opt for a cultural name instead. Ummmm, Cynthia is my legal name. Okay, I CHOSE Cynthia after legally being Cindy for years, but still…my parents gave me two names. It’s still MY CULTURE. And yeah, she commented on losing touch. WTF, WTF, WTF again). If anything, blame my parents (and in many ways, I didn’t feel all that integrated when my grandmother told me only “bad Canadian kids” (read: multigenerational Anglo kids) went to school dances. To the point that I didn’t go to my Grade 8 dance so that I could prove to my grandma that I was a “good girl.” I really wanted to).
I really don’t have any answers on how we SHOULD be integrating except that it can’t come from elected officials only. It has to come from EVERYONE. However, I don’t know exactly what we CAN do, since it’s very difficult to encourage people who’ve been here more than a generation – especially over-sensitive multigenerationers – to accept that some newer arrivals are just more integrated (or stop them from complaining about those who aren’t integrated at all). And that they need to accept that rather than question WHY they’re more integrated (I DO find that people who question tend to be no more than second generation, but from a different culture. They’re also older and likely experienced MORE discrimination when they were growing up). At the same time, newcomers need to be less critical of people who’ve been here a while and less critical of their children who might be more integrated. Sorry, but they’re going to school here, and especially in a city like Toronto, will be exposed to people of many different backgrounds. Including those from backgrounds which people in your homeland are at war with. A child DOES NOT deserve to be grounded just for becoming friends with a kid from such a background. I’m not saying this happens (though it very well COULD), I’m just using it as an example. And if they start speaking only English to each other? Well, that happens too. Just make sure they still understand and know how to speak their ancestral language. At the same time, Canada, at least, needs to stop categorizing people like me, who learned Cantonese first, in the same box as my parents. I still speak passable Cantonese (enough to order food at a restaurant and perhaps describe symptoms to a doctor if needed. I am, however, illiterate. English is my PRIMARY and DEFAULT language. I’m essentially Anglophone and identify as such. Come on, that’s the language I was educated in. I DO think it’s so they could inflate the number of people who are NOT Anglophone or Francophone to make the country look more “diverse,” linguistically speaking and that’s unfair. You can’t equate me with someone who not only SPEAKS Cantonese, but also went to school in the language and can read enough of it to write a simple journal entry. Just say that we speak more than one language, okay?
I really wish there was some way we can just do something to improve understanding and decrease criticism. However, I’m not sure it can ever happen. What do you think?
ETA: Benchmark meaning I’m basing this on my personal experience as a child of two university-educated (my dad also has two master’s degrees from Canadian schools), English-speaking parents who came to Canada in their early 20s. Parents who did not work within their own ethnic communities. Parents who tried hard to give me a good balance of both Hong Kong and Toronto cultures and kept up with what was “in” and “out” back in the old country, even before the internet existed.
Image By Vadim Rodnev/ShutterStock
