The Problem with Immigrants

(I should point out that I myself am an immigrant and the child of immigrant parents. I was born in Sutton-in-Ashfield in the County of Nottingham, Great Britain – my parents originally came from Poland. I emigrated, along with my parent’s and younger sister to Canada in 1971. That was a great year, we had the snowstorm of a century in Montreal. For a 5 year old kid, this was just fantastic - and I have been waiting every year since then for the same, but all we get a piddling amounts of snow. sigh).

Being an immigrant is hard. You lose you language, your culture, your food, your music. Nothing is familiar anymore. So you seek comfort and join up with fellow immigrants of the same nationality. You form little conclaves – ghettos – where you live in isolation from the rest of society and your own culture.

I’m not saying all immigrants do this, but my experience is that a lot do - at least the first generation. Many of my friends are children of first generation immigrants. The second generation are often torn between cultures. The third generation usually has little to do with the original culture.

I find it sad that a the parents of a number of my friends really could not communicate in English or French beyond simple phrases, “Coffee? Tea? Juice? Please, sit. Sit down. Thank you”

My parents were different. They did not cling to their Polish culture and heritage (this comes with its own angst). Instead they tried to integrate within Canadian society. So my parents do speak English well (with a bit of accent), they do not slavishly hold to old customs and traditions. They adapt as necessary.

They did this because they had seen what happened to immigrants who became isolated within small ex-pat communities. Clinging to the past, to things that had changed long ago – music, clothes, behavior, social attitudes, etc. But, these people, in their isolation, still remembered the land they had left 20, 30, 40 years ago – but they did not experience the changes that had occurred in those years. They lived in a frozen fantasy.

Of course things are different today. We have much better communication. It is easier to keep up to date on what is happening in your country of origin. We can watch satellite TV, log onto the internet, and subscribe to blogs. Information passes more easily and freely than it has in the past.

But, in some ways it only serves to isolate people even more. Why bother to even try to integrate when you can watch the news from your home country. We have Chinese neighbors (they are elderly) who basically live on Beijing time – they sleep during the day and in the evening watch Chinese TV, get their news. Can such an compromise schedule be good? I don’t think so. (To be fair, they are actually up later in the day, I often see the woman tending to her yard and garden - but I do know they get up late because they watch TV from China late at night)

Breaking with the past can be hard and difficult. But, the road forward can be very rich and rewarding. Your heart, your mind, and your soul can be expanded to dimensions you never imagined. Your old view of the world will seem so antiquated, narrow and limited.

Join in and sing the Immigrant Song.

[29-December-2005: fixed broken hyperlink]