By the (frozen) rivers of Babylon

It was at the post office on an absolutely frigid day in January 2014. We had been in Canada little over six months, and as the coldest winter in 30 years was setting in, the novelty of my new life as an immigrant was wearing off.

I was sending something back home and making cheery chitchat with the lady behind the counter. We were on friendly enough terms and she was asking me how things were going. Then she asked me directly:

“But how are you, really?”

She wore her own status as a landed immigrant in her accent, and I knew exactly what she meant.

I’m ok. Everyone is very nice and I’m in a privileged position as an immigrant. I mean, my husband lived here as a child, so we know people, and we have contacts. At least I speak English! But…

“Do you have a job?”

Then in that suburban strip mall post office, the outpouring began. My newfound comrade took the reins of the conversation, explaining how she had moved from India 12 years earlier, and how difficult it had been to find work as an immigrant. How it didn’t matter what her qualifications were, or years of experience, because all anyone cared about was “Canadian experience,” and how her husband never really understood because he got to go to work and meet interesting people, but she was stuck inside in the depths of a foreign winter with the children going mad and no one to explain to her what to do, and no one was that interested in who she really was.

Her rant full of experience and her concern for me as an individual was a lifeline, because in my privilege as a white, English-speaking, highly-educated immigrant, I was denying the shock of being a stranger in a new land. It allowed me to get upset for the first time since we arrived.

I never came to Canada expecting to waltz into my dream job. I am an academic and a musician; we know the dream job is often an unattainable beast, but I expected to be given a chance. I was upset because this act of settlement had shown me with frightening clarity that without the context of your family, friends, work connections, and a general knowledge of your abilities, you are just a faceless applicant with a CV. Whether I stated it or not, my CV screamed woman in her 30s, mother of two young children. NEXT.

My time in Canada hasn’t been all bad by any stretch of the imagination. I have picked up teaching work, I have presented research, I have sung in a professional capacity, and I have made friends with locals and other highly-qualified-but-out-of-work immigrants alike. But I am leaving, returning to a sense of connectedness and community I never fully appreciated until now.

  

People who have never moved countries always talk about your family. “Oh, it must be so hard without your parents nearby.” Yes, but there’s more. It’s hard always having to ask where to get basic services, and always having to check the nature of some specific bureaucracy. It’s frustrating to suddenly realise that you can’t call your doctor friends to check if the specialist you’ve been referred to is any good, because it dawns on you that you don’t know any doctors here. Hang on, you don’t actually know any lawyers either should the need arise for something to be signed, and you’re in a new country so there’s always something that has to be signed. How do I not know any lawyers? It feels like half my family and university friends and their parents are lawyers back home. Hell’s teeth, in Auckland, I’m a phone call away from a friendly chat with a couple of QCs to clarify a point, if I ever needed. My family are by no means “society”, but you don’t live in a city for six generations without knowing a few people.

Even in Scotland, where I studied for my PhD, my status as an active member of a university department, not to mention singing with St. Giles Cathedral, gave me connections to public institutions, the arts, the medical fraternity, the Church of Scotland, the legal profession, even the Scottish Executive. Just knowing those contacts are there is an immense comfort when you are a young, single woman in a new country. It makes you feel like you belong.

For my first year in Canada, despite making friends, actively trying to find work, joining research groups and choirs, it felt like I was mostly at home, and that my only social role was at the school gate or signing permission forms for my children.

Nothing I had done previously was of much relevance to the people around me. I was starting over, which is extremely difficult when you’re in your 30s and your primary focus is your children. At this stage in your life, you rely on walking into a rehearsal or seminar and having people say, “hey, Erin! We haven’t seen you for a while. Kids keeping you busy? Oh, by the way, you’re a bit of an expert on Margaret Fuller, right? What’s the deal with that letter to Beethoven?” Or asking me if I can help organise something because they know I rock at telling musicians what to do.  

Instead, I got condescending smiles and indifference when I gave my apologies for next week because I couldn’t get babysitting.

I am leaving Canada in a few months and returning to Auckland, where I can’t swing a cat without it hitting someone I know. So, you might be wondering where this post is going. Well, whenever you hear someone make some ill-informed comment about refugees and immigrants coming over here (wherever here might me) and stealing jobs and services, just tell them to stop being so ridiculous. Tell them how difficult and lonely it can be even for those of us who immigrate in the very best of circumstances. Tell them to spare a thought for all the people who have to, for whatever reason, give up their communities and connections for the hope of a better life. Remind them that that “better life” can be one shrouded in daily indifference and at times active hostility from new neighbours. Tell them to take the time to ask a new immigrant, “But how are you, really?”