Aug 5

Discovering Ourselves

Why do you care what your background is? If your parents and grandparents are from Canada, you’re Canadian.”

This was told to me by someone I used to know from Germany. He was dating my German-Greek friend at the time, and could easily trace his own lineage deep into medieval Germany and beyond. My friend was born in Germany but had Greek-born parents and she identified herself as Greek whenever possible.

The problem – if it’s actually a problem – is that most Europeans can’t understand or empathize with what it’s like living in an immigrant country, that has always had a choke-hold on its Indigenous peoples, and hasn’t established any footing as being one. No one seems to truly feel a belonging since the Europeans’ own attitudes were to talk about “the old country”, and the Indigenous just want what’s rightly theirs again, not truly getting their bearings in the colonized world.

Canada is a baby country in terms of being official. Though the Indigenous enjoyed many thousands of years living and co-existing together as many different nations of their own, the Europeans first came to Canada in the mid-1500s, and began permanently settling in the 1600s. (The Norse were technically the first in the 10th century, however no continuous settlement was established.)

This means at best, unless one is Indigenous, some few Canadians can trace their roots into Canada for about thirteen generations. But most cannot. By and large, most immigrants arrived in Canada in the 20th century, which means most people today who are Canadian-born may be anywhere from the first generation born in Canada, to approximately the third or fourth generation.

In the last fifty years, Canada welcomed immigrants with open arms. Immigration is a business. More people to work, more resources to explore, more taxes to be paid. By then, immigrants were coming to Canada on their terms, not Canada’s. People kept their culture and language, and even maintained close relationships with the countries they left behind with annual or biannual visits. Before long, Canada was forming multiple communities of almost every populous country in the world, with everyone learning English and adjusting to their new climate and environment.

For someone to say, “You fuss too much over ancestry,” is basically saying that we should be okay to lose connection with one country, and never truly culturally belong in another – especially if we can’t find others who we identify with. Easy for someone to say who can trace back their lineage more than a thousand years in the same spot.

Finding one’s cultural identity opens doors that we never knew existed. Suddenly, we can make some sense about who we are.

Canada is unique in that it’s colourful, and very multicultural. It always has been. What we each bring to the table makes it what it is today. It’s like a World Pavilion in our own backyard, at all times. But we need to identify with ourselves in order to make that colour more vibrant.

This is why we love our ancestry tests and learning about the countries our ancestors came from. It’s not about vanity, it’s about our lives and seeing the greater picture about who we are.

In this age of acceptance, it shouldn’t be a tall order to simply allow people to put their puzzle pieces together and be proud of their heritage.

We’re not changing. We’re discovering.