In February 2015, at the age of 55, I moved to Vancouver. Yes, I was fleeing winter but I also had a desire to better understand my own country. I had always wondered why Canada did not feel united as the United States does. Or was I the one feeling all broken up?
The question of identity had always called out to me. Born in Switzerland, of an Italian mother and an Iranian father, I arrived in Montréal in 1964 when I was four years old. In those days Nutella was only to be found in a single European pastry shop in the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood and Oka cheese was considered a luxury. In grade school, I was the only foreigner with an odd-sounding name. Nowadays it’s more than likely to be the opposite!
So I lived 45 years in that city while I saw it become the harmonious multicultural metropolis that we know today. Expo 67, successive waves of immigration and the legendary warm welcome of the Québécois played a large role.
Besides, living half a century in a province that does and does not want to separate from Canada, that is also searching for its place and identity, leaves many impressions and questions to be answered. So I made a five-year detour to Acadia, a region without frontiers, but whose identity is one of the strongest I know of.
First impressions
What first strikes you upon arriving in Vancouver is the beauty of the location, but also the enormous contrasts between rich and poor. The staggering number of street people gave me quite a shock!
It also feels weird to see entire neighbourhoods with Chinese-only signs. I must say it bothers me, as if it were a rejection of the host country.
I have been very surprised by the warmth of the citizens of Vancouver as well as by the number of French immersion students. It’s certainly the first time that I feel that bilingualism (English-French) is accepted! Several Anglophone parents told me that Canada was a bilingual country and so it was important that their children learn French. Wow! This is totally ignored in the eastern part of the country!
Goodbye preconceptions
For 50 years so many notions have been hammered into my brain, for instance, that English Canadians don’t like us. A young Vancouverite expressed to me that they were told the opposite, that Francophones disliked them. Why do we keep repeating these falsehoods on both sides?
One day, at the bakery while chatting about philosophy, I got a hug from the young employee who was touched by my words! I was stunned! That had never happened to me in 50 years of living in eastern Canada. A few days later I got yet another one from an employee in a different store.
Goodbye to my preconception of Anglophone coldness.
From multiculturalism to interculturalism
Recently my father told me that he thought that I was integrating well in British Columbia and that I had gone from multiculturalism to interculturalism. I was profoundly moved because in the word “inter” there is openness to others, communication, sharing – values that are the cornerstone of my life and passions.
I feel Canada is making an important course change with Justin Trudeau’s recent election. There seems to be a real will to reflect the cultural mosaic of the country while giving back, finally, their rightful place to the First Nations. As for Québec, will it stay, will it go? Go figure!
As for Vancouver, it wants to become the greenest city in the world – that’s wonderful. I just hope the city doesn’t forget to take care of the numerous human flowers adrift in its streets.
For my part, I continue my quest for identity by building bridges: an exchange, a meeting, an opening. One hug at a time.
