Dimitri and White Canadians

I’ve lived in Canada for over a year now. It was a long, exciting, and busy year — from one point of view. From a completely different one, yet equally true — it was an empty one, full of weariness and longing. Both truths have some common traits, share the same events, they’ve resulted from the same situations. One of these common traits was the recurring question that many immigrants face: “how can I make myself fit here”. And another one: “Do I even want to fit here?”

There is this old social science fetish: people’s agency and the lack thereof. If you come to a country as an asylum seeker, if you cannot go back, if you only get the worst jobs, if your skills are not recognized or if you have mouths to feed — your agency seems to be limited. “Do I even want to fit here” sounds like a privileged question, doesn’t it? Still, we learn that people in the most precarious positions have this choice. Everyone negotiates their spaces. Keeping the old habits, observing the rituals and celebrations from the old countries, using one’s first language when talking to children — these are all spaces of resistance, of answering that question in your own way.

On the other hand, people with “strong” passports, better paid jobs, the ones who can make themselves fit easier or who can go back anytime — they seem to “own” that question. But that is not always the case. I know people in relatively good migratory positions who want to fit so much that no such question ever crossed their minds. When fitting in is seen as a mark of success, having doubts is cast as weakness or failure itself. Championing the rules of the place becomes the goal, not asking yourself about if these rules fit you. Add to that the “grateful immigrant” syndrome. Add to that the phenotypical proximity to the dominant group, that feeling you are only one step behind, if you only try harder, you will belong.

Canada has a long history of building its identity model exactly on this temptation. If you comply with our rules, you might become just like us. “Us” meaning? White. Settler white. Colonial white. Canadian white.

Some of you might think: “Omg, there he goes again on one of his rants”. No, not this time. These are facts. Historically, faced with the shortage of British settlers, British-speaking Canada started opening up to Germans, to…

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