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Donald F. Mulcahy, editor

Michael Mirolla, general editor

David Moratto, cover and interior design

Cover image: Photo by Donald F. Mulcahy

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2016938892

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Coming here, being here : a Canadian migration anthology [electronic resource] / compiled

and edited by Donald F. Mulcahy. -- First edition.

(Essential anthologies ; 8)

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-77183-117-8 (paperback).--ISBN 978-1-77183-118-5 (epub).

--ISBN 978-1-77183-119-2 (mobi)

1. Emigration and immigration in literature. 2. Canadian essays

(English)--21st century. 3. Canadian literature (English)--21st century.

I. Mulcahy, Don, editor II. Series: Essential anthologies series (Toronto, Ont.) ; 8

PS8367.E46C66 2016 C814’.60803526912 C2016-902168-8 C2016-902169-6

Coming To Canada — Age Twenty-One

The postcard said: COME BACK SOON

There was a mountain, a faded lake

with a waterfall and a brown

sun setting in a tan sky

Aunt Violet’s Canadian honeymoon 1932

It was swell and she

always meant to go back

but her life got in the way

It was cool and quiet there

with a king and a queen

and people drinking tea

and being polite and clean

snow coming down

everywhere

It took years to happen:

for the lake to fill up with snow

for the mountain to disappear

for the sun to go down

and years before COME

BACK SOON changed to

here and now and home

the place I came to

the place I was from

(Carol Shields, from Coming to Canada, Carlton University Press, Ottawa 1995, reproduced here with permission from the Carol Shields Literary Trust).

To all who came, are coming,
and will yet come to this incredible place;
to those among them whose goals remained,
or will forever remain elusive;
to those who needed to be here but never arrived;
to all who died trying to get to this safe haven called Canada.

Introduction

In early 2003 John McLay and I discussed the possibility of a prose anthology, devoted to a common theme. At the time he was working on a sequel to On Mountaintop Rock and would be unable to participate as co-editor. We both felt that immigration would be a worthy theme, but concluded little beyond that. By September however I had rediscovered two elementary letters among the belongings of my late mother-in-law, Elizabeth Jones, written to her by a teenage friend who had emigrated from Wales to Canada in the 1920s. The letters, reproduced verbatim here in ‘Letters from Ceinwen,’ brought to mind the myriad other stories that must exist in a country where it is claimed that twenty per cent or more of the population are foreign-born immigrants. At that juncture I decided that the common, unifying topic should indeed be the inseparable themes of emigration and immigration, relative to Canada.

Although the initial intention was to create a literary anthology of works by established immigrant writers, the project’s mandate soon morphed from strictly literary to all-inclusive, an outcome that was dictated not only by the collection’s ongoing need for more writers, but also by the assorted variety of writers who showed an interest in participating. I eventually concluded that a more diverse roster of writers might well be seen as reflecting the diversity in Canadian society; might even be considered a metaphor of sorts for our complex multicultural population and its varied voices. Canadians are, after all, as varied as pebbles on a beach.

Despite everything, including my congenital pessimism, after three years the initial collection ultimately reached completion point — except insofar as the stories of immigration will never, ever be complete. The shared sagas of people coming here is sure to continue for as long as more are needed to populate this intriguing, gargantuan geographic space, that has become the final home and resting place for so many who have ventured here over the centuries.

I have served only as this anthology’s coordinator. Credit for this volume must, naturally, be allocated to the publisher and the Guernica staff, for their belief in the project, and for their welcome refinements. But it is the authors themselves who created the very possibility of an immigration anthology, by placing the need for such a work above all material and other, less creative, more egocentric concerns. This is their book.

I am deeply indebted to Guernica Editions, and especially to Michael Mirolla, for recognizing the need for a book of this type at this time; to John McLay, for helping me to hatch the concept of an immigration anthology in the first place; to Iris Kool, for sharing her amazing computer genius with me; to Susan Ouriou for her invaluable translations from the French, and to my wife and primary editor, Iris, for her grit, patience and understanding throughout the multi-year bout of my chronic anthology obsession.

— Don Mulcahy

Strathroy, Ontario

Jan 8^th 2015

Come from Away in Newfoundland

Roberta Buchanan

(Come from away: a person “not from here,” i.e., Newfoundland)

I Leave England.

It was 1964, the year of Shakespeare’s quadricentennial. Here I was at the prestigious Shakespeare Institute, Birmingham University, where I had gone to do my Ph.D. After two years my fellowship ran out, and I still hadn’t finished my thesis. I was hired as a research assistant, then promoted to research associate at a stipend of fifty pounds a month. I was employed in the menial but necessary tasks of checking quotations and bibliographical references, proofreading the Institute’s publications, doing research for the Director, Professor Spencer; and, on one occasion, rewriting an article for Shakespeare Survey. When the librarian suddenly left, I was also asked to fill in her position, on a temporary basis. At the weekly seminars I made the tea and handed around the biscuits. For distinguished guests, wine and food were served. I bought the food, arranged tasty morsels on little crackers in an aesthetic way, and concocted porcupines of toothpicks bearing little pickled onions, olives, and cubes of cheese stuck into an apple. Mrs. Spencer told me I had a “talent” for this kind of work.

I was not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be, but one of the attendant lords, a useful tool, presumed to be deferential and glad to be of use, like T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock.

At Birmingham University, the social and academic hierarchy was rigidly maintained. I found myself in a kind of grey area. I was neither student nor faculty. I was not entitled to eat in the nice Faculty Club; my place was in the cafeteria with the staff. I had my lunches and my morning tea with the secretaries, all perfectly good and kind people. All the same, I was given the message that my status was somewhat lower than a faculty member. I could babysit their children, but I was not their social or intellectual equal. There seemed no prospect of advancement. Young male graduate students were “mentored,” as we say now, given some teaching experience; women students weren’t. In 1964, the term “glass ceiling” had not yet been invented. It was more like a concrete ceiling. Glass at least suggests that if persistent you could smash your way through it.

I was unhappy in Birmingham. It was an interesting city all right, with two theatres, two excellent art galleries, nice shops, and a lively market on Saturdays. But I had no friends, no boyfriends. I lived in a room in a dreary red brick terrace house on the Bourn Brook, just opposite the University, a polluted trickle garnished with rusting bicycles, old paint cans and other urban trash. The Bourn Brook valley always seemed to be shrouded in industrial smog. Every morning I walked up the hill past the university gates to the Shakespeare Institute, a large rather gloomy Victorian mansion. By the time I got there I was wheezing and gasping for breath. Sometimes I was so ill the secretary had to drive me home. I became more and more asthmatic, more and more depressed. I had to get away — but how? Desperation gave me courage.

I opened The World of Learning, a huge compendium of all academic institutions in the universe, and began at A. I sent a letter to the University of Alaska — the farthest possible spot from Birmingham — asking them if they had any openings in their English Department and enclosing my CV. I got a polite but negative response: “Thank you for your interest in the University of Alaska . . .” I scrutinized the weekly job ads in the Times Literary Supplement. Universities in Ghana, the Gold Coast, Khartoum, and Malta were looking for lecturers in English literature. I was interviewed for Malta, but the other candidate, a handsome young man from Oxford, got the job. Another ad: Memorial University of Newfoundland, in Canada. I sent off an application and my CV. One day a telegram arrived at the Stygian gloom of the dark-panelled Shakespeare Institute — immediate reply demanded, prepaid — offering me a job as lecturer in the English Department at the princely salary of $6,500 per annum — $500 above the minimum rate for lecturer. I was ecstatic and accepted immediately. “You’re just the kind of person we need in Canada,” said the young man interviewing me at Canada House for my immigration papers. I was staggered! I seemed to be superfluous in overcrowded England. As Professor Spencer so delicately put it at my farewell party at the Institute, I was part of the “brain sewer.”

I sailed on the Empress of England from Greenock (my parents lived in Scotland) to Montreal, with my immigrant’s suitcase — a heavy affair with a wooden frame and a tray inside. My journal at the time recorded my departure from the Old Country:

Bagpipes on the tender boat. Felt rather tearful, mainly because hadn’t slept much last night, but went and had a lager and felt better. The virtues of alcohol proved once more. Ghastly feeling alone and knowing no one. Lots of smart Americans (Canadians, I suppose). Even the fattest-assed wears Bermuda(?) shorts — long shorts ending above the knee. Am in a cabin with three other ladies, all grandmothers. One is Irish and quiet, the other English and voluble, the 3^rd Canadian, rather deaf and depressed and widowed with “a lovely little home.” Had tea with the English and Irish, after a horrible solitary lunch with 4 deadly Scottish girls who spoke only to each other, and a deaf old man who spoke only to the waiter. Superb food, however, like a 1^st class hotel, only more variety. Lackeys buzzing around the sauce boats like black bees. I wish I had gone on that cargo boat, however, with single cabin and “sharing private bath,” and only 14 passengers [the Furness Withy Line to St John’s; their passenger service ended that year]. One feels a bit lost among all these crowds, and no one speaking to each other. So tired I can hardly write. Canadian widow is dolling up in a chic écru knitted ribbon outfit. One dresses for dinner. It all seems rather archaic. (12 August 1964).

The voyage to Montreal, which took five days, soon became tedious. There was nothing to do except walk up and down the deck. One evening I was leaning against the rail in my golden Cleopatra sandals and yellow stretch pants — the latest fashion, contemplating the path of moonlight on the sea, when a man approached me. At last a flirtation! He was the boatswain. Socializing between crew and passengers was strictly forbidden, which lent an air of intrigue to the encounter. I had to hover near the connecting door to the crew’s quarters. When the coast was clear, the boatswain beckoned to me and we had to slink furtively through the corridors to his cabin. Once there, he plied me with “seduction doses of gin and rum” (I recorded in my journal) and I was soon “swallowing alcohol and flattery alike in large and willing draughts” while soft music played on his record player. As we sat side by side on his bunk, he told me how he had once rescued a girl from drowning. What a hero! I murmured appropriate admiration. He took my hand and placed it on his fly. I felt something large and swelling. I felt very nervous and said I had to go. After that he took up with an American woman of uncertain age and possibly freer morals. I wrote to my friend in London that I had a new swain — a boatswain, which she thought very witty. Despite this brave face I felt I had made a fool of myself.

Now I sit here, an object of ridicule in the writing room, with drunken dancers staggering through, writing, to crown it all, my diary like a schoolgirl. Work is the only thing, and that I avoid like the plague. I must work and read. I am going to be pressed for time as it is when I arrive there [in St John’s]. Yet my eternal frivolity, my vanity in my Cleopatra sandals, my avoidance of reality, e.g. at this moment, I don’t even know the value of a dollar. Such is my ostrich-like ignoring of the Canadian realities soon to hit me. (Journal, 15 August)

We disembarked in Quebec for immigration. After our documents had been “sternly inspected” several times, “beaming officials” gave us tea or coffee in paper cups — “Rather Alice-in-Wonderland-ish.” On the walls were photographs showing immigrants of every conceivable nationality in “Worthwhile Jobs” (19 August). But I was impressed by their smiles and their welcome to Canada.

In the afternoon I took a tour of Quebec city. I was not impressed. The atmosphere struck me as repellent: . . . antagonistically French — Wolfe’s statue taken down — the whole town seems dominated by a Plains-of-Abraham complex. Worst French aspects.

On the other hand, Montreal delighted me:

. . . Most beautiful city I’ve seen — clean and spacious. A lot of the centre is very recent beautiful skyscrapers. But there is also the old French and international quarters. Went on 3 hour bus tour with a driver-guide not unlike a Richler character — very witty and amusing, and obviously very fond of his city. He pointed out details with loving care, and told us all about his marriage to an Irish woman, and how she made him leave the French outside: English inside, and how they adopted two children. I’m in love with Montreal completely. Re-read Duddy Kravitz. (Journal 19 August)

Mordecai Richler was one of the few Canadian writers to be found in English libraries.

I had to wait four hours at the CN station for my train. Here I witnessed my first bit of Canadiana: people eating turkey sandwiches smothered in gravy, and with salad! I thought this was the funniest thing. The food was delicious — $1.95 at the Buffet de la Gare for a Spanish omelette, chips, peas, salad, bread, coffee and wine. Thus fortified, I boarded the train that was to take me to the east coast. How superior the Canadian train seemed to the dirty, shabby, overcrowded trains of England.

The roomette turns out to be a toilet with a let-down bed in it! Very comfortable seat for day. Iced water. Fan. Basin, wardrobe, shoe-locker. It seems a bit unhygienic to use the toilet, but I suppose that’s what it’s for.

Everything is so convenient — the dial for heat, for the fan, bell for porter, thermos of iced water and paper cups, and even soap and matches! Negro porters, who come at a touch of the bell. (19 August)

Revelling in this luxury, I woke up in my new country:

. . . to find myself in a beautiful little town, with wooden houses painted turquoise and lovely rich pink, the fields with long islands of boulders in the middle — what they’ve cleared when ploughing I suppose. The untreated wooden fences — beautiful silver weathered timber. The feeling that there’s plenty of land. The little river solid with logs. Tears come into my eyes when I think of Birmingham — I feel I shall wake up any minute out of this pleasant dream and find myself there again. What a comparison of filth and cleanness, crowdedness and space!

Just passed a pink house with a blue roof — fabulous. Churches like icing-sugar. (19 August)

At length I arrived in Newfoundland, via the ferry to Port-aux-Basques:

Everything so clean and pure-looking. Pure clean sands, utterly empty, bleached tree-trunks. Frame houses ptd heavenly pastel shades. Haystacks round as in Scotland with hairnets. Children’s and animals’ country — plenty of space to play and roam around in. Iodine-coloured streams. Not unlike Scotland but heavily wooded, bigger, more spacious.

Ferry — tho’ sunny, pretty rough sea — dolphins — old lady being delicately sick in paper bag for “mal de l’air” — “motion sickness” — a peculiar way of putting it. Shocked by 2 teenage girls wearing curlers, in public, bobby-socks and trousers — the women not at all smart on the whole — tasteless clothes. Men have check shirts and unmatching ties — very far out. Close cropped hair — Beatles not caught on. Plenty of children, well treated. (Journal, “4^th day in Canada”)

I boarded the “Newfie Bullet” for the two-day trip to St. John’s. The train, with its narrow gauge, was very slow and jerky, making me feel rather sick.

Arriving in St. John’s on 21^st August, 1964, my new boss, Dr. Seary, and his wife Gwen met me at the station and drove me to the Kenmount Motel. I found them “very English, considering they’ve been here 11 years.” I had hardly ever stayed in a hotel before, and it seemed to me the height of luxury. I marvelled at the huge “treble” bed, all for me, and lovingly catalogued in my journal the features of my “super room”: two wooden walls and a wooden ceiling, “very modern”; my own private bathroom and toilet in one corner; towels, soap, matches, Kleenex, stationery and even a pen provided on the house; wall-to-wall carpeting, air conditioning, tourist information on Newfoundland, a picture of the landscape, and television.

I went downstairs to the dining-room, and had an expensive dinner of an enormous piece of fried salmon with French fries, which I carefully noted were chips. The waitresses were very funny-looking, dressed in white uniforms with white shoes, like nurses, except that they had little yellow aprons. I overheard one of the tourists saying: The first time I went tuna-fishing I was six. There was an air of unreality. Was it all a dream? I was brought back to reality with a bump — by cash. I had a hundred dollars, which seemed to me a large sum, and was dismayed to read posted on the door of my motel room that it cost nine dollars a night plus 5% tax. It took no mathematical genius to calculate that if I spent ten nights, with even minimal eating, I would be broke. And my first pay cheque was due at the end of September.

I was 26. I was in a strange country where I knew no one. I had no teaching experience. I was scared. In honour of my new country, I had bought a large bottle of Canadian Club, a 40-ouncer, at the duty-free shop on board ship. I had a pack of cards. I sat on the floor of my room, played patience, watched tearjerkers on television, and drank rye and ginger ale.

So began my new life in Canada.

First Impressions of St. John’s

The next day was Sunday. The hotel room began to get on my nerves. I saw a notice in the lobby about church services. I hadn’t gone to a church in years — but what else could one do on a Sunday? I took the bus to the Anglican Cathedral. The people in hats, the asking forgiveness for one’s sins “for there is no health in me” did not cheer me up. After the service I walked down to Water Street, where some men whistled and shouted unintelligible remarks as I passed. A shop grandly called THE LONDON NEW YORK AND PARIS had the oddest models in the window dressed in strange outdated 1940s’ clothes and hairstyles. There was a chill wind, laced with a whiff of fish; not many people about except a few lonely-looking sailors. I caught the bus back to the Kenmount Motel and sought the artificial comfort of my whisky bottle.

“The MUN”

On Monday, I went to the bursar’s office to get a loan to tide me over until payday; they refused. (In England when one got a new job one could always get a salary advance). Here was a dilemma! How was I to manage? I must move out of the expensive Kenmount Motel at once. Most of the faculty were away for the summer, but fortunately I met a colleague in the English Department, Dr. Francis, a tall, red-bearded man (also English). He drove me around town and up Signal Hill in his red sports car, and told me I must never call New-fin-land New-found-land. Then he cooked me lunch in his apartment, and “gave a long disquisition on the irrationality of women.” I summed up his character in my journal:

He is very dogmatic, in that he does not expect dissent from his opinions. I argue a little, but not much as it (argument) seems ultimately futile — altho’ he thinks it changes all minds but women’s. (22 August)

Despite his odd opinions of women, Dr. Francis was kind and helpful. He found a widow who took in a respectable female boarder at a very reasonable price, breakfast and dinner included — more for the company, she told me, for she had been married to an American G.I. and had a generous pension. She showed me a room filled with an enormous double bed covered with a bright pink satin spread, and just enough space to cram in a large dressing table with mirror. I paid my “astronomical” bill of “over twenty-seven dollars” at the motel, and moved in immediately. (Afterwards I found out that Memorial would pay for my hotel as part of my moving expenses.)

Dr. Francis showed me around the university — “the MUN, as they call it here” — which seemed very small compared to Birmingham University. It was built on an exposed position on top of a hill — “winds wuthered outside — very clean and pleasant inside hw. — marble floors and all.” I moved into my office on the third floor, with view of a ridgy hill covered with trees (Pippy Park), and laid out my textbooks on the empty bookshelves. Every day I took two buses to the university. It was very cold in my office, the wind howled and moaned in the roof, and the rain beat against the windows. I sat at my desk staring at Lily’s Campaspe in Five Elizabethan Comedies. I was to teach three different courses: Elizabethan drama, English 200 (starting with Aristotle’s Poetics!), and Bibliography and Research. Soon getting sick of Campaspe, I went over to the library (tiny, compared to the huge edifice of Birmingham University Library) and started looking at all the bibliographies of English literature in the Reference Section. At eleven o’clock I went for coffee in the coffee-room. Here, everybody — faculty, staff (even the janitors) and, later, students — had their coffee in the same place! The coffee room closed at 11:30. At twelve the Reference Section was locked, as if mad thieves might take off with its heavy tomes in the lunch hour. At noon everybody drove home and everything closed down until two — the reference section, the offices, even the switchboard. There was nowhere on campus to get lunch. I walked down to Churchill Square where I could get coffee and a sandwich in Ayre’s Supermarket, then went back to the office later to try and make notes on the now detested Campaspe. At five, I took the bus back to my boarding house, where a huge meal awaited me: a large halibut steak, with potatoes, turnips and peas; Jello and tinned (canned) fruit for dessert, and tea. I ate alone, for my landlady did not eat with me. Then I went to my room and went to bed, since there was nothing else to do.

After a few days of sitting alone in my office, having lunch alone in the supermarket, and dinner alone in the boarding house, I became very depressed. Time was passing. I didn’t seem to be making much progress with Five Elizabethan Comedies. I sat in my office in rising panic and thought of all the books I hadn’t read. Soon the students would return and term would begin. How would I manage? One evening at dinner I could no longer suppress my anxiety and started to cry. My motherly landlady packed me off to bed.

My long-time dream was to have a place of my very own, instead of living in a room in someone else’s house, as I had done in England. Dr. Francis took me to see an apartment (I learned not to call it a “flat”) on Queen’s Road. On the third floor, it had a large sitting room with a fireplace, a bedroom, kitchen with fridge and stove, and bathroom; hardwood floors. Best of all was the large window with a stunning view of the harbour, Signal Hill and the Narrows. All this for a hundred dollars a month, heating included. I could watch the sun rising over Signal Hill, shining on the sea, the ships sailing into the harbour through the Narrows. From that moment I fell in love with St. John’s.

I found out that it was easy to get a bank loan in Canada, and borrowed $100 against pay day. I bought an iron bedstead from a friend of my landlady for $20. At a second-hand furniture store I bought a table, some chairs, and a chest of drawers for a very modest sum, delivered. (I grandly gave the men a dollar tip.) My crate of books and pictures arrived. I was delighted. The living room had not only the view of the Narrows but also of Prescott Street, which plunged steeply to the harbour, and I could look down into the tall row houses and see people washing dishes in their kitchens. The bedroom had a view of the Basilica with its clock, Queen’s Road, and Rawlins Cross with its two drugstores and Murphy’s Superette, which sold everything from plastic buckets to rabbits (in season), from coal to carrots. On Prescott Street there was a tiny basement Chinese laundry where I could take my sheets.

My spirits rose. I had a good job — University Lecturer — with generous pay of $400 per month. (I immediately put down $100 on a record player, to be paid in instalments.) I had an apartment of my own. Best of all, I had escaped from grimy old England with its wretched cold bed-sitters and dank bathrooms with wet towels, Birmingham with its polluted air, rows of grey dismal houses, and snobby university. Here wooden houses were gaily painted in different colours. The sun shone and sparkled on the sea. I had finally “arrived.”

I Begin Teaching

Teaching was just talking about literature, wasn’t it? How difficult could it be? After all, I loved literature! I bought a second-hand tape recorder, and attempted to practise a typical lecture — say, on The Duchess of Malfi, one of the four tragedies I would be teaching in English 200. Alas, after a few sentences and ers and ums, I dried up. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I made several discoveries: I would have to write out all my lectures, and read them. And: it took me an hour to compose one page of lecture notes, not counting the preliminary reading. It took six typewritten pages (single spaced) for one lecture. That was six hours of writing.

My office mate, Dr. Elisabeth Orsten, arrived back from Oxford. She smoked a pipe, much to the horror of the President, who told her that it tarnished the image of the University. There were other young women among the faculty. Olga Broomfield, a Newfoundlander, kindly gave me her notes on the Bibliography course, which she had taken as a student from Dr. Story (famous as one of the compilers of the Dictionary of Newfoundland English). An Albertan, Diane Schlanker, of Ukrainian ancestry — one of the few “Canadians” (i.e., mainlanders) in the English Department — lived a few doors down from me on Queen’s Road, and we soon became friends.

I grew more and more anxious as the beginning of semester approached. The students would soon find out that I knew nothing, and I would be ignominiously fired! I couldn’t sleep, my stomach was in a constant knot. I went to Dr. Kennedy, just a few blocks down on Queen’s Road, and asked him for some tranquillizers. He said he didn’t prescribe tranquillizers. I was distraught — perhaps I cried. Anyway, he relented and wrote me a prescription.

Thus fortified, I went to my first class — Bibliography and Research. All I had to do was explain to the students what the course was about, and give them a reading list. These were all honours students, the crême de la crême. To my horror, my tongue felt thick, my speech was slurred, and I found it difficult to think! Tranquillizers were not the answer.

What a semester that was! I’ve never worked so hard or been under such pressure. It was worse than Finals. I had a nine o’clock class on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday (English 200, 50 students); an evening class, Tuesday and Thursday (Elizabethan drama); and my bibliography class Monday and Wednesday. I had cut one hour of the bibliography class so that the students could go to the library and look at the bibliographies assigned for that week, and report back on them to the class. That still meant eight hours of lectures to prepare. After my nine o’clock class I rushed home to write the lecture for my evening class. This class had several highly intelligent teachers in it, and I was always crippled with nervous diarrhoea before it. Luckily, as soon as I started my lecture, it disappeared. On Sundays, I had to research and write the bibliography lecture on The History of the Book. And how I wrestled with Aristotle’s Poetics — a difficult text that I could hardly understand myself and that was hell to explain to the second year students. No sooner was one lecture prepared and delivered than it was on to the next one. I was always in terror that some student would ask a question I couldn’t answer, for a professor should know everything about her subject, I thought. I read as much as I could!

I knew what kind of professor I didn’t want to be. I didn’t want to be like Dr. H, at Keele, who looked over the students’ heads at the wall behind us as if we were contemptible. I didn’t want to be sarcastic and put students down. I would treat them with respect, always. I would never, ever say, like Dr. K, that Jane Austen was a great writer because she had a “masculine mind.” And I was not going to treat Newfoundland with disdain, as the intellectual and social boondocks, as some of my colleagues did. After all, I was a colonial myself who had been born in South Africa. In fact I encouraged my bibliography students to choose a Newfoundland writer as the subject for their annotated bibliography, if they wished to do so. That was the smartest move I ever made, for it was in this way that I came to know something about Newfoundland literature.

My nemesis was teaching poetry on Saturday mornings to
the second year students. My method was I.A. Richards, Practical Criticism: go through the poem line by line. Explication. We had a textbook that gave the poem, and then two critics’ different interpretations of it. This confused most of the students, who thought there was only one interpretation — the teacher’s — for every poem had a “hidden meaning,” and it was your job to tell them what it was so they could write it on the exam. Since I was very bad at remembering names, and more so when I was nervous, I had the whole class sit in alphabetical order, so that I could call on them in turn and knew exactly where they sat. They hated this, as it separated friend from friend. Saturday mornings were poetry torture. I called on each student in turn to give their interpretation of a line or stanza. I didn’t realize that some students were so shy that they never spoke in class. I was traumatizing them by calling out their name and insisting that they answer. In the other classes — Aristotle’s Poetics, followed by four tragedies, I gave lectures. But it seemed to me that poetry was different and needed to be discussed.

Things came to a head with Wordsworth’s “Ode on the Intimations of Immortality.” Several Saturdays had been spent in trying to get through this long poem, line by line. On the third Saturday the students’ patience snapped. I found written in large letters on the board: “NO MORE IMITATIONS OF IMMORTALITY.”

Poor students! How they suffered at the hands of an inexperienced teacher who was obliged to learn by her mistakes. I tried to arouse their interest. I remember asking the question: Why should we be interested in a play — Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi — written four centuries ago? Does it have anything to say to us today? And trying to convince them that it did. It was a damned difficult play, too. At that time, the courses lasted a whole academic year, two semesters. So we were together for a long time. The students were very forgiving. At the last class, much to my surprise, they clapped. Apparently that was the custom at the time: that the students would show their appreciation in the last class. A very nice custom, for a new teacher.

In Newfoundland language holds many traps for the unwary. One of my students said he wanted to come and see me in the evening. I thought he was being fresh, or, as they say in Newfoundland, “saucy.” It was his turn to be confused — for weren’t my office hours 2 to 4? How was I to know that in Newfoundland evening meant afternoon? I’m sure I committed many gaffes out of ignorance.

One linguistic difference I did enjoy was when the students called me “Professor.” “Oh, I’m not a professor,” I assured them, causing them to be confused. In England, Professor was a title given to only the most senior and distinguished academics, heads of departments and those at the top of the academic ladder. Here, anybody who taught at a university was a professor. How it would have annoyed my professors in England to have me, a lowly lecturer, called “professor”!

Come from Away

“Where are you from?” taxi drivers, complete strangers, new acquaintances, ask me. If I’m “round the bay,” I always reply, “St. John’s.” They look puzzled for a moment, and then cunningly say, “But you’re not from here, are you?” “I’ve been here since 1964,” I snap; probably a time before most of my questioners were born. “But where are you from?”

These questions always irritate me. Why should I have to explain to my interrogators the complicated details of my life? Sometimes I counter a question with a question: “Where are you from?” Newfoundlanders love exchanging this information, and, if they are talking to a fellow-Newfoundlander, usually discover that they’re related, perhaps by marriage, to a distant aunt or cousin, or that their next-door neighbour is a cousin thrice removed from someone in the other’s community. The best seller in Newfoundland is Dr. Seary’s Family Names of the Island of Newfoundland.

I can never escape this question, “Where are you from?” As soon as I open my mouth, my accent betrays me. Yet if I try to change the way I speak, I sound phoney, especially to myself. Why can’t I say past instead of pahrst? Or can’t instead of cahrnt? I cahrn’t do it. Yet when I go to England I sound Canadian. I say candy instead of sweets, and sidewalk instead of pavement, French fries instead of chips, and chips instead of crisps. My English friends think I’m trying to sound affectedly American. When I’m tired, I try to quickly translate from one idiom into another. Where am I? Am I on the sidewalk or on the pavement? Do I want a bag of crisps or a bag of chips? It’s confusing. Some people in Canada think me snobbish for retaining my English accent instead of adopting a more decent North American one. “You have an accent,” they cry; as if they didn’t. Others like it. One of my students admiringly said she could listen to me forever, for my soft voice and English accent lulled her to sleep.

So here’s the answer to that irritating question: I was born in Uitenhage (Oiten-hah-ker), Cape Province, South Africa. When I was ten, my parents, who were themselves immigrants from Scotland, decided to move back to England, or “Home” as it was called in the Colonies. I grew up in London. I went to university in the Midlands — first Keele, in the “potteries,” and then Birmingham. My accent is hybrid: a trace of Cape accent (“feh heh” instead of “fair hair”); Cockney (Bloimey she’s a loimey!); Oxford, from my professors at university; a touch of Birmingham; and a bit of Scottish from my parents. (“It’s a braw bricht moonlicht nicht tonicht.”) To the scorn of Glaswegians (Glasgow was my parents’ native town) I pronounce my name the sassenach way — Bewcanon. In Glasgow they say Buhcanon, with the emphasis on the second syllable.

“Will you move back to England now?” people asked me when I retired. No way! I’m a Canadian citizen, and proud of it. And I never fell out of love with Newfoundland.

They Left Their Homes with Nothing,
and Made a New Life with Hard Work

Dana Borcea

This year marks the 25^th anniversary of the start of the arrival

in Canada of refugees the world came to know as the “boat people.”

In the years following the fall of Saigon, more than 60,000 Vietnamese refugees came to Canada. With help from the government and local groups, 6,000 settled in Edmonton. Here are some of their stories.

SITTING ON THE back porch of their north Edmonton home, Carol and Alan Kwok are sipping green tea and remembering a past they would rather forget. The couple are not usually mindful of anniversaries, but the weight of this one is too heavy to ignore. Twenty-five years ago, the Kwoks said goodbye to Saigon. Under the cover of darkness they climbed into a small crowded boat with their four children and a bag of clothes. So began their long search for a new home, a search that ended in Edmonton.

The journey across the South China Sea to a Malaysian refugee camp was supposed to last two days. Engine problems and poor navigation turned the voyage into a nine-day nightmare. “They told us we would have everything we needed on the boat,” Alan Kwok said. He remembered his shock at seeing the boat he had risked everything to buy passage on. The Kwoks shared the 15-metre vessel with more than 150 people, desperate to flee South Vietnam’s new Communist regime. They were among more than one million people from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos who fled the region from 1975 to the early 1990s. Tens of thousands died. Many more braved harrowing journeys across rough waters to seek temporary refuge in camps inside Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Japan. They became the “boat people” and were known around the world.

“There was no space to lie down and everyone had to squeeze in close,” Carol Kwok said, bringing her legs up to her chest to demonstrate. There was little food and they soon ran out of water. Carol could do nothing when her children tugged at her sleeve and told her they were hungry. When it rained, they held a tarp above their heads and tried to wash themselves with the water. The stench in the boat was unbearable. Many boats got lost at sea and floated aimlessly for weeks, even months. In some cases, people who didn’t starve or drown fell prey to pirates. In the overcrowded Malaysian refugee camp, the Kwoks suffered from stifling heat and boredom.

“I was thinking about the future,” she says. “I didn’t have any control in that life. I was always worried. Even at night when I slept, I worried.”

When Canadian officials arrived in the camp a few months later, Carol began to hope. With a distant cousin studying in Saskatoon, she and her family were chosen to come to Canada as government-sponsored refugees.

When they arrived in Saskatchewan in May 1979, there was still snow on the ground. The children had never seen snow before, and loved it. Carol got a job in a factory and cleaned offices at night. Her husband found work in construction. They raised their children and studied English. Thirteen years ago, they moved to Edmonton and opened a convenience store downtown. Carol often worked 16 hours a day, seven days a week, but has since cut back a little. She works hard because she can. She likes the money and the security it brings her family. “If you want to come to a free country, you should do the right thing,” she says. “Work, save money, be honest.”

* * *

That work ethic was common among the boat people who settled in Canada, says Alice Colak, director of immigration and settlement services at Edmonton’s Catholic Social Services. She was a front-line settlement worker during the late 1970s and early 1980s, when most boat people arrived in Canada.

“The research shows that the people who came in that period have contributed overwhelmingly to Canada, both economically as well as culturally,” she says. “They have not been a burden on this society.”

At the time, Colak heard complaints from people concerned about the large influx of refugees. “People were worried about the cost of allowing this many people to come,” she says. “They worried about there not being enough jobs.”

But many more welcomed the refugees warmly. Diane Bessai was one of them. As a young, widowed mother of four, Bessai opened her home to a family of four Vietnamese refugees. Members of her church, St. George’s Anglican, pooled their resources to sponsor the Lai family, who arrived in 1980.

The Lais were among the tens of thousands of Indochinese refugees sponsored under the Immigration Act’s new private sponsorship program. Under the new rules, any organization or group of five or more people could sponsor refugees by committing to their financial and personal support. Churches, ethnic associations, even bowling leagues across the country stepped forward in huge numbers. During this period, Canada accepted more Indochinese refugees per capita than any other country.

In her 30 years as a settlement worker, Colak has helped welcome waves of sponsored refugees from countries in Eastern Europe and Central America, and more recently from political hot spots such as Kosovo, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Sudan. The numbers coming out of Vietnam were the largest she has seen. “To this day, there has been nothing like it,” she says.

Like many other Canadians, Bessai remembers reacting strongly to the images of overcrowded boats full of people willing to risk everything for a chance at a better life. “I didn’t have any money to contribute, but I had a big house and hospitality to offer,” Bessai says. The Lais stayed with her for six weeks. To this day, their two sons, who went on to open a successful cabinet-making business, still call her “mom.”

* * *

Hunched over a sewing machine in her cluttered dress shop, Tina Tong hemmed a pink taffeta bridesmaid’s dress and remembered her escape from Vietnam 15 years ago. “We wanted to find freedom,” Tong says — a frightened teenager when she and her brother said goodbye to her family to board a boat bound for Malaysia. “We wanted something good for the future and we didn’t see anything good there.”

Despite studying hard, Tong knew that with no money or government connections she would never be able to attend university in Vietnam. The night she left marked her third attempt. Her brother had already spent a year in prison for an earlier escape bid. After idling in a refugee camp for nearly a year, Tong and her brother were selected by Canadian officials to come to Edmonton, making them among the last of the boat people to settle in Canada as government-sponsored refugees.

They arrived in September, just in time to watch the leaves change colour. “All the trees were yellow and orange and I thought it was so beautiful,” Tong says. “I liked the weather then, too. It was just a little bit cold.”

The government provided Tong with a two-bedroom apartment downtown and free English classes. She soon felt lonely and estranged. “It was a sad time and a big life change,” Tong says. Her lack of English proved to be her biggest hurdle. “You don’t know how to write, how to talk or how to listen.” Her first job, baking desserts in a mall bakery, forced her to learn. “It was my first job and very exciting. It was hard to understand my boss at first but he never got mad, even when I made mistakes. The customers were also very nice. It made me want to learn (English) faster.” Over the next decade, she worked various jobs and had four children. Her English improved.

Just over a year ago, Tong realized her dream of owning a business when she bought a dress shop on the corner of 105^th Avenue and 97^th Street. A Beautiful Angel Fashion is full of bright, modern fashions and traditional Asian dresses. Although she is still losing money on the store, Tong has always wanted to be an entrepreneur. In Vietnam, that wasn’t possible. “What’s yours is yours here,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about a knock on the door.” Tong often works late, doing alterations while her children play in the back of the shop. Many nights the phone rings constantly. Most of the calls are for her nine-year-old daughter. But Tong doesn’t seem to mind. She says she’s here for her children. “They can do anything they want now,” she says, handing her daughter the phone.

ESSENTIAL ANTHOLOGIES SERIES 8

Coming To Canada — Age Twenty-One

Contents

Introduction

Coming Here

Come from Away in Newfoundland

Roberta Buchanan

First Impressions of St. John’s

“The MUN”

I Begin Teaching

Come from Away

They Left Their Homes with Nothing,
and Made a New Life with Hard Work

Dana Borcea

ESSENTIAL ANTHOLOGIES SERIES 8

Coming To Canada — Age Twenty-One

Contents

Introduction

Coming Here

Come from Away in Newfoundland

Roberta Buchanan

First Impressions of St. John’s

“The MUN”

I Begin Teaching

Come from Away

They Left Their Homes with Nothing, and Made a New Life with Hard Work

Dana Borcea

They Left Their Homes with Nothing,
and Made a New Life with Hard Work