When you ask me where I am really from, you unknowingly remind me that I don’t truly belong here. But what if, Canada is the only home I know? What if, I was raised in a Canadian household just like yours because my mom was raised by a Nova Scotian mother? What if, when I say I am half Nova Scotian, I say so as an act of resistance. What if, I need you to know that I am just as Canadian as you are? That this is my home just like it is yours. What in the world does it mean to be Canadian anyway? Are you truly a Canadian if you are the original descendants of the English and French settlers? Or are you truly Canadian if you identify as Indigenous? What makes a true Canadian and who has a right to truly belong here without question? Why is that my grandmother’s ancestors have lived in Canada just as long as some of your ancestors, yet my Canadian identity is constantly questioned while yours is accepted? Maybe that is why Canada has never truly felt like home, because my identity and affiliation to this country has been questioned my whole existence simply because of the color of my skin. I remember going to Guatemala in 2017 and for the first time, I felt so at home in a place. I felt more at home in Guatemala after being there for a few weeks than I felt at home in a country that I lived in my whole life. And maybe it had to do with the fact that the people’s faces in that country were closer in skin tone to mine? Maybe it had to do with the Guatemalans' hospitality, their ability to embrace you and welcome you into their home as if they’ve always known you? I felt at home in a country that was supposed to be foreign to me, because for once, my skin color did not seem like something that signified my difference and my inability to belong. And no one ever asked me where I was really from, to them I was just a Canadian, no questions asked.
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AuthorRecent Brock Graduate and First Year Teacher! I love to talk about life, justice and faith. Archives
March 2023
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