When you immigrate to a different country, you have three choices when it comes to how you interact with your new environment:

1. immerse yourself completely in your new surroundings and culture, and adopt it as your new way of life
2. immerse yourself in your new culture but cling to those aspects of your own culture that you don’t want to lose
3. refuse to integrate with your culture and cling to the culture you were born into

I personally think it’s best to go with option 2, and I’d even support option 2 with a leaning toward option 1, but we’ve all met people who are devout option 1 folk (speaking with the accent of their new home within weeks of landing there and denying their true origins) or option 3 (regularly trash talking or criticizing the new home, whether it’s temporary or permanent, and refusing to interact with anyone who isn’t from their home country or area).

I live in Canada and while the country is not perfect, it is in my opinion fairly accepting of immigrants (though like many countries the immigration process is getting more rigorous) and maybe my experience is not the norm. Yes you will get people who say “pardon?” every time you speak because your accent differs from their own, and you can tell they’re not even trying to understand what you’re saying. But to be fair, not all of them are trying to be rude: they are just learning your accent and once they know how you pronounce certain words they won’t misunderstand you again. I sound fairly “Canadian” and I find that when I’m speaking with some Nigerians (on the phone especially), I sometimes ask them to repeat themselves and they sometimes ask me to do the same. Funke can confirm that we “Canadians” kind of slur our words, so the city I live in, Ottawa, ends up sounding like “Odawa” when I say it, and Toronto, another city sounds more like “Teronno”.

But the reason I like Canada is that it allows immigrants to have the best of both worlds. My parents feel completely comfortable wearing their ankara and lace to oyinbo weddings or to our (primarily oyinbo) church. They and their Yoruba friends were able to start a Yoruba association and meet in a community centre where they are free to discuss things in Yoruba, if they want to set up a festival or event to celebrate their culture it is welcome and could even be supported in part at least by the city or province. Some smart entrepreneurs are selling Nigerian food here and we’ve never been told that we can’t eat pounded yam or ogbono soup or anything else we enjoy. Because of this, I feel that as an expression of appreciation fo the country you have chosen to immigrate to, you should respect at least some of the things that make your new home unique (which is why option 3 above rankles me).

For example, my parents took us skating, and even though I am terrible at it, I have been exposed to it. I’ve also had several opportunities to go skiing, play in the snow, go camping, eat Canadian classics like beavertails (not what you think) and poutine to name a few. While my mom can’t skate she is the biggest ice hockey fan, and to hear her screaming at the television on game night, you’d think her own children were playing. It’s amazing how well she knows the names of the players and their stats. My dad is a much quieter fan but he’s the same. I remember a few years ago the local hockey team went quite far in the play offs and come see Yorubas at the end of year party listening to the game on the radio and sharing the score with one another.

Another thing I really appreciate about life here is the freedom to practice our religion. Canada is/was a Christian nation so maybe because I’m also Christian, that’s why I feel there’s religious freedom. But I can go to a Redeemed Church if I wish, and I can even plant a new church if I’m so inclined. The city will rent out rooms to me to hold my religious services; I don’t have to lie and say it’s something other than a religious organization to get the space. And although there can be tension between different religious groups, I haven’t heard of Canada targeting a certain religion unless it’s known for encouraging violence toward another group.

Every now and then, a crazy story makes the news. For example, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is an old and established institution here. There was a story about a guy of a certain religion who wanted to be an RCMP officer. No problem. But rather than carry the official weapon that RCMP officers carry, he wanted to carry the ceremonial dagger of his religion instead and I think he was suing the RCMP over the matter. It angered me because the RCMP is a uniquely Canadian institution: if you are not prepared to follow the rules, there are hundreds of other jobs that you can take. I didn’t agree with those saying the guy’s rights were being somehow denied because he can carry his dagger practically anywhere else and I think he could even carry it in addition to the official weapon of the RCMP. I worry sometimes that in some ways Canada is being too tolerant and could lose its own identity by being too accepting: if you leave your country for better opportunities and you’re able to find yourself in a country that doesn’t care what you wear, what religion you practice and what you eat, where you feel relatively safe and can keep yourself fed and sheltered, the country should be allowed to hold on to certain things that it feels defines it as a country.

But don’t let me get too impassioned. My point is that if you’re in a different country for school or to live, take the time to immerse yourself in your new surrounding and meet people from a different background or walk of life than you. Don’t pretend the whole country sucks and has nothing to offer because if you really believed that you’d head back home. Enjoy connecting with people from your homeland too; that’s a part of you and hopefully you don’t feel like you have to run away from it. But please don’t go to either of the extremes…we should be proud of our origins and seek to be good ambassadors of our country. Some bloggers who I think are embracing these principles especially well are Olaoluwatomi and KTravula.

Have you assimilated into your new country, segregated yourself or are you somewhere in the middle?

I so appreciate the comments received on the last entry on infidelity. I started responding to each one but there was so much repetition in my responses that it’s probably best to address the comments in an entry. I’ll do that later this week.

Today I wanted to follow up on the entry I wrote about immigrating to Canada. A dear friend’s brothers in Nigeria want her to send them a letter, inviting them to visit her. Her brothers don’t just want to visit: they want to find a way to work while on a visitor’s visa, earn some money and then return to Nigeria. The laws of Canada say you cannot work on a visitor’s visa and my friend is one of those rule following types (she probably hasn’t ever downloaded music illegally either!). As a result, she told her siblings that she cannot in good conscience agree to the visit. Besides telling them that it’s illegal to work on a visitor’s visa, she tried to get them to see that their actions if they were to get caught could reflect on her good name. If the authorities were to ask her if she knew that her siblings’ intentions were to do more than just visit, she would have to say YES she knew. I would have made the same decision she did.

Unfortunately a no, even with the most rational of explanations, even one that offers another way of getting the same end, is not often accepted easily. The alternative that my friend has given is that the brothers work on raising the money to attend a one or two year college or post graduate diploma in Canada, apply to a school in Canada, preferably one in my friend’s city, get admission, then use the information sent to them by the educational institution to get a student visa. If the school is in the same city as my friend, then her siblings could live (rent free) with her while studying. They would also be able to work (on campus at least) to earn extra money which they can use to save for the next semester of school or save for their future goal of relocating to Nigeria with money.

The problem with this plan for her brothers (and for my family members in the past) is that it’s a long and slow process. They would rather buy a plane ticket and come here without a plan, and find a way around the system rather than sit down and write it out on paper, see if it’s feasible, then act.

When I think of my own parents’ journey, it wasn’t the fastest one. Due to the fact that we lived in the one province that has different immigration rules from the others for one year, we had to restart the process. In the end it took an unusually long time for my parents, sister and I to get our papers sorted out and obtain citizenship — just over 10 years! This is definitely above the average. I had nothing to do with the process but I know there were frustrations on my parents’ part to make sure the statuses of all family members (except my brothers who were born in Canada) were up to date and visas renewed when they had to be. Of course, those times are not too deep in my parents’ memories but I think their relatives forget the amount of time that the process actually required. But knowing what we know now, we know that any family or friend who is prepared to come to Canada legally would be able to get citizenship in a much shorter time period.

What continually upsets me is the fact that despite all that has been said, family members continue to think there’s an easy way to get here that we refuse to share with them, that we’re being unnecessarily “stuffy” with our insistence on keeping things legal. Why wouldn’t we want our loved ones close to us? What do we have to gain by keeping this “secret” from them?

To anyone dealing with the situation my friend is in regarding communicating the reality of immigration and making money in Canada to family members, I’d say it’s important to stress that the process can be long but when all is said and done (legally) it will be worth it in the long-run. If you play your cards right you will be able to move freely between both countries and either settle permanently abroad, or take your education and skills back home and use them to better your life and hopefully the lives of others. If you’ve waited this long already, what is another few years? (Note: I’m not saying that “a few years” is nothing, but let’s think big picture.) Instead of calling family members with the latest thing you heard from someone who has never left Nigeria’s shores about how things work abroad (of course that person heard it from someone else who has probably never left the country), use the time (yes, the years!) to work with what you have at your disposal to be the best you can be.

And please, don’t misinterpret me:
I know that life in Nigeria is hard for many. I know some are desperate to leave the country, to go somewhere their skills and talents can be recognized and used to their full potential. I know some people have given Nigeria a very good try, have tried to build businesses and start new things that have failed due to countless factors beyond the control of the individual. I really get that!

I also know that I am blessed that I came here as a child, in the pocket of my parents, so to speak. I have not been where my relatives or my friend’s siblings are. If the roles were reversed I may very well be the one sitting in Nigeria thinking that my relatives aren’t doing enough for me, or don’t want to see me thrive. I recognize that I haven’t “been in the shoes” (literally) of those who don’t mind doing things illegally to get where they want to be. I’ve never had that desperation. But, I actually firmly believe that there are very few situations where the only alternative is to do something illegal. Oftentimes it’s impatience that leads people to do things the wrong way.

Finally, I know people who want to leave Nigeria but who are willing to make lemonade with the lemons they currently have, sell the lemonade for a few years and save some of the profits for the future plans to immigrate. Some find that their lemonade leads to a business or idea that allows them to support themselves quite well in Nigeria, and abandon plans of trying to go abroad. My cousin is an accountant and her husband works in a bank. Things haven’t been good for them financially, but they are surviving. However, for at least five years, my cousin has been buying and selling on a small scale, finding a way to supplement their income with this (in fact this is more profitable than her job at the moment). She recently got in contact with a friend in the UK and the two of them are partners in that he provides her with merchandise that she sells, and she’s doing very well with that. She’s making really good lemonade from what I can see!

This is longer than I wanted it to be, and if you read it to the end, I appreciate it. This idea of immigration and helping people to come here the right way is one that I am passionate about. I intend to find a way to do more for the cause in the future.