It has been a little while since I last wrote, and I have been missing writing and hearing your responses by email, in the comments section, or on my Facebook page. Thank you for being such faithful readers, and for all the encouragement to keep up my blog despite having limited time to devote to it during this period. I will be getting more regular again within the next month, so you can expect to see more from me soon!
It is Wednesday evening. I have spent the last week and a half visiting every media business I know in Charlottetown looking for marketing work. As those of you who have been reading this blog for a while now know, there are two things I am most passionate about: writing and islands. So the idea of using my writing skills to help island businesses market themselves is my idea of heaven. I have been doing social media work for two companies now since December, so I am heading into my third month of my first official exploration of the social media world for clients, and I am absolutely loving it! Being a poet, I love finding creative ways to say a lot with as few words possible. It is a challenge, and one I thoroughly enjoy. Social media is therefore perfect for me as ideally the shorter the post, the better.
Being an American citizen, I am an immigrant here on Prince Edward Island. I am, as they say, "from away." I am perfectly comfortable with that tag -- I lived with it for the six years that I lived here full time, and am happy to re-embrace the "from away" title if it means I can stay. The only part of being from away that I do not appreciate is the inability to work unless I can find an employer willing to jump through the loops required to get me a work visa. It is hard to know that I have the skills and the drive to be able to make a difference in this community, yet be prevented from offering my services to islanders because I do not have a full-time work visa, and thus far have been unable to find anyone willing to hire me full time and help me get a work visa. It is an issue I have been confronting my whole life, having grown up in Cyprus, and one I am truly tired banging up against. I have decided that if I can find a full time position here I will stay put and get residency, putting this legal "from awayness" to an end.
I have been on Prince Edward Island now since the end of December, and every day has been an adventure. Last night for example I attended a gathering at the Culinary Institute here on the subject of newcomers and farmers. The purpose of the event was to connect farmers with ethnic restaurant owners looking for locally grown vegetables, fruits and meat/fish. The presentations were interesting, and the dialogue between audience and speakers/panelists was engaging. It is encouraging to see this important dialogue starting, and to be able to see the implications of it for the future of the food industry on Prince Edward Island. As more immigrants come to the island, and its population becomes more culturally diverse, its tastes also change and diversify, creating a far more interesting culinary landscape to sample for visitors and islanders alike. The more the island has to offer, the more attractive it becomes, and the more linkages that can be made between those from the island and those "from away," the more successful this (and other) initiatives will become.
It is hard to believe that I have only been back for six weeks, and at the same time amazing that six weeks have already gone by. It feels--to me and my friends alike--like I never left, and at the same time I am finding myself having a very hard time imagining what will happen in the months and weeks ahead if I do not find work and a means of staying. When i first arrived on Prince Edward Island, it was a foreign landscape and culture--one isolated from everything and everyone I knew. But being back here and noticing my body relax and reinhabit this landscape, I am realizing that while I will never be considered an islander, this island has become home. I have roots here, and they are deep--not easily pulled up from the bright red soil.
I am back at my dear friend Louise's home this evening. I decided to stay in for a change and write a blog entry and speak with my parents on the phone. There is a plane flying overhead. I can hear its engines roaring as it climbs up into the sky. I wonder if I will be on one of those soon, or if I will still be here next week and the week after -- sipping hot tea, taking in the brilliance of sun reflected on snow crystals, and enjoying being a part of a community that has become like family to me. Life is a mystery. Why one door opens and many others do not will undoubtedly make sense some day, looking back on this period of my life. Now, in the midst of this period of uncertainty, I am just staying present, enjoying the company of my friends and colleagues, enjoying snowfall and the full moon and thousands of stars in the crisp, clear sky, the smell of wood burning in fireplaces, and the raw call of hundreds of crows that migrate in dark clouds from the treetops to the blueish surface of the frozen harbour at dusk. I am, in short, immersing myself in home and in winter for as long as I am able to remain on the island.
Wherever you are on this winter day, I hope you are enjoying the details of the moment: the sensation of the air against your face, the feeling of winter sunshine on your cheeks, the sound of the wind rattling through bare branches, and hopefully the sound of laughter as you share stories with good friends over steaming hot cups of tea!
About Me
- RoutesofPresence
- Born in the US, raised on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, lived in Italy, the US, and Canada. Lover of language, travel, colour, and the natural world.
Showing posts with label being an immigrant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label being an immigrant. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Friday, November 25, 2011
Always an immigrant
"Immigration is such a shocking experience in the history of a family that even the grandchildren are still grandchildren of immigrants." -Amos Oz, Israeli writer
I was listening to a PRI interview with Amos Oz this morning, and found his comments about immigrants interesting. This past week my mother glanced at my CV, which has a short bio-like paragraph at the top of it. In it I say that I come from a family of Italian immigrants. I have considered myself the great-granddaughter of immigrants since I was a child. It has played an enormous role in my life and in my identity--to the point where I actually moved to Italy when I was 19 to study Italian and then traveled down to Sicily to research family records and re-establish connections with relatives who had remained in Italy. So it came as quite a surprise when my mother took exception with my saying that I come from a family of Italian immigrants. In her eyes, this statement is simply not true. It is a misrepresentation of who I am.
Amos Oz's thoughts about immigrant families resonated deeply with me. It is true that I was not born in Italy, and that neither my grandparents nor my parents spoke any Italian while I was growing up. But there was always this weight of collective amnesia hanging in the air whenever we spent time with family. My great grandparents did not really insist that my grandparents learn Italian, and they in turn did not insist that my father learn Italian, and I have spent a good portion of my life trying to uncover where we came from....who we were and what our family stories were. I think because my great-grandparents never really learned enough English to communicate clearly with my father and his brothers, so much was lost between generations due to lack of language skills. While in Sicily I wandered along the main beach, wondering if my great-grandfather had stood in the same spot I was standing, and what he must have been thinking as a young man only a few years older than I was at the time when he boarded a ship away from the poverty of Sicily toward the hope and promise of a new life in New York. I spent many hours researching in an old records office. The staff let me come back behind the desks and into the long narrow hallways lined with shelves. I climbed ladder after ladder, pulling enormous, hand-written ledgers from the shelves and meticulously leaving through page after page of beautifully written Italian records of birth, marriage and death records. Eventually I found enough information to connect with family in Italy, and ended up connecting with some distant relatives that, at the time, still owned a family bar/gelateria on the town's main street.
Reconstructing the past and forming a personal relationship with it has been very important to me, so yes, I very much still feel like being the descendant of immigrants is an integral and essential part of who I am. When I was almost six, my family moved to the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean. We did officially move there to serve the local Baha'i community, however from my perspective as a six year old, the process was indistinguishable from that of an immigrant. We sold all of our belongings and moved half way across the world with three large suitcases. We had to learn a new language. We were a different faith from most of those around us. My parents struggled financially to make ends meet. And I grew up wanting more than anything in the world to fit in with those around me.
My family remained in Cyprus from almost 16 years, and I completed my elementary and high school education there. When I arrived back in North America for college I felt as if I was entering a foreign land. Apart from visiting family every few years, my family had not maintained strong ties with the US. I lost contact with any childhood friends I had known, and when I returned I had a British accent and no idea how anything worked in the US. I distinctly recall going to try to buy something and having someone tell me that I still needed to pay a nickle, not knowing what that meant, and being embarrassed to ask, because the person behind the cash register seemed to think I should know; spending hours looking for books on the first floor of the library before finally asking a librarian for help, and not understanding why she stared at me when I told her that my book was on the first floor, but that I couldn't find it (not knowing, of course, that in the US the first floor was the ground floor of a building, and I was on the second floor); and getting papers back from professors with words circled throughout the text, and a note at the top of the first page in red ink that read "This is America, not England," in response to my use of British spelling. These were just a very few of the cultural differences and misunderstandings that I overcame that first year back in the US.
By the time I decided to do my Master's degree on Prince Edward Island, in Canada, I had become familiar enough with North American life that a good deal of what I experienced was relatively easy to adjust to, but there were still new ways that people related to each other, new uses of English, and cultural practices that I had to adjust and adapt to.
Back in California this year I have realised just how much I had adapted to my Canadian home I had become. How the softening of my demeanour that was a way of making sure that I did not offend anyone living on the small island of PEI in Canada meant that I was bulldozed by those around me in California who have no qualms about speaking their mind, and expect those around them to deal with whatever they have to say. It has been an interesting journey of adaptation and re-adaptation. One that I am sure will continue to develop and evolve as I experience cultures that I have not yet experienced.
Listening to Amos Oz this morning just made me realise that as human beings, we are an eclectic collection of the cultures and stories that have influenced our lives. I will always be the great-granddaughter of Italian immigrants, the product of a British education system in Cyprus, my time trying to understand my past in Italy, my adventures in Canada and my mix-matched adaptation to life in the United States. I will perpetually doubt myself when the program I am using underlines how I spell a word because I am using the British spelling, and will probably always have some words that I sometimes spell the American way, and other times the British way.
How about you, friends? Have the stories of your ancestors or your own migration patterns influenced who you are or who your children are? In what ways? If you would like to share, please do so in the comments section below. I would love to hear your thoughts. Have a great weekend!!
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| My father and his three brothers with my grandparents and great-grandfather. |
Amos Oz's thoughts about immigrant families resonated deeply with me. It is true that I was not born in Italy, and that neither my grandparents nor my parents spoke any Italian while I was growing up. But there was always this weight of collective amnesia hanging in the air whenever we spent time with family. My great grandparents did not really insist that my grandparents learn Italian, and they in turn did not insist that my father learn Italian, and I have spent a good portion of my life trying to uncover where we came from....who we were and what our family stories were. I think because my great-grandparents never really learned enough English to communicate clearly with my father and his brothers, so much was lost between generations due to lack of language skills. While in Sicily I wandered along the main beach, wondering if my great-grandfather had stood in the same spot I was standing, and what he must have been thinking as a young man only a few years older than I was at the time when he boarded a ship away from the poverty of Sicily toward the hope and promise of a new life in New York. I spent many hours researching in an old records office. The staff let me come back behind the desks and into the long narrow hallways lined with shelves. I climbed ladder after ladder, pulling enormous, hand-written ledgers from the shelves and meticulously leaving through page after page of beautifully written Italian records of birth, marriage and death records. Eventually I found enough information to connect with family in Italy, and ended up connecting with some distant relatives that, at the time, still owned a family bar/gelateria on the town's main street.
Reconstructing the past and forming a personal relationship with it has been very important to me, so yes, I very much still feel like being the descendant of immigrants is an integral and essential part of who I am. When I was almost six, my family moved to the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean. We did officially move there to serve the local Baha'i community, however from my perspective as a six year old, the process was indistinguishable from that of an immigrant. We sold all of our belongings and moved half way across the world with three large suitcases. We had to learn a new language. We were a different faith from most of those around us. My parents struggled financially to make ends meet. And I grew up wanting more than anything in the world to fit in with those around me.
My family remained in Cyprus from almost 16 years, and I completed my elementary and high school education there. When I arrived back in North America for college I felt as if I was entering a foreign land. Apart from visiting family every few years, my family had not maintained strong ties with the US. I lost contact with any childhood friends I had known, and when I returned I had a British accent and no idea how anything worked in the US. I distinctly recall going to try to buy something and having someone tell me that I still needed to pay a nickle, not knowing what that meant, and being embarrassed to ask, because the person behind the cash register seemed to think I should know; spending hours looking for books on the first floor of the library before finally asking a librarian for help, and not understanding why she stared at me when I told her that my book was on the first floor, but that I couldn't find it (not knowing, of course, that in the US the first floor was the ground floor of a building, and I was on the second floor); and getting papers back from professors with words circled throughout the text, and a note at the top of the first page in red ink that read "This is America, not England," in response to my use of British spelling. These were just a very few of the cultural differences and misunderstandings that I overcame that first year back in the US.
By the time I decided to do my Master's degree on Prince Edward Island, in Canada, I had become familiar enough with North American life that a good deal of what I experienced was relatively easy to adjust to, but there were still new ways that people related to each other, new uses of English, and cultural practices that I had to adjust and adapt to.
Back in California this year I have realised just how much I had adapted to my Canadian home I had become. How the softening of my demeanour that was a way of making sure that I did not offend anyone living on the small island of PEI in Canada meant that I was bulldozed by those around me in California who have no qualms about speaking their mind, and expect those around them to deal with whatever they have to say. It has been an interesting journey of adaptation and re-adaptation. One that I am sure will continue to develop and evolve as I experience cultures that I have not yet experienced.
Listening to Amos Oz this morning just made me realise that as human beings, we are an eclectic collection of the cultures and stories that have influenced our lives. I will always be the great-granddaughter of Italian immigrants, the product of a British education system in Cyprus, my time trying to understand my past in Italy, my adventures in Canada and my mix-matched adaptation to life in the United States. I will perpetually doubt myself when the program I am using underlines how I spell a word because I am using the British spelling, and will probably always have some words that I sometimes spell the American way, and other times the British way.
How about you, friends? Have the stories of your ancestors or your own migration patterns influenced who you are or who your children are? In what ways? If you would like to share, please do so in the comments section below. I would love to hear your thoughts. Have a great weekend!!
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