I migrated to Canada 40 years ago at the end of the sixties when I was fed up with everything but mostly bored and the grass was greener on the other side; thus missing the Beatles revolution, Carnaby Street and Vivien Westwood [pre-Britney] turning up at the Queen’s tea party sans knickers. However, I believe that since then I’ve made my own small contribution to this country. I met my husband here; my kids were born here and have grown up here and although I still have a strong allegiance to England, this is my home.
In those early days of immigration the Canadian government provided interest free loans as incentives to would-be settlers and many employers were so desperate for British workers that they would pay the lot on your behalf and even put you up in a hotel to boot with an advance on your wages. Not now mate. Nowadays the Canadian Government views your motives with deep suspicion and puts you through the proverbial wringer – and if you don’t make the grade, even though you have lived and worked here for years they may suddenly export you back where you came from without warning and without a hearing. The same appears to be true of England : http://paihnews.wordpress.com/2007/06/27/outrage-as-albanian-student-seized-by-immigration-officers/
If you want to embark for Toronto you had better have lots of money in the bank with which to support yourself while you look for that non-existent job because heaven forbid that you should land yourself on our welfare system despite the fact that we have plenty of lazy indigenous yobs hanging about on street corners that already have. No matter that you were an engineer or a doctor in your home country and are fleeing from some repressive regime run by some tin-pot dictator and are seeking asylum in a country that will welcome your pioneering spirit, your expertise, your value to the economy. Not on your life Charlie. We make fully qualified doctors from Russia or Poland or Uzbekistan sweep floors and work as waiters even though we have a critical shortage of medical personnel and most people of my acquaintance – including myself- have not had a personal family physician for many years. We make do with teaching clinics and ‘walk-in’ urgent care centres unless we’ve been run over by a truck in which case we can take our number at the local emergency room and if we’re lucky be seen by a junior intern next Friday.
My hairdresser – well she’s not mine she does other people too but I see her once a year or so when I’m feeling flush – was once a chemical engineer in her home country. Her husband ran his own company with a fleet of transports. Now he drives a cab downtown and dreams of the day he can buy another one. Fat chance – it costs more to run a cab than it does to make a profit what with high insurance, maintenance, licensing and plate fees, not to mention gas prices through the roof. But I digress. It’s surprising if you think about it that people such as these two have put themselves through all that aggro and given up professional careers to come to a country that does not value their professional qualifications at all. Things must have been pretty bloody rough for them before don’t you think?
I hear that doctors for example – if they want to practice here – must repeat practically *all* of their medical program and write all of the exams again – even if they were highly regarded consultants or surgeons or specialists before. Except that they can’t get into the medical schools because most universities cut enrollment numbers down to zip. God knows why – maybe it adds to the exclusivity of the club? Maybe since the government pays them when they get out they are keeping down the numbers to save money – which seems to be short-term thinking in the extreme because most of them probably bugger off to the States once they figure out they have to work 100 hours per week and move to Nanuctuk. Who knows.
It makes no sense at all to me that we are wasting such a pool of talent for no better reason than we arrogantly assume that they must somehow be of a lower caste. It reminds me frankly of all the shouting that I read about in the Brit papers re ‘Asylum Seekers’. My cousin, who still lives in Portsmouth and is actually older than me which is quite some feat bends my ear every time I speak to her about those bloody ‘asylum seekers’ and did I know that the Government gives them a free house, a car and a paid-up cell-phone the minute they step off the boat? Sounds great to me – how do I apply? But it’s this kind of narrow-minded thinking that leads to xenophobia both in Britain and here. Although here it’s less overt – here we welcome asylum seekers with one hand and then just point the way to the unemployment centre with the other. I say again – what an incredible waste of talent.
What ever happened to a land that whole-heartedly encouraged immigrants so that they could build the country into what it is today – well the bits that aren’t xenophobic, racist and intolerant that is. Last week there was a ceremony to open ‘Ireland Park’ in Toronto [http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070621/irish_park_070621/20070621?hub=CTVNewsAt11].
That was the place where thousands of Irish families landed after fleeing the great Irish Famine of the 1840’s. They braved a horrendous sea voyage, sickness and an overland trek that killed most of them to make a new life for themselves and they practically built the entire city of Toronto from scratch. They worked their bums off to feed their families and carve out a little niche. But the irony is that their arrival was greeted, unsurprisingly, by the current inhabitants with outrage and letters to the papers about loss of jobs, lack of resources, the imminent downfall of civilization as they knew it, and all the old tired cliches about upsetting the status quo. Never mind that these poor exhausted people were literally starving and only wanted to make a place for themselves in a country that was, in terms of land area, more than twenty times the size of their homeland and there was plenty of back-breaking labour and hard work to go round. Talk about the [sour] milk of human kindness.
5 users commented in " Bring me your tired, your hungry, your poor.. "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackIt is “normal” practice of US authorities (I think Canada is the same case). In winter 2006 I was rejected in US consulate for DV-Lottery Visa for insignificant reason. I have 2 high educations in theoretical physics and banking, have not too poor english spoken and written. But… And I was witness of giving visa for those who were less qualified. Then I came to idea that US authorities want to attract people for black job as ashmen, street cleaners, loaders, and etc. Because to my opinion average american won’t work there for money that non-americans are ready to get. The reason why do I tell this is that this logic of attracting people outside seems too strange. And it contributes to vanishing any respect for US. And I agree with author with wasting talents. American and Canadian authorities believe that all talents of the world live there in North America only and foreigners are for serving them 🙂 Time will put all in own place. Fast or slow
Marcello: If it’s so bad here then stay where you are. The last thing America needs is another conspiracy theorist / sour grapes culture case. I would imagine that those degrees qualify you to be a street sweeper, but I really can’t say for sure.
The thing to remember is that there is nothing WRONG with being a street sweeper and that’s what too many immigrants can’t seem to grasp (my latino friends are the exception). America is about starting at the bottom and working for a better life and sending your kids to college so they start a rung or two higher up the ladder than you did.
The simple fact that you have multiple degrees and “passable” English doesn’t make you a better person than anyone else.
David, there is no word that somebody is better or worse. I have no right to judge this, maybe you have.
Attracting people must be done with some logic. And your words “If it’s so bad here then stay where you are” are too late for me since there are too many places on “mother Earth” to go there. And I enjoy them. I don’t want to make this page for sorting out our relationship, it is better to do it tet-a-tet.
Once again: “Time will put all in own place. Fast or slow.” Isn’t it true?
Marcello, you clearly indicated that you felt entitled to come to the US because of your degreed status and scoffed at the notion that manual laborers were allowed in ahead of you, puffing a theory about the US and Canada only recruiting “Black Ashmen.” Then, after completely dissing the entire American working middle-class you’re saying that you don’t believe that you’ve judged who is better or worse? I think the problem is that you only know American culture through the TV. Paris Hilton is not an accurate cross-section of Americans.
You wanna go tet-a-tet with me, pal? You let me know when you’re in the American southeast and we’ll go head to head.
As for american culture…. I know European culture and Eeastern culture where there is no habit like putting legs on table and where people don’t believe that everybody throughout the world has to speak his language. Though I don’t want to argue about this. “Every frog praises own bog” (well known proverb). And americans should be glad that others communicate with them using their langauge. I have full right to write here Russian or other language I speak and I doubt that you will understand it. Or do you mean that other languages are lower than English?
Let’s leave this wordy skirmish it seems to be endless because each of us has own truth. And as to tet-a-tet:) you understood it as invitation for fighting? (does “go head to head” mean this?) Hey bud, then you are too aggressive 😀 It is not time to wave with fists yet. Do you like beer or something stronger? Indeed it is better to speak tet-a-tet with such drinks? isn’t it? 🙂 But if you really want to fight I want to say that in childhood I didn’t run with butterfly net and didn’t sit before PC only 🙂 We are on different coasts of Atlantic oucean. But relax and think about beer and fresh air.
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