When I first met my future husband, my Bosnian friend took one look at him with his pink shirt, short-short rugby shorts and his faux-hawk (a style he still insists David Beckham stole from him), and said, “You can just look at that guy and tell he’s a European.”
At that time eleven years ago, his world was still the world of rugby, soccer and cricket, of rainy winters and Welsh politics. After our wedding, he made the move to Canada, and that world got tilted on its axis.
Moving to a foreign country has to be done to be appreciated, since it changes all your moorings. People may not speak the same language as you or have the same accent and cultural understandings as you. And if you’re moving to Canada, you better get yourself an extra thick set of skin or a parka, because the winter is going to be a rude shock.
To his credit, my husband did his best to embrace Canadian experiences, whether it was playing hockey or building a skating rink in the backyard for the kids, to cheering for the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Grey Cup complete with a watermelon helmet (too bad he didn’t read the how-to instructions about letting it dry overnight and ended up watching the game with sticky juices running down his head). He’s even been one of a lonely crowd of five (maybe 10?) Toronto Raptors fans in St. Paul over the past five years, cheering them on through a series of dismal seasons to their most recent appearance in the Eastern Conference finals – one that finally brought basketball fans from coast to coast together to cheer for We the North.
So when he decided to go for his citizenship test after 10 years, it may have seemed on the surface overdue, but on the other hand, it came as a little bit of a surprise to me, a commitment to the country I thought he might never make.
I wasn’t expecting to feel so touched when I attended last week’s citizenship ceremony, but there I was looking up at the coat of arms, feeling the telltale prick of tears in my ears being with all these people who had come to Canada from across the world, wearing everything from African traditional dress, Muslim head scarvess, or in the case of my husband, an inner Welsh dragon on his heart.
I thought what a miracle it was to see that the dream of multiculturalism is still alive in Canada, functioning better than maybe any other country in the world. As long as new citizens swear to respect and honour the rule of this land and all its people, they will be accepted here, even if a piece of them lies somewhere else, whether its the noisy urban streets of India to the rolling green fields of Wales.
That’s the magic of Canada and the pride of being named a Canadian citizen - that wherever else you may have called home before, this will always be home to you now as well. Congratulations new citizens – welcome home.
