I just came to the realization recently that I am a first-generation Canadian. I know -- I should have figured this out a long time ago. Somehow, though, it never really struck me as being the case. I just always saw myself as Canadian.
This could be because I do not seem first-generation on the surface. I have an anglo last name thanks to an artisan ancestor who chose to become an economic migrant from England to the Holy Roman Emprie several centuries ago. My family, my immediate family, appeared to be your average hive of WASPs. The truth could not be different.
My mother was born in central Europe and came to this country as a child. Her father had a very strict rule that she and her sister were to speak only English, since they were Canadian now. The net result was that she spoke English with a Canadian accent by the time I was born.
My father was actually second-generation Canadian, but you would not have known it. Unlike my mother's father, his family remained firmly rooted in some of the old ways. His mother was Canadian-born but spoke English as a second language. As a matter of fact, my dad did not actually speak English when he started kindergarten.
I have always felt proud of being a Canadian. I feel in touch with this country far more than I could ever feel for some distant and foreign "homeland". Even when I lived in the United States, which closely resembles Canada in a lot of ways, I felt like a stranger in a strange land -- and I was only 13 at the time.
I am lucky in many ways. Having spend substantial lengths of time in three very different provinces -- Ontario, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia -- I really see myself as a Canadian, rather than as a provincial or regional Canadian. And that, I suppose, is the way it should be.
