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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Canada's 'space' is sweet release
Filipinos crowd a market area as they make their last minute shopping on Christmas eve in Manila, Philippines Saturday Dec. 24, 2011. Christmas is one of the most important holidays in this predominantly Roman Catholic nation. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) (CP)
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Africa is one complex and gloriously unmanageable 'theme' to choose to kick off our 2012 series, Our City Our World, which is why it took up the whole newspaper on Jan. 18.
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Hard-working Chinese immigrants, once banned, have risen to the highest echelons of Manitoba.
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German immigrants have played a surprisingly large role in the development of the province.
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Arriving in Manitoba in the 1870s unprepared for a brutal winter, Icelandic settlers and their descendants have left their mark on our province.
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Industrious Italians rose from peasant roots and adapted to Canadian society by mastering L’art d’arrangiarsi (the art of getting by).
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It used to be the only time Prairie folks met Spanish-speaking people was when they vacationed down south. More often now, they're the people next door.
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When the first Middle East families immigrated to Manitoba, mosques were unheard of and even yogurt was exotic. But now all that has changed.
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A booming Filipino community nearly 60,000 strong has transformed Manitoba.
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As the city's Indo-Canadian population experiences dramatic growth, its pioneers recall their warm Winnipeg welcome.
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Scarred by Holodomor, the Ukrainian community helped shape Winnipeg's cultural mosaic.
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Manitoba's history is built on a foundation provided by settlers from the U.K., who came here seeking better lives.
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It goes without saying my family did not come to Manitoba for the weather. It came for the "space."
Coming from a Third World country where every inch of sidewalk is filled with warm bodies, pedestrians popping out of nowhere to cross the streets, crowds of anxious commuters swarming over approaching buses and jeepneys, the space Canada offers is sweet release.
According to Garrett Hardin's, Tragedy of the Commons, if there are more and more people dividing up the proverbial resource pie, each will end up with a very tiny slice.
Canada is a vast country, rich in natural resources, yet with only 33.5 million people, according to the 2011 census. The Philippines, in contrast, is a tiny country of 88 million people, of which 11.5 million are cramped into metro Manila alone.
There is so much room to grow in Canada, not only in terms of physical space, but the quality of air, health care, and most of all, a bigger slice of hope for a brighter tomorrow.
So in 1997, after selling all we had and spending all of our savings to pay the fees to come here, I packed my bags and said goodbye to my family, friends, and homeland. With my two little kids in tow and luggage full to the brim, we headed to Winnipeg. Waiting for us was my husband, Johnny, who had left a month earlier to scout the land, find a job and an apartment.
"I cannot begin to imagine how you can leave your country, your family, and pretty much everything behind to come here," is a comment I hear often.
Leave pretty much everything behind is true... With a baggage limit of two per person, 50 pounds apiece, how much of your culture can you squeeze in? Some immigrants bring items associated with their profession such as their nursing uniform. Others bring photographs or personal mementoes. I brought my cast-iron kaldero, our very first rice pot as husband and wife. It is a three-cup, very-heavy, nothing-fancy but reliable pot, just the right size for a young family back then.
In addition to our luggage, we brought our skills, our work ethic, our values that set us apart as Filipinos.
My husband and I were instructors at the University of the Philippines. We both have masters degrees in management and environmental sciences, respectively. Prior to that, he finished a bachelor of science in agricultural engineering, and I in biology.
Though English is the second language in the Philippines, the medium of instruction in schools and universities, English wasn't our language of comfort. Tagalog, or Tag-lish (Tagalog-English mix), is to this day our language of comfort.
Long johns, toque, parka, yellow snow -- these were some of the strange new words I learned when I first arrived. They were not Canadian desserts, as I realized later. They were essential to being "winterized" -- uncharted waters for someone from a tropical country with two seasons, hot and hotter. Being able to laugh at ourselves kept our sanity in this strange and frigid land.
For the first two years, I trembled whenever the phone rang -- it could be one of the hundreds of places where we have applied for jobs. Answering in straight English could be intimidating. Like many other new immigrants, we couldn't find jobs. Our stack of rejection letters grew by the inch monthly. We could not even get work cleaning tables due to the lack of "Canadian experience." We both worked on assembly lines at various factories, late shifts to make ends meet.
I also found myself volunteering, working without pay to build up Canadian experience. I volunteered at the provincial Fisheries Branch, spreading the word to the new immigrants about the rules to harvest fish, and ended up with a short-term paying job.
It led to another contract job at the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, helping to spread the word on ocean conservation to the Inuit communities in the Arctic.
How does a science teacher from a country near the equator transition to designing communications materials for Inuit in the high arctic?
What did I know about the Inuit? I started with nothing. Hours of research in libraries, consulting scientists who worked in the Arctic, conducting interviews in Inuvik, Iqaluit and Yellowknife, studying Inuit lifestyle and respecting their traditions, even enduring extreme wind chill values, must have paid off.
Somehow the research skills from my past life were transferable. Two years of working for the federal government opened a new world of possibilities.
After the budget for my project ran out, Johnny also found himself being laid off. Both of us without jobs, with two little children, what were we to do? Those challenging moments became fertile ground for self discovery. With the help of unemployment insurance, Johnny took courses in computer programming, and I in communications and public relations -- both drastically different from our previous training, but definitely new areas of interest.
Undeterred by the hoops and hurdles, we adapted, we improvised, we made do with less, and the best of what we had.
Despite our humble beginnings, the struggle to make a living, the frustration of not having our credentials recognized, we rise up each day to reinvent ourselves. And with God's grace and help, we emerge as shining beacons in our own little corners.
We hope to become one of the many pillars that help make this True North strong and free.
Amalia Pempengco works for the National Research Council of Canada in Winnipeg as executive assistant to the director general and is its diversity ambassador. She is a writer for the newsmagazine, Pilipino Express. For nine years, she has been a Canadian Blood Services volunteer, encouraging other Filipinos to give back to Canada by giving blood.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 3, 2012 J1
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