The Long White Winter Inside Me

Bahij Warda

is a Syrian poet and journalist residing in Montreal. This article was previously published in Arabic for the Seal of the Sultan blog. Henna is pleased to publish an English version.

I used to answer the question, “How long have you been in Montreal?” with how many winters I had spent in the city.

“This is my fourth winter in Montreal.”

Usually, we laughed together and the ice between two strangers melted easily. In Montreal, it snows for more than two months and the paleness of my skin lasts for more than six. After melting the ice, the person shares their experience as a previous immigrant, or shows their companion and tells you that they understand your frustration  well. They will give you some advice about how to feel better during the long, cold, white winter. But sometimes I was surprised, because the fears I had also exist with some young people born in this city close to the North Pole. A lot of them hate the cold and the snow, and when I reached the point where I told them I had come from Dubai, the last piece of ice would melt, because the desert heat always wins out over the cold. At that point, the conversation about origins stops. We never reach Syria, the major part in my story.

Because talking about Syria would be followed by a lot of sympathy, or a lack of knowledge, and would require a long, detailed conversation not suited to a ride on the metro, I always try to skip around chronologically in my  storytelling. When I’m depressed, I use this strategy, to start my story in Dubai as it was the last location before I landed at Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport in Montréal. Unfortunately, that didn’t work. The first question after Dubai was always: why did you come to Canada if you had a nice job in a nice city? Long exhale. Now, I must talk about both Syria and the UAE, and the conversation instantly becomes more complicated. In many situations, I used to run away from this complicated question using a famous cliché. As Syrians we tend to say, “I came here for a better future for my children.”

The next questions, right away, are “How are you? Are you happy?” and my answer is always “all is good, thank god.” It is a literal translation of the Arabic expression “Al hamdulilah.”

Meanwhile, I caught myself thinking, am I happy? Or am I faking that feeling? When I look at my acquaintance, I find the same features missing in his facial expressions. Maybe a lot of people don’t want to admit their unhappiness. Meanwhile they keep looking for answers in other people’s faces, assuming another’s experiences might inspire them to find the answers to their own.

In my experience, questions about happiness are posed by immigrants from Arabic origins, who are used to comparing their lives (as Arabs) with others, which is a bad habit. I must clarify that I’m not saying they are bad people, but they might not scrutinize that habit. In most cases when having this type of conversation, the other person was usually not patient enough to hear my response if it was going to be more than yes or no, happy or not.
Would you categorize yourself as an integrated person in your new society? This is another icebreaker question that, as a newcomer, you might have to answer on the spot. Whether this conversation is in your first meeting, or with a friend, or a relative, or a schoolmate, or a language teacher, or even with friends living outside Syria somewhere on this blue planet, the main dilemma is to find an answer to all the questioners, or to customize the meaning of integration inside you to suit each one of them.

In general, as a newcomer in Quebec, the French language teachers are the best listeners to your response, and they are the only ones who won’t accept a brief answer. A lot of immigrants suspect the languages teachers, as if they work with governments around the world, as an intelligence agent in their host countries. This point of view hasn’t come from nowhere, but according to a long difficult history with ruling regimes in the homeland, where they tend to avoid sharing any life details with strangers. The notion is born out of the idea that one must avoid envy and prying eyes. Maybe some of these concerns are true, but I can’t confirm any.

The Arabic speaking society is growing in Quebec. The Arabic language has the third highest numbers of speakers after English and French, according to a recent governmental study based on the immigration numbers. The Italian language lost the third position to the Arabic language, and it has become the fifth after Spanish. All these numbers leave the door open for more questions about belonging. Then I ask myself, to whom am I writing? To those who read in Arabic. How many? Do I write for the Arab countries far away?

Immigrants tend to live in a specific neighbourhood where each society is trying to rebuild their own old life in the new country, which is impossible. However, the illusion of having a safe zone gives them that false sense of security. Usually, this kind of behaviour is not welcome in the original society, but when the society itself is a combination of multicultural nationalities the transformation will never end. So, where does racism come from?
A tour guide told me about Petit Maghreb, which is a neighbourhood in Montreal North. This isn’t an official name. On the other hand, you would find an official name for Little Italy, near Jean Talon Market. Saint Laurent city has another unofficial name, which is St. Liban (Lebanon), based on the large amount of Lebanese people who lived there and whom have now been replaced by Syrians.

Recently, the Syrians have their own unofficial Petit Syrie in the city of Laval, and to be more precise in Chomedey (a district in the southwest of the city). My French teacher at Montmorency College said, “I haven’t seen any Syrian live outside this area.” Exaggerated a little, but it’s a valid point. The questions surrounding integration never stop. Does having an official name for their countries in the new place make a difference?

I have trouble with this question, and I have never once found an answer. But in my opinion, the one asking may be as lost as I am. Those who work in the Ministry of Immigration, Francization and Integration, have these standard questions but no standard answers. Meanwhile, you must answer all the Ministry Questionnaires assuming you have the elusive answer they are looking for.

What does integration look like if the children go to the school district and the daycare two blocks away from your home while we, as parents who study French and make a lot of effort to speak in a grammatically correct way, unfortunately, rarely succeed.

As newcomers, we work in local companies for the Canadian experience, because working outside Canada does not count. And when we do, we look forward to retrieving our previous life. Then the Canadian experience doesn’t count because it is in a different field! So to press forward, you need to have more achievement in your new field and go down a new path entirely. Isn’t the new country a new journey and a different course of action? Not always. Could translation be the bridge to better integration? Probably. But I can’t stand this word anyway: integration. It is as if life is some unchangeable statue, and you must crawl through its cracks just to survive.