Our growing town which lies 20 minutes beyond the western fringes of Ottawa is a pretty white community. And most of us speak in what we affirm to be proper and unaccented Canadian English. We are pretty sure about our English being the best.
Recently, Sue and I drove into the city to purchase a new computer.
It's only about a 20 minute drive to the western part of Ottawa. After driving through undeveloped land, we are suddenly in the city, and it looks very different.
We pull into a big suburban mall and enter a big, electronics box store. At the door, we are greeted by a very nice, young man who has a very heavy accent. He appears to be from India or at least the Indian subcontinent.
I am looking for a new computer, and he accompanies us to the appropriate section of the huge store. There, a sales person takes over. He is black but speaks with a typical Canadian accent and guides me through the confusing purchase.
After solidifying the order, he takes us to tech support to resolve how they will help us set up the new beast. The lady wears a head covering. She speaks very softly with an accent.
Sue strains to hear and understand her and then relays the messages to hearing-impaired me. I respond, and we manage to communicate in this three-way dialog.
We leave the store and stop at a restaurant where we are served by a black lady.
It is a bit like a different country, not much more than 20 minutes away from our town. Of course, it.is really another part of our multicultural nation. It is still good, ole Canada, and we all get along.
It’s a good place, this Canada.
We are happy to see and hear so many immigrants in PEI now. Eastern Canada had to be one of the whitest places in the country. That is changing!
ReplyDeleteAccents can be really difficult. We've been masking up. JB cannot wear his hearing aids with his mask.
ReplyDeleteIt's not as white here in Perth as it was when we moved here in 2010.
I grew up in multicultural Toronto, it was so different!
I think many people of colour might disagree with you. So many are still carded, and stopped, driving while black.
My little town is very white in population, but our city of Asheville has more of a mix. Nothing like some bigger cities where more immigrants seem to settle, perhaps in neighborhoods with others from the same area of the world...as most American immigrants have always done. They are all in the poorer parts of town, and at risk for many troubles from environment to drugs. It seems very positive that that store you visited had hired so many people representing such diversity. Just my opinion of course. That our church's minister is black doesn't seem to make any difference to others of his race...we have a white congregation with one black member.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I live in a pretty homogenous area myself, and that is something I love about New York City. The miasma of different languages, accents, cultures, ethnicities. It is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteWell, good for you. I am a Korean American woman and feel comfortable in most areas of the world. Except for Munich, West Germany in 1969-70. It was so white. I felt like an exotic freak, because people just stared at me. Haha. Maybe, it's changed since then.
ReplyDeleteWe have a tapestry of sorts.
ReplyDeleteI hope you like your new computer. We live in a mostly white town, but there are lots of poor people of all races.
ReplyDeleteMy community has become more and more diverse, except for religion. (no where near the big cities though) It does us good to get out and see the world!
ReplyDeleteOur state is pretty white too, and especially our county, where there were no blacks for years and the only other races were represented by medical professionals. I was shocked when I moved here, but it has slowly changed. I think racism is still rampant here sadly, though.
ReplyDeleteThe town I am currently staying at is 3 hour and half drive from Melbourne. The place feels like Melbourne suburb from 30 years ago
ReplyDeleteIndeed it is.
ReplyDeleteMy sister said the other day that she didn't understand the problem people have with Jewish people. We haven't known any as there aren't any we are aware of in this area and so the prejudice against them doesn't make any sense. We don't know what it's about.
ReplyDeleteIt's the same with us when it comes to Black people; they are so few and far between out here that we don't see the racism.
But the prejudice against First Nations people is real out here, possibly because they are more visible, and settler descendants here tend to tar them all with the same condescending brush. "If you only lived as we do, you'd be a lot better off." That kind of attitude.
When I was in Toronto a decade or so ago, I was shocked at the number of people of colour there! There are more and more in Saskatchewan all the time; very noticeable in our white-bread province.
Everyone out here gets annoyed when they can't understand, or be understood by, heavily accented workers in call centres. That must be universal though.
When our family came in the very early 1900,s they spoke German and Russian. No English. The original either did not earn English or spoke with an accent. I guess it's happening all over again.
ReplyDeleteI believe you are far better integrated than we. Keep it up.
ReplyDeleteI am amazed at how diverse we have come in my generation. I was around 14 before I saw my first non-white person. I remember being very startled. Now, in the same area, we are flush with Hispanics from a variety of different countries, Africans from the west coast of Africa and in the last several years Chuuckanese from the Pacific Islands. Of course there are also a smattering of east Europeans too but they are harder to pick out until they start talking. While we don't have any Middle Eastern people around here, they are fairly common when traveling on the road.
ReplyDeleteFor me, I absolutely love the influx of these hard working citizens and the foods they bring with them. Now instead of eating fried foods or a meat/potato dish, we can find all kinds of different ethnic foods and various fusions of them with our cuisines.
I love the mix of cultures in our world. Our city is quite a mix and it's a rich experience.
ReplyDeletesince I spent some time helping newbies with English, I relate to this. it is phone calls that give me the most trouble. but my students did try very hard to improve.
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