We were all immigrants at one time
Reporter delivering Santa gifts reflects on her son’s good fortune on being born in Canada
My son, age 11, rests his chin atop an armful of Christmas presents as the elevator in what I imagine was a swinging building in 1965 — the lobby has that fun, swoopy look of that decade of hope and merriment — chugs slowly upwards.
All I can see are his slanting green eyes and mop of hair that hasn’t met scissors since August and only rarely a comb. He is smiling, hopeful too, in general, and specifically about this day.
We are among an army of volunteers fanning out around the GTA on a Saturday morning in November to deliver 45,000 Santa Claus Fund boxes, which take a year of hard work to assemble.
It will take volunteers a month to deliver them to 22,000 separate addresses. The Toronto apartments where we make our deliveries are occupied in large part by Canada’s newly arrived, recommended to the Star’s Santa Claus Fund charity by social service agencies.
My son says they’re just down on their luck, but that’s not how everyone sees it.
The American president-elect is supported by those who believe, as he does, in walls to keep immigrants out from one of the last vast tracts of land in this world to be explored and conquered — by immigrants fleeing persecution — who, eventually, drew a line around the land and fought wars to make it their own and made rules about who could and could not join them.
In the days after Donald Trump was elected, there were reports in the U.S. and Canada of haters emboldened, harassing immigrants and people of colour.
My son is the son of an immigrant, whose parents snuck out of their country with two young children on a pretense, lying to neighbours to escape political tension in Yugoslavia they feared could escalate. Students had protested against unpopular economic reforms under president-for-life Josip Tito and were beaten by police. A few months later, in August 1968, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia to quell more robust attempts at reform.
The Kopuns were right to be fearful and they were wrong. Yugoslavia would erupt in violence, but not until decades later, after Tito died and the shaky federation slipped back into separate pieces, with former countrymen killing one another in bloody internecine wars.
My husband did not have to fight those wars, nor did his brother, because of the decision made by their parents in 1969. My husband shed his immigrant roots completely and comfortably, adopting an English name mistakenly conferred upon him by a teacher. It has no relationship to his given name but he liked it; it suited him then and suits him now. He is entirely assimilated, speaking Croatian only with family.
And yet the experience of having emigrated feels close by. There is the story of the train to Austria with just three suitcases, all else left behind, and arriving in Canada with empty pockets and rudimentary English. The banquet at family gatherings is from recipes perfected among peasants working farmland and cutting timber in Croatia, in a climate where walnuts grew abundantly and potatoes helped hungry labourers through the day. There are innumerable ways to cook potatoes. Walnuts can be served deliciously on pasta. And the values: family above all, thrift, be quiet, work hard, don’t make waves — perfected under a dictatorship.
In a sense, my parents were immigrants, too. My mother’s family left the sublime beauty of a Newfoundland outport, accessible only by boat and never to be forgotten, for Halifax, to improve their fortunes at about the same time my father’s family arrived, leaving behind the grinding poverty of farm life in Quebec. My mom learned French. My father learned English. They began a new life together and in a new place.
Afamiliar narrative casts immigrants as heroes and they can be. Among them there will no doubt be criminals, failures. But there is no criminal race, no failing race. Just people who, by accidents of geography, are seeking shelter, floating in ships on unforgiving seas, hoping for kindness.
It’s in our human nature and history to ramble, to explore, to flee. Being born in Canada is a great stroke of good fortune. Our cities have never been invaded or bombed in war. We have never known famine.
My son Joey, named after his grandfather Josip, was born prematurely at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and he survived and thrived, but 20 years earlier the result would have been much different. Fifty years ago the result may have been different for both of us. Right time, right place.
Joey’s hopes for the day are fulfilled; he is elated at the end of our three-hour shift bringing people cheer.
The women and children so cautiously opening their doors to us on this Saturday — often no more than a crack — to receive a box with some clothes, warm mittens, a book and a toy for their children, are fleeing broken cities that once were centres of culture and enlightenment.
And so we reach out to them. We reach out to them because no matter how comfortable we may be in this moment, most of us — because the tolerant in Canada remain a majority — most of us understand, instinctively, that our success began with the great good fortune of being born in Canada. We instinctively reach out to help those climbing to safety behind us because they are, as my son in his youthful optimism so naturally knows, down on their luck. And once, somewhere in our family tree, so were we. If you have been touched by the Santa Claus Fund or have a story to tell, please email santaclausfund@thestar.ca