HAVING THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS Yvonne Tagoe

You come to Canada, to work, to go to school, or for some other reason. You come from a country very far away where things are done differently, people speak a different language and look different. You are called an immigrant or a visible minority or perhaps both.

Maybe you came with your wife, and the two of you decide to start a family here in the future. You face so many 'not so pleasant' situations, but you decide to take things one day at a time. You miss your home country, but then you find opportunities here that you may not have had back home. You find some values here that you appreciate and would like to add to the values back home that you still hold on to. You still can't help missing home because there are certain values at home you just can't find here.

Sometimes you feel that you can't find acceptance and you can't find closeness, you have friends here but even when they get close it doesn't feel like the closeness back home. You begin to wonder if it is in your imagination, or whether you are unconsciously holding back, apprehensive about giving your all. You try hard to make adjustments, taking on the values here that you like and at the same time holding on to values at home, you try to see if you can have the best of both worlds.

So you eventually start a family and your child starts growing in this environment, which is the only one he/she knows. You vow in your heart to instil in your child at every opportunity the values you brought from your home country, of course in addition to some of the values you find here. You vow that your child will have the best of both worlds. (By this time you have done your best in adjusting). You are jolted back to reality when your child comes home from school, looking puzzled, and perhaps sad and asks, "Daddy, Mummy, why am I different?" or "why do I have a strange name that nobody can pronounce?", and probably threatens to change his name. He may also ask why the other kids pick on him. How do you explain to your child and make him understand that there can be something special about being different, something to be proud of, or that people are basically the same everywhere? How do you explain to him that a name identifies a person and that in your home country this name has a special meaning, that changing his name will not change who he is or what he looks like. How can you make him understand that kids pick on kids everywhere?

Your child may even tease you about your limited vocabulary and your 'funny' accent, because most likely your mother tongue is still interfering with the way you speak English. Since your child 'talks Canadian' there is the tendency for him to feel superior and will sometimes tell you to "get with it" when it comes to certain habits he is trying to adopt. How are you going to handle it? Are you going to dote on the child and praise him for being so fluent in English or are you going to try hard to let him appreciate his 'roots', and that, it is the inner person that matters and not a person's looks or way of speaking? Are you even going to attempt to teach this child some words and sentences in your mother tongue or is it really not necessary?

While the family is watching television there is a program on the developing world and there is a focus on your home country. The program will most likely be about problems in the developing world. Let's say your child reacts in disgust at seeing, for example, poor living conditions; are you going to let it pass or will you tell your child that those are his people too? He will most likely protest vehemently. Would you go further to explain to that child in the best possible way, that he should not look down on those people, or anybody else for that matter? That they are not subhuman, but human beings like everybody else, that they have values, a culture, an identity. How are you going to fight this battle against your child's belief system in the mind of that child without making him more confused than he already is?

For the immigrant parent this is an added task to the already enormous task of parenting.

As immigrants how do we let our children know that they stand the chance of having the best of both worlds .. or does it really matter? .. Let's think about what we tell our children ... P.S. The 'he' I used for the child is generic.

This article was originally published in Cross Cultures Magazine in Volume 1 - Issue 4 - 1992. Unauthorized copying, distribution or other usage without express written permission of the publisher is prohibited.