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Deepa Varghese’s name was called first at the Canadian citizenship ceremony at the NAC Studio on Saturday afternoon, and although the 35-year-old has been living in Canada for six years — and her second child, four-year-old Elena, was born here — she admits she felt some sudden nervousness as she approached the stage.
“I don’t know why,” she said. “I felt a bit tense.”
Earlier, she’d noted how chuffed she was that her ceremony had been scheduled for Ottawa, on Canada Day, which might have contributed to her anxiety. “We were planning on going to Ottawa to celebrate the 150th,” she said, “but we were super excited that the ceremony is going to be that day.”
Perhaps it was just the notion of the crossroads she’d come to, and her choice to become a Canadian. Behind her in the Studio, 35 others waited for their names to be called, each also perhaps feeling similar emotions. For one reason or another, they’d left India, Colombia, Kenya, Germany, Bangladesh, China, the U.S., the Philippines, Lebanon, Rwanda, Syria, Algeria, Ireland, the U.K., Belarus, Jordan, Cameroon, Australia, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo to come here to make new, one hopes better, lives for themselves. “Welcome home,” noted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a video that followed remarks by ceremony hosts Rear Admiral Luc Cassivi and Environment Minister Catherine McKenna. Those two words must have sounded strange to some, like a door closing.
Deepa’s journey here was, of course, a far longer one than the 270 kilometres and few hours that she and her family drove from their Belleville home on Saturday morning. It was a journey that began six years ago and carried her more than 14,000 km.
Belleville’s Deepa Varghese became a Canadian citizen on Saturday. Joining her at the ceremony in the NAC were her parents Anna and Varghese, who came from India, her husband, Mathew Kavunkal Easo, their son, Eby, and daughter, Elena.
In October 2011, she took her first step with her husband, Mathew Kavunkal Easo, and then two-year-old son, Eby, venturing for her first time outside her native India. The two chose Canada, a country halfway around the world, about which she knew very little. Mathew liked to travel and had a friend in Canada. A few short weeks later, she encountered snow for the first time.
“The first day that I saw snow,” she remembers, “I was so excited; I wanted to touch it, I wanted to eat it. The first day that it was snowing, we were travelling to Toronto and I asked Mathew to pull the car over on the highway, and I was taking some snow and eating it. I was super excited. It was just flurries that day, but after one or two days it stopped snowing, and when I looked out the window it was so beautiful and so white. But going out in the snow, it was like, ‘Oh, my God. I don’t like this.’ ”
They didn’t have to leave India. There was no war from which they sought refuge, no calamity pressing close behind. From middle-class families in the southern Kerala state, both had earned their master’s degrees in microbiology and had good jobs in that field.
So why leave?
“There is no proper answer for that,” says Deepa. “India is a super country. We didn’t have a bad situation in India. We just thought we’d go to a different country to see what it was like.” Canada, she notes, was only country they applied to.
“We thought, ‘We’ll move to Canada and see how it is. We’ll stay for one month and if we don’t like it we’ll go back.’ ”
If there was no single reason to leave India, there were enough small ones, some of them perhaps not in sharp focus until she discovered how Canada was different.
“The main thing is the freedom,” she says. “Here, there is no difference between men and women. They’re all the same. But in India it’s not like that. After eight o’clock in the evening in most parts of India, you will not see a woman walking alone on the road. They have to be accompanied by a man. There are so many rapes, so much crime, so much theft. Here in Canada, all women are secure.”
India, she adds, also suffers from an ingrained corruption that doesn’t sit well with her.
Deepa Varghese shows her Canadian citizenship certificate.
They faced difficulties in Canada. While they were granted equivalencies for their master’s degrees, they can’t working in numerous microbiology positions without taking a two-year “bridging course” and subsequent exam. Unable to NOT work, however, Mathew’s first job in Canada was as a minimum-wage Sears customer service representative in a call centre. These days he works as a microbiologist with Nestle, in Mississauga, where he rents a room and sees his family on weekends.
Deepa has come around on Canada. “It’s beautiful,” she says, “and the people are so friendly and helpful. There’s always a difference between the rich and poor in India, and if you don’t have money, you don’t have many friends. But I don’t see that in Canada.
“There were times I wanted to go back, but Mathew loved it here so much and I wanted to be with him. And now, after six years, I love it, too. I thought, ‘I’ll spend the rest of my life here in Canada.’ And once I decided that, I had to be a citizen here.”
bdeachman@postmedia.com
Deepa Varghese, bottom left, was among 36 new Canadians sworn in on Saturday at the National Arts Centre studio.
查看原文...
“I don’t know why,” she said. “I felt a bit tense.”
Earlier, she’d noted how chuffed she was that her ceremony had been scheduled for Ottawa, on Canada Day, which might have contributed to her anxiety. “We were planning on going to Ottawa to celebrate the 150th,” she said, “but we were super excited that the ceremony is going to be that day.”
Perhaps it was just the notion of the crossroads she’d come to, and her choice to become a Canadian. Behind her in the Studio, 35 others waited for their names to be called, each also perhaps feeling similar emotions. For one reason or another, they’d left India, Colombia, Kenya, Germany, Bangladesh, China, the U.S., the Philippines, Lebanon, Rwanda, Syria, Algeria, Ireland, the U.K., Belarus, Jordan, Cameroon, Australia, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo to come here to make new, one hopes better, lives for themselves. “Welcome home,” noted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a video that followed remarks by ceremony hosts Rear Admiral Luc Cassivi and Environment Minister Catherine McKenna. Those two words must have sounded strange to some, like a door closing.
Deepa’s journey here was, of course, a far longer one than the 270 kilometres and few hours that she and her family drove from their Belleville home on Saturday morning. It was a journey that began six years ago and carried her more than 14,000 km.
Belleville’s Deepa Varghese became a Canadian citizen on Saturday. Joining her at the ceremony in the NAC were her parents Anna and Varghese, who came from India, her husband, Mathew Kavunkal Easo, their son, Eby, and daughter, Elena.
In October 2011, she took her first step with her husband, Mathew Kavunkal Easo, and then two-year-old son, Eby, venturing for her first time outside her native India. The two chose Canada, a country halfway around the world, about which she knew very little. Mathew liked to travel and had a friend in Canada. A few short weeks later, she encountered snow for the first time.
“The first day that I saw snow,” she remembers, “I was so excited; I wanted to touch it, I wanted to eat it. The first day that it was snowing, we were travelling to Toronto and I asked Mathew to pull the car over on the highway, and I was taking some snow and eating it. I was super excited. It was just flurries that day, but after one or two days it stopped snowing, and when I looked out the window it was so beautiful and so white. But going out in the snow, it was like, ‘Oh, my God. I don’t like this.’ ”
They didn’t have to leave India. There was no war from which they sought refuge, no calamity pressing close behind. From middle-class families in the southern Kerala state, both had earned their master’s degrees in microbiology and had good jobs in that field.
So why leave?
“There is no proper answer for that,” says Deepa. “India is a super country. We didn’t have a bad situation in India. We just thought we’d go to a different country to see what it was like.” Canada, she notes, was only country they applied to.
“We thought, ‘We’ll move to Canada and see how it is. We’ll stay for one month and if we don’t like it we’ll go back.’ ”
If there was no single reason to leave India, there were enough small ones, some of them perhaps not in sharp focus until she discovered how Canada was different.
“The main thing is the freedom,” she says. “Here, there is no difference between men and women. They’re all the same. But in India it’s not like that. After eight o’clock in the evening in most parts of India, you will not see a woman walking alone on the road. They have to be accompanied by a man. There are so many rapes, so much crime, so much theft. Here in Canada, all women are secure.”
India, she adds, also suffers from an ingrained corruption that doesn’t sit well with her.
Deepa Varghese shows her Canadian citizenship certificate.
They faced difficulties in Canada. While they were granted equivalencies for their master’s degrees, they can’t working in numerous microbiology positions without taking a two-year “bridging course” and subsequent exam. Unable to NOT work, however, Mathew’s first job in Canada was as a minimum-wage Sears customer service representative in a call centre. These days he works as a microbiologist with Nestle, in Mississauga, where he rents a room and sees his family on weekends.
Deepa has come around on Canada. “It’s beautiful,” she says, “and the people are so friendly and helpful. There’s always a difference between the rich and poor in India, and if you don’t have money, you don’t have many friends. But I don’t see that in Canada.
“There were times I wanted to go back, but Mathew loved it here so much and I wanted to be with him. And now, after six years, I love it, too. I thought, ‘I’ll spend the rest of my life here in Canada.’ And once I decided that, I had to be a citizen here.”
bdeachman@postmedia.com
Deepa Varghese, bottom left, was among 36 new Canadians sworn in on Saturday at the National Arts Centre studio.
查看原文...
