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STRANGERS IN A NEW WORLD
We Were The Weeds In Our Neighbors’ Gardens
Chapter 3: They said we didn’t belong but we thrived anyway
Saplings in a forest of Canadian maples
In the mid-1960s on a cul-de-sac in a bedroom community on the west side of Toronto, my parents encountered closed minds and doors. Nobody rolled out the welcome mat. We were weeds in their gardens and maybe if they yanked hard enough, we’d die and leave them alone. They must have feared we’d stick to them like burrs and pick away at the fabric of their lives until nothing was left but a single thread.
If they thought by freezing us out we’d wither away, we didn’t. We weren’t weeds. We were saplings to their mature maple trees, our roots still shallow and our young leaves furled but full of promise. And, as immigrants do, we took root. We were nourished by our culture and food, our extended family and friends. Our Polish friends would eventually join us in the suburbs and we’d become a grove of our own in this endless northern forest.
Our neighbors wanted to believe they were always here, that they were of this land, and we were the only aliens. But none of us were of this land; we were all aliens once.
