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Several years after
receiving our Canadian Citizenship, a Kuwait-born, Palestinian
origin Canadian-at times I still find myself brooding over the issue
of my national identity: How Canadianized Have I become? What is a
Canadian? Am I a Canadian? Where do I fit in the Canadian Mosaic?
Now: a woman in my thirties, I still don’t have the answer.
On paper, everything seems simple, clear-cut. Nationality: Canadian.
Country of birth: Kuwait. No identity crisis; no existential angst.
Outwardly, the only signs of my foreignness are my name, which I’ve
never even considered changing or anglicizing, and my accented
English, a language I first learnt in Kuwait.
Never once have I regretted my decision to become a Canadian. To
travel to the country of my birth, where I lived for more than half
of my life, I need a visa.
Officially, I am not a Kuwaiti; officially, I’m a Canadian.
In reality, though, I don’t feel Canadian or Kuwait in the same way
I feel Palestinian, which I realized after an absence of twelve
years. I discovered that while I now inevitably see things from a
Canadian perspective, I remain basically Palestinian in the way I
feel, think, react/ I face concerns how I perceive my place in this
society and how others perceive me.
To Palestinians, however, there was something foreign about me ( un
je ne sais quoi) that made people ask me if I really was a
Palestinian. Was it my Arabic accent grown stale and dated through
disuse and lack of contact with spoken language? NO, it was
something deeper than this superficial sign: I was Canadianized. I
do not fit, I face a sense of displacement, a feeling of isolation
in what I consider home.
But I still regard myself as a Canadianized Palestinian, not yet
metamorphosed into a Canadian for I don’t feel Canadian in the same
way I feel Palestinian. A refrain that keeps ringing in my mind.
Through the years, I’ve taken an active role in my Canadianization.
No adult can undergo acculturation merely by osmosis, or against her
will. The desire, the determination, the commitment, have to be
there. It’s the same with acquiring a new language. No adult can
ever master a new language without a persevering, painstaking,
obstinate effort- not to mention fervor, devotion, passion,
obsession. In my case, both experiences have vastly expanded my
horizons and enriched my life.
In my quest for this elusive, mysterious abstraction-the Canadian
soul-I’ve explored the history, the geography, the arts, the
literature, the economy, the political system of this country. I go
on picnics on Canada Day; I wear a poppy in my lapel in November of
a Canadian professional association for certified accountants; I
speak, read, write and understand French and English. I’ve lived and
worked in Quebec and Ontario; I’ve tried unsuccessfully to become
interested in hockey, curling, lacrosse; I watched the juno awards;
I’m a fan of Canadian movies; I’ve traveled from coast to coast by
train; I drink rye; I don’t care for maple syrup; I enjoy life in
Canada. I love this country and yet, notwithstanding all my efforts,
the Canadian soul continues to elude me.
The Palestinian soul is persistent: the bits and pieces that form
the Palestinian culture, love and longing are permanently fixed in
their position in accordance with some preconceived design, and it’s
this stability, this permanence, this lack of fluidity, this
Foreordained positioning that separates me from my Canadianization.
The coming Canada day I will hold an olive branch on one hand and
the maple leaf in the other hand, might help me in quest for my
national identity.
In a lot of ways, I have had the opportunity to reap the benefit of
two cultures: a heritage as rich, as dynamic as the Arabs’s, and the
material well-being of the west. But sometimes the best of both
worlds makes you feel you belong to neither.
Rana Abdulla is a Palestinian Canadian; She is a Certified General
Accountant, a tax specialist, an immigration professional, and a college
teacher, as well as being a tireless volunteer.
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