Where Are You From?

Exhibit at The Canadian Museum of Immigration, Pier 21, Halifax, NS 

"Where are you from?"

People ask this question often, possibly because I have a slight accent but it is not identifiable. That question poses a dilemma for me because it requires a lot of explanation. I usually ask them if they want the short answer or the long one!

I don't remember my country of origin (Ukraine), but I love listening to someone speak Russian or Ukrainian even though I don't understand it. Neither do I remember the four years our family spent in Germany, but I learned to read and write in German and eventually did my doctoral studies in that language. I do remember Paraguay, the way a child remembers. I grew up in Canada and that became my home, and English the language in which I felt most comfortable. My years as a young wife and mother were spent in Africa, and then we came back to live out the rest of our life in Canada. I have lived in three different Canadian provinces. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be born, grow up and die in the same place! Possibly that would have been my lot, had war not disturbed our rural Mennonite way of life in Russia.

Recently I attended a book reading by Miriam Rudolph. Miriam is an artist who has written and illustrated a bilingual children's book (English and German side by side), called David's Trip to Paraguay, the story of her grandfather's trip to Paraguay from Canada when he was a little boy.

 The author and her book fascinate me at many different levels. First, I identify with the child in her story. I feel as if I'm  looking in the mirror where I see myself but everything is  reversed. I had the same adventure, at about the same age, but left Paraguay to go to Canada. The brilliant colors of Paraguay stayed behind and I entered the Canadian prairies just as the autumn color palette gave way to the gray and white landscape of November. My adventure took place exactly a quarter of a century later than David's, and part of my trip was by airplane rather than by ship.

"Where are you from?"

Like me, Miriam too has difficulty answering that question   Her father is from Germany, her mother from Paraguay, she now lives in Canada and each of the countries she has lived in becomes a part of who she is. In her artist's statement she writes, "My paintings and prints are visual diaries that narrate my experiences and perceptions of different places I have been to. It is important for me to experience my surroundings very consciously, to be aware of details and render the essence of a place in my artwork. Beneath the narrative of memories lies the concept of my search for belonging that I experience after living in three different countries and cultures. My work shows places that I am connected to and serves to document, to evaluate and to remember."

I express myself through journaling and behind my desk is a shelf of diaries that tell of my life's journeys. I have begun the monumental task of going through them and transcribing them. I begin with a birthday book I received many years ago as a young teen, and the memories emerge one by one  . . .