My City

As usual, I met my sister at the mall food court on Sunday for lunch and a bit of shopping.  If I didn't know it before, the mall food court is a microcosm of the human ingredients that make up our city.  One of the prettiest things I saw was 3 Sikh gentlemen, resplendent in various colored turbans, sitting at one of the tables.  People, for the most part, were still wearing the drab colors of winter so these men sort of stood out in the crowd.


I'm one of those people who think we can all learn and grow by being exposed to different races, nationalities, and cultures so it doesn't worry me much to see so many variations in my city.  If I worry at all it's that my own race, nationality, and culture might be shunted aside as it becomes the minority.  I hope not.  I hope we can just blend together to make a better whole.


My sister and her husband are regulars through the week at that food court and have made friends with strangers just by inviting them to sit at their table when the area is full.  They are not the norm for Canadians because most of us are not unfriendly but we are decidedly reticent when it comes to welcoming strangers onto our territory.  We're known to be polite but maybe a little private in our ways.


On Sundays, especially, the food court at the mall is teaming with families, single parents with children, seniors and juniors from every part of the world...all who have chosen to call Canada their home.  They may be first generation Canadians or tenth generation, who knows or cares?  Where many of these people might congregate with their own kind at other places such as church or employment, the mall is where they all come together so it's there that we have the best chance to make our personal observations.  We can discover that to coincide with other races, nationalities, or cultures is really non-threatening.  It's sort of a United Nations in the city.


There was no mall food court when I was growing up but we did have a diversified neighborhood.  Most of the immigrants then came from Italy, Germany, or Britain and they, too, were a little different from us but they gradually became absorbed into the Canadian culture.  This doesn't mean they had to forget about the culture of their birth countries but it does and should mean that the culture of their chosen country must come first.  


In those days, there weren't so many government programs offering funds to immigrants geared to make them cling to their birth cultures so assimilation to the Canadian way was easier for them.  One of the problems today is that immigrants are not encouraged to become "Canadians" but are offered too many incentives to retain their old cultures.  Thus we have blocks of people, some who never learn the language, who don't even try to become true citizens of the country they've chosen to call home.  This is their loss but it's also ours.


In any case, the food court at the mall might be one of the biggest weapons in breaking down the barriers between the different cultures in this city.  It's where we can all come together.  The government should understand that, left to our own devices, people will blend where they can so maybe it might be better for them to encourage Canadianism.  We'll develop multiculturalism on our own.