Conversations with other immigrants have been healing for me. I wanted everyone to hear them

Halfway to Home: Immigration Stories, a five-part series, begins Monday, April 24 on Windsor Morning. Tune in on our CBC Listen app, or live at 97.5 FM. We'll also be at the Budimir branch of the Windsor Public Library on Saturday for the event Creating Space. 

In 2005, my dad told me that we would be going on a summer vacation to a country called Canada. I remember feeling relieved when the month-long trip was over and I was able to return home. I thought, this country is beautiful, but it was too hot, the people were too strange and I missed the summer sleepovers I would have with my cousins every year back home in Amman. 

The shock I felt when my parents told me the next year we were actually moving to Canada was only the beginning of a long, painful journey of our integration in Windsor, Ont. 

Seventeen years later, this is my city and I know it well. But I also know many others are silently suffering – struggling to fit in, like I did for years after arriving here on my parents' dream for me and my siblings. This week, I'm hoping to break that silence by sharing my recent conversations with immigrants through a CBC Windsor series called Halfway to Home. 

'A key for the world' 

"Canada offers a key for the world and all the opportunities in it," my father explained back then, when I asked him why we had to move across the globe

To me, life was good in Jordan, where I had tons of friends and cousins, and loved spending time among the fig and olive trees on our family farm. But to my parents, who were Palestinian, Muslim refugees, it wasn't secure enough for their kids and grandkids. 

To them, selling the farm and moving to Canada was the ultimate gift: the protection and security of belonging to a country. A life where we could be whoever we want without limitations.

I had only been in school a week when a boy in my grade called me a terrorist. I didn't even know what he was talking about. But then came the other comments. In Windsor, my name — which always drew compliments in Jordan —  made me an easy target ("A-man? Where's A-woman?"). 

I missed my old life, my friends. I was so lonely.  

A place in between arriving and belonging

As a child, I couldn't understand why my parents tore me away from my grandma and my home for this isolated existence.

Now I get it. I have the best friends from all over the globe and a beautiful Canadian-born niece and nephews. I've traveled, I've worked in Korea. I have so many opportunities.  

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Still today, I sometimes feel torn between two cultures, grieving the life I could have had.

For many of us immigrants, it can feel like we are stuck in this place in between arriving in Canada and truly belonging here. 

It feels good to relate

In my family, we don't talk about our first years in Windsor. Those were difficult times – trying to figure out who we were here in this lonely new land, and trying to accept that even if Canada was a key to the world, it wasn't going exactly as planned. 

We push that stuff down and we move on. 

During COVID, my friend Raghad and I started a podcast to talk about things we found interesting, and we ended up having conversations about being immigrants. It was unexpectedly therapeutic. 

I mean, for one thing, immigrant experiences are often weirdly entertaining. 

• Moving to Canada was harder than I thought. I'm not sure I'd do it again
• Last year, Canada became my home. Feeling like a Canadian will take a bit longer

But also it's validating to have someone relate to the emotions and frustrations I'd felt when going through something only an immigrant would experience. 

I want other immigrants to feel this. So I asked CBC Windsor to help.  

Everybody wanted to share their settlement stories

The resulting conversations with 10 Windsor immigrants will run as a series called Halfway to Home on CBC Windsor Morning radio and website the week of April 24, 2023. 

It's been healing. No matter what each person's story or why – or when – they immigrated to Canada, we could always relate to one another. 

• Creating Space Event: Join CBC at Budimir Library this Saturday, April 29, 2023 from 2 to 4 p.m. for a family-friendly event to celebrate diversity and connect newcomers and immigrants to service providers in the area. 

I have to admit, I've been worried about this project.

I wanted people to feel safe to speak their mind about the hardships, without dwelling on whether they'd seem "ungrateful." It's why I shared my own experiences.

I was relieved that everyone openly spoke about both the ups and downs.

It was like we all had been craving an opportunity to share our experiences in a way that might make things easier for the next newcomers, and might help non-immigrants understand us a bit more. What a privilege for me, be part of that. 

My baba was right. Canada has been the key to a world of opportunities. So glad I had this one.