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The blog title is from the refrain: Proud to be Canadian. This refrain is perhaps chanted once a year on Canada Day by hyphenated Canadians, while all the other days of the year they are proud to be, well, wherever they came from.
I actually don't blame them. It is hard to be a Canadian in Canada.
These are the notes I typed down on the bus on my way back to Toronto from New York.
Bus ride----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Indian women sitting across the aisle from each other
- Both talk about finishing or being in post graduate work
- Talk to each other in mixture of Indian language and English
- One has a white boyfriend, sitting in front of her, "occupied" on his iPad. Occasionally he turns around and shows her something.
- A lot of their conversation in English is on Indian stuff both here and in India
- The screen saver of the one next to me is some Indian star in a sari
- Mannerisms:- eating with mouth open- No chance of assimilation, let alone acculturation
- strong odor of body cream or perfume
- Indian style sandals
The young white man seems to have acquiesced to the "Indian in Canada" life style. The two young women can keep talking in their mixed English/Hindi all they want. He will enter the conversation when he can (possibly when they give him an inroad). Otherwise he is content to entertain himself. He sits on a public bus, driving through the landscape of his country, yet he is more alien than are his foreign travel companions.