When British immigrant Selena Jones marries Aidan Gilmor, a
Sinhalese-Eurasian -- part British -- from Sri Lanka in the 1960s in
Toronto, a passionate clash of culture ensues. Selena's mother in Wales
is horrified when Selena brings Aidan home to Wales for the wedding.
Back in Toronto, Selena faces further prejudice and disapproval of her
mixed marriage, despite Pierre Elliott Trudeau's new multiculturalism,
which was being encouraged but also resented. She is shocked not only by
the reaction of neighbours but by the teachers at the all-White school
in Toronto where she teaches, and she pretends that Aidan is a White
Canadian. When two poor West Indian and two East Indian children from a
new government housing project nearby unexpectedly arrive at the school,
Selena is forced to take a stand in their defence. Gradually she learns
to face her fears and confront racism. She is drawn into a deeper
understanding of her Sri Lankan family, and especially of her
father-in-law, a former tea planter under the British, who left Ceylon
after Independence in 1956. She sees the effect of colonialism on Aidan
and his family, trying to be British while caught in the middle of the
civil war conflict in Sri Lanka. The revelation of her father-in-law's
secret guilt about the past leads to an inevitable and shocking climax.
