An anthology of Canadian immigrant women and their experiences of being
caught between the world of their past and the world of their
future.Edited by Miriam Matejova, WHEREVER I FIND MYSELF is a diverse
collection of stories about the joys and struggles of immigrant women
living in Canada. Often bringing with them the shadow of war and the
guilt of leaving, the women in this new anthology expose their emotional
pain but also their gratitude for being able to call Canada home. Their
stories paint touching and charming portraits of cultural and linguistic
misunderstandings, bureaucratic hurdles, attempts to navigate unfamiliar
landscapes, and a desire to be accepted despite differences in accent,
skin colour, or taste in food. Together they form a mosaic of emotions
and worldviews that underline the immigrant condition for women. A
yellow dress with ruffles, a kind Grade 1 teacher with a surname that's
difficult to spell, cockroaches in the bathroom, the contempt of
strangers, and Whitney Houston on the radio-a Filipino woman recalls her
experience as a six-year-old immigrant in a ghetto in Mississauga in the
80s. Browsing through a Polish fashion magazine at a European deli, a
woman sees herself in an alternative universe of what her life might
have been had she never immigrated to Canada. A same-sex couple moves
from Minnesota to Ontario to find refuge for their love, but first they
must drive a seventeen-foot truck through a blizzard and make it through
the frustrating net of Canadian bureaucracy. In search of her origins, a
Jewish woman travels to her birthplace in Passau, Germany. There, among
rows of European picturesque houses and foreign tombstones of a Jewish
cemetery, she finds no memories, only the shadow of Hitler and the
ghosts of her parents. Through these stories of courage, aloneness, and
hope, new and established writers reach out to both immigrants and those
whose families long ago ceased to identify with the immigrant label.
Through their struggles and, at times, endearingly critical looks at
Canada, they remind us that many of our perceived divisions are nothing
but artificial creations of mind and that all of us are past, current,
or potential immigrants.
