Flight and Freedom : Stories of Escape to Canada

Dana Wagner, Ratna Omidvar

Description

The global number of people currently displaced from their home country—more than 50 million—is higher than at any time since World War II. Yet in recent years Canada has deported, denied, and diverted countless refugees. Is Canada a safe haven for refugees or a closed door?

In Flight and Freedom, Ratna Omidvar and Dana Wagner present a collection of thirty astonishing interviews with refugees, their descendants, or their loved ones to document their extraordinary, and sometimes harrowing, journeys of flight. The stories span two centuries of refugee experiences in Canada: from the War of 1812—where an escaped slave and her infant daughter flee the United States to start a new life in Halifax—to the War in Afghanistan—where asylum seekers collide with state scrutiny and face the challenges of resettlement.

Sujets

• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Emigration
• Immigration

Informations

• Publié par: Between the Lines
• Date de parution: 14 septembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781771132305
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Flight and Freedom
Flight and Freedom presents a vivid picture of Canada as seen by the refugees who have found a new home here. You ll see your country anew, when you read their tales, but you will also ask yourself: would they still get in today? This wonderful book is both a hymn of praise to a great tradition of Canadian generosity and a quietly scathing critique of how we have let this tradition decay. It s a celebration, but also a call to action.
- Michael Ignatieff, Shorenstein Center, Harvard Kennedy School
Ask almost any Canadian how did your family get here? and you will hear an extraordinary tale - very often a tale of flight from a faraway conflict. We are, to a large extent, a nation of former refugees. Ratna Omidvar and Dana Wagner have looked beyond the statistics and the political crises to reveal the human texture of the refugee experience at the heart of Canada. At a moment when refugees are too often seen as an abstract threat, this book reveals them, in moving detail, as our neighbours, doctors, leaders, professors, business owners, and colleagues: the people who, when permitted to settle in Canada, become essential to the fabric and life of the country.
- Doug Saunders, author of Arrival City and The Myth of the Muslim Tide
This is a book that must be read to understand that, no matter how different the circumstances or reasons for the need to escape, refugees share remarkable resilience and strength, and have made enormous contributions to our country. Each story makes the reader both humble and proud to be Canadian. May our doors continue to be open to refugees for the benefit of us all.
- Naomi Alboim, School of Policy Studies, Queen s University
So many emotions tumble out after reading this rich collection of accounts of the suffering, determination, and resilience that is the refugee journey. These awe-inspiring journeys begin at different times and from places around the world, and they all end in Canada. This book is a very special reminder of the generosity and diversity of Canada. It is also a timely and urgent call to action to turn back the recent refugee laws and policies that have focused instead on restrictions and punishment.
- Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada
A timely and well-needed counterpart to much of the rhetoric around refugees, highlighting the remarkable personal stories of thirty refugees who have contributed and continue to contribute to Canada. These stories make a compelling case for a more generous approach, reminding us of the potential cost of more restrictive approaches.
- Andrew Griffith, former Director General of Citizenship and Multiculturalism, Government of Canada
It is a privilege to learn, through these moving personal stories, both about people who helped build Canada into one of the world s most welcoming societies and the deliberate policies that made that possible. This book is also an important warning, however, that we not take these people and policies for granted and that vigilance is required to ensure Canada remains a country people in need can call home.
- Alison Loat, co-founder of Samara Canada
These powerful stories show how Canadian society has benefitted from our country s generosity towards those fleeing climates of terror . To me this is the essence of Toronto. For generations, that spirit of reaching out to refugees and the exceptional contributions they make have combined to shape our city making it the envy of the world. We must never stop.
- Barbara Hall, former Mayor of Toronto
Giving migrants a voice, thus acknowledging their individuality, is the first step towards helping them fight for their rights and to facilitate their access to justice. We need to transform our own perceptions of migration, rejecting nationalist populist fantasies, myths, threats, and stereotypes. They do not bring unemployment, illnesses, or criminality with them. The voices of Randy, Tarun, Humaira, Sabreen, and the other migrants in Flight and Freedom should help us to find the sensitivity necessary to appreciate the traumatic choices each of them had to make, to be in awe of their strength, and to recognise their individual displacement as a dignity-seeking journey.
- Fran ois Cr peau, Faculty of Law, McGill University, and United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants
We can be indifferent until we see the individual faces of the families and the children. We have no choice but to engage when we hear their stories. This is a unique compilation of the stories of thirty individual refugees who escaped to Canada in recent years a must-read for anyone with a deep interest in refugees generally and for Canadians who are coming to understand the significant contribution of refugees to our diverse society. These stories are a key to understanding what makes modern Canada great.
- The Hon. Ron Atkey, former Minister of Immigration, Government of Canada, responsible for the program for 60,000 Vietnamese refugees
FLIGHT
AND
FREEDOM
Stories of Escape to Canada
Ratna Omidvar and Dana Wagner
Between the Lines Toronto
For the families
Flight and Freedom: Stories of Escape to Canada
2015 Ratna Omidvar and Dana Wagner
First published in 2015 by
Between the Lines
401 Richmond Street West
Studio 277
Toronto, Ontario M5V 3A8
Canada
1-800-718-7201
www.btlbooks.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be photocopied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of Between the Lines, or (for photocopying in Canada only) Access Copyright, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario, M5E 1E5.
Every reasonable effort has been made to identify copyright holders. Between the Lines would be pleased to have any errors or omissions brought to its attention.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Omidvar, Ratna, author
Flight and freedom: stories of escape to Canada / Ratna Omidvar and Dana Wagner.
Includes index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77113-229-9 (paperback).-ISBN 978-1-77113-230-5 (epub).-
ISBN 978-1-77113-231-2 (pdf)
1. Refugees-Canada-Biography. 2. Refugees-Canada-History. 3. Canada-Emigration and immigration. I. Wagner, Dana, author II. Title.
JV7284.O45 2015 305.9 06914092271 C2015-903784-0 C2015-903785-9
Cover and text design by David Vereschagin/Quadrat Communications
Cover photograph iStockphoto/lilly3
As winner of the 2012 Wilson Prize for Publishing in Canadian History, Between the Lines thanks the Wilson Institute for Canadian History for its recognition of our contribution to Canadian history and its generous support of this book.
We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing activities the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Arts Council, the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Contents
Preface: Ratna Omidvar
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction: Alan Broadbent
Who Is a Refugee?
1 Adeline Oliver , United States
2 Mampre Shirinian , Ottoman Empire (Turkey)
3 Loly Rico , El Salvador
4 Ken (Khanh) Do , Vietnam
5 Hodan Ali , Somalia
6 Claudio Dur n , Chile
7 Rabbi Erwin Schild , Germany
8 Randy Singh , Guyana
9 Marguerite Nyandwi , Burundi
10 Andrew Hidi , Hungary
11 Sorpong Peou , Cambodia
12 Tarun , Sri Lanka
13 Yodit Negusse , Ethiopia
14 Chairuth (Chai) Bouphaphanh , Laos
15 Zafar Iravan , Iran
16 Samnang Eam , Cambodia
17 Marko , Bosnia and Herzegovina
18 Iren Hessami Koltermann , Iran
19 Anwar Arkani , Myanmar
20 Elvis , Namibia
21 Humaira , Afghanistan
22 Joseph , Sierra Leone
23 Christine , Rwanda
24 Mie Tha Lah , Myanmar
25 Max Farber , Poland
26 Shabnam , Afghanistan
27 Robi Botos , Hungary
28 Karim Teja , Uganda
29 Avtar Sandhu , India
30 Sabreen , Israel
Then and Now: Would They Get In Today ? Peter Showler
Notes
Index
Preface
Ratna Omidvar
This book has been in the making in my mind for many years. Not simply because I share a narrative of flight with the others in the book (although mine pales in comparison to the danger and drama that unfold in their stories) but because I believe that as much as we are a country of immigrants, we are also a country of refugees. And sometimes we forget this.
Even though the official terminology of refugees as a distinct group of immigrants was only introduced into government legislation as late as 1976, Canada had been a safe haven for those fleeing persecution for many years before. Our first chapter tells the story of Adeline Oliver who fled the United States as a free slave in 1812 to start a new free life in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Our last story takes us to Israel s Negev Desert in 2006 and to Sabreen who escaped from her own family and death at their hands. Notwithstanding the time or the context, one commonality shines through-the will of the human being not just to survive but to be free.
As I read these stories I am left with some stark images. Zafar Iravan and his family hugging the sides of the mountains as they flee to safety from Iran to Pakistan. The shock of Sorpong Peou s family in finding a father they thought ha