Blue skies. An airplane prepares to touch down at the Toronto Island Airport.

One of them is helping my husband, a Dutch citizen, apply for permanent residency here.

A few days ago, we sent in an application to Immigration Canada. The package was nearly 50 pages long and it took us more than a month to assemble. There was a pretty extensive questionnaire, addendums to the questionnaire, supplementary documents like tax records, various forms of ID, results of a medical check-up my husband had completed here in Canada, and 70+ photos documenting our relationship, from our first date until present day.

We did it all with the help of a lawyer. It’s a pricey option. The forms can be completed on your own, for sure, but the lawyer served as a sort of supervisor, making sure we had all the right documents, telling us how to go about getting the right documents, and making sure all the forms were filled out correctly. Most of all, I think you’re really just paying for piece of mind.

There’s still more to be done — the most time consuming being police checks in all the countries he has lived in for more than 6 months (3 police checks are needed in three countries in our case).

And we’re told the process takes 13 months on average, from time of submission to end.

It may sound like a lot, but I know we have it easy compared to most. For the last 8 months I was on the east coast of China in a place called Qingtian. I spent most of my time listening to Chinese migrants tell me gripping stories of how they ventured abroad.

Some had traveled with snakeheads (Chinese smugglers), crossing borders in the moonlight aboard boats, in the back of vans, and sometimes even on foot. Others were lucky to get work visas. All of them had moved from town to town, restaurant to restaurant, factory to factory. Life was lonely and work was tough. Indeed, life was work.

It’s good to be home, here in Canada. I am reminded, especially after nearly a year living in the Chinese countryside, how good we have it here, and how many migrants risk life and limb for a chance at what we sometimes take for granted.

Mr. Jack Nakamoto

In 2006, while I was a reporter at the Ottawa Citizen, I met a man named Jack Nakamoto. He was 85 years old, a second world war veteran, and a Japanese Canadian.

He had an amazing story to tell.

Mr. Nakamoto was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, but when the Japanese entered the war, the Canadian government put all Japanese Canadians under suspicion. Like the thousands of other Japanese families living in Canada, Mr. Nakamoto’s family was stripped of their land and his own father was sent to an internment camp.

Mr. Nakamoto was just 18 years old at the time, and though he and his family were seen as “enemies of the state”, he was eager to show his patriotism to Canada. But, when he tried to enlist with the Canadian Army in Vancouver, he was turned down.

Determined to sign up, he packed his few belongings and sneaked onto trains headed east on the Canadian Pacific Railway. He stopped in almost every city along the way — Calgary,Winnipeg, Toronto, and Montreal — still, no recruiting centre would enlist him.

Finally, he reached Quebec City where he worked in a Salvation Army kitchen for eight months. Impressed by Mr. Nakamoto’s desire to get into uniform, members of the Salvation Army went to the local recruiting station themselves and spoke on his behalf. On June 9, 1940, Mr. Nakamoto was
finally allowed to enlist.

In October 1944, Mr. Nakamoto was sent to France. While he was overseas, he served a private and also acted as a Japanese-English translator.

I first sought out Mr. Nakamoto when I was working on a feature story about Canadian soldiers of colour who served in defense of a country that did not necessarily welcome them.

I came to meet a Jewish vet named Sam Polowin, an Indian vet named Karam Singh Dhillon, a black veteran named Sam Estwick, and a Native Canadian vet named Russ Moses. All of these men were lovely and shared inspiring tales of bravery and resolve. (Read my story, Determined to Serve, to learn their stories.)

After the story was published, Mr. Nakamoto and I kept in touch. We met a few times for sushi before I left Ottawa and he’s really good on e-mail. He keeps busy these days, running a blog for seniors and he’s also working on a book – a compilation of fun and interesting stories about Japan.

Today, it’s Remembrance Day in Canada and I’d like to honour Mr. Nakamoto for everything he’s done for Canada.

Thank you for fighting in the war and thank you for fighting discrimination, Mr. Nakamoto. Good health and happiness to you in Ottawa!

With love and admiration,

Suzanne

A young man who boarded a plane to Canada in disguise probably didn’t come up with the Mission Impossible-style ruse himself – he was probably helped by a human smuggler – his lawyer says.

Hotel workers wearing gloves as a precaution against H1N1 carry a cart loaded with foods to a sealed-off hotel where travelers are being held under quarantine in Beijing, China, Monday, May 4, 2009. (AP / Andy Wong

Ohmy. News that 25 Canadian students have been quarantined in China. The students, on language exchange from the University of Montreal, were pulled aside after they landed in the city of 长春 Changchun, in the north-east province of Jilin. They have been placed in quarantine – with internet access – in a hotel where they are the only guests.

The Canadians seem to be facing the same kind of “discrimination” the Mexicans went through earlier this week. Forced into quarantine because there are cases of the H1N1 virus (aka swine flu) in their home countries. These Canadians have not been to Mexico and aren’t showing any symptoms of the sickness. But there have been cases of H1N1 in the eastern and western provinces (not in Quebec where the students are from) of Canada where there are 142 confirmed cases of the virus.

This news comes just as a plane arrived in Shanghai on Tuesday to pick up the dozens of Mexicans who had been forced into quarantined earlier in the week. Forty-three Mexicans, none showing symptoms of the H1N1 flu, were confined in hotels and hospitals across the country.

In recent days, stories about China’s measures to pre-emptively stop the spread of the virus have highlighted tensions between Mexican and Chinese politicians. Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa accused China of discrimination.

Only one Mexican was found to have the H1N1 flu: a 25-year-old man who is now quarantined in a Hong Kong hotel — trapping another 300 people, guests and staff at the hotel. Apparently, they’re getting more than just internet access — Godiva chocolates
and fruits delivered daily, according to the WSJ .

But Mexicans on other flights say they have been singled out and mistreated. According to some accounts told to the Wall Street Journal, Mexican travelers arriving on various flights from Mexico and the U.S. were singled out by health officials who boarded the aircraft wearing white protective suits, masks and rubber gloves. According to the travelers, those with Mexican passport holders were led away,with little explanation, and placed in less than sanitary hospitals. (Now whether this is this true or not, I don’t know. Tensions are running high and things sometimes can be exaggerated)

China says isolation is necessary and a lawful procedure.

Given the very fast and very devastating spread of SARS in 2003 — are these quarantines necessary? About 300 people died in Hong Kong and 1,755 got sick. Is China just trying to save lives and prevent a pandemic? 

I think it’s a good precaution. It sucks to have your vacation/study tour ruined, or have your life put on hold for a week or so, but viruses can spread like wildfire, especially in a densely populated place like China. If Chinese medical officials are being rough with the quarantined bunch and not providing much explanation to those taken off the planes, then that needs to be fixed. Some sensitivity and a bunch of translators would help. Otherwise, let China be responsible. They’re not trying to curb civil liberties here. They’re trying to potentially save lives.

——

ADDENDUM:

5/5/09, 10:54 pm

Not to make like of being in quarantine and all… But a friend of mine just shared this article in the New York Times from 2003. It’s pretty funny.

He had just returned home to the USA from China after a short study abroad program when he and four other schoolmates were forced into quarantine….in a Dean’s (college-owned) red three-bedroom home complete with internet, food and all the porn I mean movies 20-year-old boys could watch!!!! The Dean and his wife moved into the nearby motel.

“We didn’t want to treat these students like prisoners, and they really do feel pretty oppressed,” said Mark Govoni, the dean of students who volunteered his home. “We learned that, short of food and water, it’s the Internet that is the next and most essential thing in the world.”

…Unable to concentrate on their assignments – they have three short papers due May 14 and 24 – the five quarantined students stared endlessly at movies. They watched “Gladiator,” “Ben-Hur,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “The Matrix.”

Luke Felkey, a junior from Bozeman, Mont., took the helm in the kitchen, frying up tofu squares with pineapple when supplies dwindled. … They experimented with the dean’s croquet set in the yard…

“When you’re confined to a small space, more things become interesting,” said Charlie Carstens, one of the students in quarantine.

Apparently, when neighbors and area residents found out five boys were locked down in quarantine in their hood, they wrote outraged letters to newspapers about potentially infected people being allowed back in town. Someone threw eggs at Mr. Govoni’s house.

“We were more scared of the townies burning our house down while we were inside than we were of getting SARS,” Mr. Carstens said.

That’s because Canada has a reputation for being a tolerant place – where people of all different races and nationalities can live together, with the philosophy that they all have vested interests in maintaining a thriving, multi-cultural community. Personally, I feel parts of Canada has succeeded in creating such a way of life. I find it alive and well in the big cities — in Toronto and Vancouver. And while I see a multicultural makeup here in New York City, there are times when I feel that people are so packed into this city that they are just grudgingly co-existing, getting by each day by just minding their own business.

But Canada, too, is far from perfect. It is far from ideal. This past week, news that a 15-year-old Korean boy, who defended himself when another student attacked him, has been charged with assault, suspended from school and now faces expulsion.

A white student called him a “fucking Chinese”, started shoving him backward, and then threw a punch, hitting the Korean student in the mouth. The Korean student fought back, striking and breaking the white kid’s nose with one hit.

But the Korean student was the only one punished in the matter. Arrested and now suspended from his school.

It happened in Keswick, a small community just north of Toronto, where violent attacks on Asians have occurred in the past. In 2007, some Asian Canadians who liked to fish in the Keswick area, reported being harassed and abused — some were victims of violent car chases, other were pushed into the water as they stood on the pier. Five reported cases led to criminal charges.

The story in The Globe and Mail tells the tale of a young Korean immigrant, who came to Canada with his family in 2004. His father is a martial-arts master who trained with the Korean national team. Read the story below and be outraged.

Black belt teen strikes back at bully, and rallies community against racism
by JOE FRIESEN
April 30, 2009 at 4:21 AM EDT

KESWICK, ONT. — The 15-year-old black belt thought he was doing his tormentor a favour when he elected to fight back with his weaker left hand.

He had heard his white classmate throw an angry racial slur in his direction after an argument during a gym class game of speedball, and now the student was shoving him backward, refusing to retract the smear.

The white student swung first, hitting the 15-year-old with a punch to the mouth.

The 15-year-old heard his father’s voice running through his head: Fight only as a last resort, only in self-defence, only if given no choice, and only with the left hand.

His swing was short and compact, a left-handed dart that hit the white student square on the nose.

The nose broke under his fist, igniting a sequence of events – from arrest to suspension to possible expulsion – that has left the Asian student and his family wondering whether they are welcome in this small, rural and mostly white community north of Toronto, one that has been touched by anti-Asian attacks in the past.

The 15-year-old, the only person charged in connection with the April 21 school fight, faces one count of assault causing bodily harm.

But a remarkable thing happened this week.

On Monday, 400 of his fellow students, wearing black in solidarity and carrying signs of support, walked out of Keswick High School to rally in protest in front of their school.
….
Read the full story here.