This is a quilt that was made by a local artist. She gathered thoughts from new immigrants on their experiences coming to Canada. The stories are written on the quilt. It was so interesting to read the dichotomy of responses from the different people. One person said that people in Canada are so welcoming and friendly while another person said that Canadians are really reserved and it is hard to get to know them because they don’t open up to you. I think the quilt exhibited the fact that you can’t generalize what “Canadians” are like (or Albertans, or Edmontonians) nor can you generalize what a new immigrant’s experience would be like coming to this country. There are so many factors that can influence this including the thoughts, feelings, beliefs, values, morals etc. etc. etc. of the immigrants themselves. Some of the stories are amusing. One lady said that she moved to Fort McMurray in the middle of winter and didn’t know what -16 degrees was like and the first morning she walked outside with wet hair and in sandals and ended up in the doctors office because she got sick. Some of the stories were heart wrenching. One person mentioned that they are often confused about their self identity because they don’t feel completely at home in Canada but then when they went back to their home country after several years the country had changed so much that they didn’t fit in there either.
I'm going to share this with Sung Hyun ;)
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