Wel­come to my new series, Ten Immi­grants, Ten Inter­views.

You guys all know my story by now, and you have a pretty good idea of what my life in Canada looks like. I thought it was time to let other immi­grants and new Cana­di­ans speak. I con­tacted ten of them, who each have their own story, their own rea­sons to come to Canada, their own point of view on how life is up North in the igloos. They all answered ten ques­tions, bring­ing a new per­spec­tive on immigration.

A new post will be pub­lished every Saturday.

Gabriel Almada

Gabriel has an amaz­ing immi­gra­tion story, full of ups and downs, that he told in “Com­ing To Canada”.

He landed alone in Canada in 2000, and his wife and kids later met him there. But pretty much every­thing that could have gone wrong went wrong, start­ing with his job (or lack thereof). Even­tu­ally, his fam­ily stayed at his brother’s place, in the USA, while Gabriel had in Canada what he later called “the worse month in his life”. The odds seemed to be against him: no money, no job and a series a lit­tle things that almost made him give up. But sud­denly, his luck turned. He found a job in Water­loo and lit­tle by lit­tle, he made it. His first pay­check arrived and he took his fam­ily to the C.N Tower. The Almada fam­ily is now Canadian-Argentinean and they still live in Water­loo, nearby Toronto.

Gabriel has an amaz­ing sense of humor and he is a great sto­ry­teller. He blogs about his life as a Canadian-Argentinean in the pop­u­lar blog, Live from Water­loo, writ­ten in both Span­ish and Eng­lish. He is a must read for any prospec­tive immi­grant: he expe­ri­enced a lot, the good, the bad and the ugly.

What brought you to Canada?

I guess we came to Canada look­ing for peace, sta­bil­ity, a bet­ter present for us and a bet­ter future for our kids. I believe that we have achieved all that already (we’ve been liv­ing in Canada for 9 years now).

The idea of com­ing to live in Canada came in late 1999. My wife knew I had always wanted to know this coun­try, and one day she found an ad in the news­pa­per, say­ing that the Cana­dian Embassy had a spe­cial work­shop for IT pro­fes­sion­als. We decided to give it a shot, but still with­out the idea of leav­ing; I filled and mailed the form they sent and soon got my invi­ta­tion back. It wasn’t until I actu­ally showed up and was told that I had already qual­i­fied for immi­gra­tion that I started to think about this as a cer­tainty more than a ‘wouldn’t it be nice’ thing..

Did you find the immi­gra­tion process difficult?

Not at all, at least not in our case. Every step we were asked to take was very easy to under­stand and fol­low. We filled every paper on our own, and got pre­pared for the inter­views by our­selves. We sub­mit­ted the papers in Decem­ber ’99, had our med­ical tests in March/April 2000, the inter­view a cou­ple months later and we got approved in late July. Our visas came in early Sep­tem­ber of 2000, so the total process took just under 10 months.

How long did it take you to find a job that you liked in Canada?

Way too long, for many rea­sons: our change of plans that found us in Toronto, instead of our orig­i­nal des­ti­na­tion (Saint John, NB), the time of the year (late fall), the lack of knowl­edge on how to search for a job prop­erly… Many lit­tle rea­sons that com­bined caused us to make many wrong deci­sions. By the time I finally got a job we were absolutely broke. You might want to read more about it by click­ing on my immi­gra­tion story here.

Where did you learn French/ Eng­lish? What was your sec­ond lan­guage level when you first came to Canada?

I never actu­ally stud­ied Eng­lish (either of the lit­tle you learn in school), I pretty much taught myself; this hap­pened mostly because of the kind of work I do (I’m an IT pro­fes­sional) and also because I am a very fast learner. I con­stantly pushed myself so I can learn more, so it didn’t take long until I found myself talk­ing in front of a room full of peo­ple within days of hav­ing landed my first job; it was the best way I could find to force myself to learn how to com­mu­ni­cate prop­erly faster. Me being a singer, I was already com­fort­able being in front of peo­ple, but doing a train­ing ses­sion is much dif­fer­ent than singing!

What was your biggest cul­ture shock?

The very first one was the incred­i­bly cos­mopoli­tan char­ac­ter­is­tics of Toronto. I felt I was in a small ver­sion of New York City, with so many dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties co-existing in such a beau­ti­ful and vibrant city. I loved walk­ing down the streets in Lit­tle Italy, Greek­town and the 2 Chi­na­towns. I didn’t imag­ine a big Cana­dian city like that.

The biggest cul­ture shock I had, how­ever, was real­iz­ing how warm and respect­ful peo­ple can be here, mak­ing sure you know they care about you, but with­out invad­ing your pri­vate space. I find the aver­age Cana­dian very kind and well edu­cated; in most cases, they show a lot of respect for the immi­grant and even make a point in learn­ing more about you, your back­ground, your story and your customs.

What haven’t you got­ten used to yet in Canada?

To com­pare things that don’t work in my home coun­try with how they do here: for exam­ple, the respect peo­ple show for their elderly, their insti­tu­tions and their teachers.

Did immi­grat­ing to Canada match your expectations?

Absolutely. We have achieved more in nine years here in Canada, than in a whole life back at home. We have a great life, our kids are doing great, and we all look at the future with optimism.

Do you find life expen­sive in Canada com­pared to your home country?

No, not really. Argentina was very expen­sive when we left, back in 2000. I find dairy (espe­cially cheese) and beef expen­sive com­pared to home, but on the other hand, chicken and pork is much cheaper… Rentals are higher, but salaries are too. You can save here, and plan for your future.

Why did you apply for Cana­dian citizenship?

We all became Cana­dian cit­i­zens in May 2005, and to us it was a way to express our appre­ci­a­tion and grat­i­tude to this beau­ti­ful coun­try for all it has given to us. It’s more about being able to vote and work for the gov­ern­ment, it’s about hav­ing that won­der­ful sense of belong­ing. We don’t for­get about our roots, we’re still Argen­tines. But we are Cana­dian too, and we are very happy and proud of it.

What advice would you give to some­one inter­ested in immi­grat­ing to Canada?

Do your home­work! Read a lot, go to offi­cial web­sites and immi­gra­tion forums. Choose care­fully where you’re plan­ning to live, and based that deci­sion not only on which areas are bet­ter for your job indus­try, but also on how safe the city is, the alter­na­tives it gives to your kids (i.e. Uni­ver­si­ties, col­leges), the type of com­mu­nity (Do you like big­ger or smaller cities? Are you com­fort­able liv­ing in a big, cos­mopoli­tan city like Toronto, or would you pre­fer the peace and quiet of Water­loo or Kelowna? What do you pre­fer, moun­tains, prairie, sea?).

Don’t ide­al­ize things! I always say “don’t assume that you’re going to land in Toronto and find the Prime Min­is­ter wait­ing for you, with the key to your car, the deed to your new house and the job offer for you to sign”. Every­thing takes its time, and you have to be pre­pared to wait for some­time until you can get back on track. Don’t get dis­cour­aged if things don’t go your way at first, and if you think you made a mis­take by mov­ing to Canada, there’s no shame in accept­ing it and going back to your coun­try of ori­gin — or some­where else.

Immi­gra­tion is not for everybody.

Related arti­cles:

1. Guillermo Ziegler: From Argentina To Canada
2. Este­fa­nia: From Argentina to Quebec
3. Redis­cov­er­ing Canada – Things To See and Do If You Live in Canada
4. How To Work Tem­porar­ily In Canada (2÷10)
5. 30 Dif­fer­ent Expenses You Might Have Once In Canada