Picture of the Week: Lonely Dog

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

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.

Guillermo Ziegler

Guillermo Ziegler came with his fam­ily to Canada in 2005, look­ing for a bet­ter life as he saw Argentina, his home coun­try, plung­ing into an eco­nomic and social cri­sis. He cur­rently lives in Ottawa with his fam­ily and they will all become Cana­dian cit­i­zens very soon.

Guillermo writes chron­i­cles of his Cana­dian life in the very pop­u­lar Spanish-speaking blog Los Ziegler En Canada. He is also the author of a highly rec­om­mended ebook for prospec­tive immi­grants to Canada: Bus­car Empleo en Canadá Con­tado por Inmi­grantes.

What brought you to Canada?

I think the best way to answer your ques­tion would be answer­ing what kicked me out of my coun­try. Canada was just the after­math of a deci­sion based on that and, to be hon­est; it was Canada as it could have been Aus­tralia. Yep. Sorry if I hurt any feel­ings here!

By the end of 1999, begin­ning of 2000 my pro­fes­sional career was vir­tu­ally stopped. The eco­nom­i­cal cat­a­stro­phe that was approach­ing Argentina at that time (the begin­ning of a furi­ous reces­sion period that ended with the default in late 2001) put an end in the ascend­ing career I was hav­ing since 1990. After that, every­thing started going down and I was never able to recover: not my career, not my way of liv­ing. Same hap­pened to my wife.

At that time, we could have migrated to Aus­tralia or Canada, we had the money to do it… but not the guts. By late 2003, we decided to put an end to all that. We just said enough and started the paper­work with Que­bec, that at the time was the most viable option for us.

By mid-May 2005 we were land­ing in Canada: my wife, our two kids and me. It will be 5 years soon, it’s hard to believe how fast the time passed… So fast, that we are becom­ing cit­i­zens in a few more days!

Did you find the immi­gra­tion process difficult?

The bureau­cratic process itself is not dif­fi­cult at all. Paper­work is sim­ple and you can find plenty of help in the Inter­net. The most dif­fi­cult part of all this is your prepa­ra­tion and fight­ing with your own anx­i­ety… there are more chal­lenges at the emo­tional level than at any other if you think about it. How do you tell your par­ents you are liv­ing ten thou­sand kilo­me­tres away from home? And even worst… how do you tell them you are tak­ing the grand­sons with you? How do you deal with the sor­row and pain of leav­ing 30 years of your his­tory behind just to arrive to a place where you are no one and no one knows you? That is the most dif­fi­cult part.

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

Almost a year. Nine months to be exactly… but I have to be hon­est. After that time I found the job I was look­ing for… and that is not always the one you like! I still don’t know what job I like… One day I was on the phone with a Cana­dian I used to know, I was telling him how chal­leng­ing was to find a decent job and was ask­ing for his help (some peo­ple call that “net­work­ing”) But sud­denly he asked me “Guillermo, what is your dreamed job?” I muted. I’m still not sure about the answer.

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

I started learn­ing Eng­lish when I was 6 years old. One day I arrived home from school with a very bad, low mark in Eng­lish from my teacher at Ele­men­tary school in Argentina. My mom got so, so angry that she started send­ing me to Eng­lish classes. I stud­ied Eng­lish until the age of 18 and since then I always had a job where I used it.

French was a com­plete dif­fer­ent story. I started learn­ing French in 2003 when we sent the papers to the Que­bec Office in Buenos Aires. After that I went to the French classes that Que­bec has for immi­grants and when I moved to Water­loo I for­got about French for a while. Nowa­days, back in the National Cap­i­tal Region, I must admit I have some dif­fi­cul­ties with French but still can have a basic a con­ver­sa­tion with some­one if I have to.

What was your biggest cul­ture shock?

Let’s see… It’d be the Cana­dian pro­to­col for salu­ta­tion if I have to put a name to the prob­lem. When do they say “Hi!”? Under what cir­cum­stances you can say “Hello” and be sure it will be returned? Why they don’s say “good morn­ing” when they arrive to the office (most of the times)? Why does a stranger say “Hi!” when you are tak­ing a walk around the pond in your neigh­bor­hood even when you have not see that per­son ever in your life? What can I talk about with a Cana­dian being sure I’m not cross­ing a for­bid­den line? How do I make friends with these guys?

I’m still strug­gling with all this.

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

Besides what I said above? I’m still hav­ing some trou­bles to accom­mo­date my life in order to find more room for social activ­i­ties. But it’s all related I think… Other than that, liv­ing in this coun­try seems to be easy… as far as you fol­low the rules, every­thing will be OK.

Did immi­grat­ing to Canada match your expectations?

Liv­ing in this coun­try was every­thing I thought it was going to be. But there we also a lot of other things I did not know that were going to be. Those are the things that some­times make you think if you made the right deci­sion. But I can­not com­plain. There are good days and bad days everywhere.

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

Yes, life in Canada IS expen­sive. And life in Argentina is expen­sive also. What is the dif­fer­ence? How much access to credit you have! That can be good but can be very bad also… You just have to be care­ful because you can get into finan­cial trou­bles very fast in Canada!

If you are not a Cana­dian cit­i­zen yet, are you plan­ning to apply for Cana­dian cit­i­zen­ship when you will meet the require­ments? If you are already a Cana­dian cit­i­zen, why did you apply for citizenship?

I will be tak­ing my cit­i­zen­ship oath soon. Being part of the first world club is an advan­tage you can­not let go… and after 5 Cana­dian win­ters I think I deserve to be part of it, right?

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

Research, research and more research! Learn about oth­ers expe­ri­ences! Learn the lan­guage! Don’t give any­thing for granted! Don’t believe this is El Dorado! Dream… but have real­is­tic expec­ta­tions! This is a nice place to be as far as you under­stand the mean­ing of “effort”

Related posts:

1. Gabriel Almada: from Argentina To Canada
2. Este­fa­nia: From Argentina to Quebec
3. How To Work Tem­porar­ily In Canada (2÷10)
4. 30 Dif­fer­ent Expenses You Might Have Once In Canada
5. Five Rea­sons Why I Live In Canada