My parents immigrated to Canada over twenty years ago. They left the war-torn environment, their plagued home of Sri Lanka. With a little bit of help, they were able to rebuild their lives in a little Canadian suburb. Many years later full of hard work and dedication, I was born. I realized from a fairly early age I was not like most children. At home I was provided lessons, values and stories that differed from most of my peers. In the same way, I was not exposed to some of the stories their parents had shared with them from a western society. Yet I was given the opportunity to experience and grow up in an environment with both the Eastern traditional values and the new dynamic elements of Western culture. When going to school I found my inside view to both of these aspects as valuable but they also put me at a disservice. Since my parents were not raised in a western society, a lot of issues and topics I faced I was either unaware of or lacked any knowledge about. I felt a bit silly sometimes not knowing about certain topics or issues when first coming in contact with the material. It seemed like my peers had an advantage understanding and knowing about these things I didn’t even know existed. While it is normal to not be familiar with everything, as a kid I felt embarrassed to not know something everyone else did.
At other times, however, I felt I had an advantage compared to my peers in many other ways. For example I had grasped from an early age the meaning of hard work and dedication. In addition, I had an understanding of the diverse lives that existed all around me. I knew from a young age that everyone had their own stories to tell, and had their own viewpoints on life. It was something so simple and obvious, but many do not think about it. This enabled me to understand and help other people easily. It also helped guide my viewpoint on hard work. I found in conjunction to this that there were concepts and terms that were so known to my friends, yet not a part of traditional elements from my parents' culture. For example, when I was in trouble at home, I was never ‘grounded,’ that was not a term that existed. Rather, I was provided some life lessons and stories from the homeland. This was along with a stern word or two. I was also exposed to superstitions that went beyond your usual, ‘knock on wood,’ such as ‘no cutting your nails after 5pm.’
Growing up as a first-generation Canadian has had its struggles. At the same time, I would not want to be raised any other way. It has and continues to influence my life tremendously. It has given me an opportunity to see and understand the world and other people from a different point of view.
