Quote:
Originally Posted by isaidso
That speaks more to old school Canadian attitudes about their country than anything else. What hit our family like a ton of bricks when we emigrated to Canada from the UK was how insecure many Canadian born were about their country. There's a deeply ingrained belief that Canada doesn't measure up. A lot of it's born from living in the shadow of a super power that's globally dominant in many areas. Some of it is that old human tendency to view the grass as greener on the other side of the fence.
That said, we found these self-deprecating attitudes surprising, frustrating, baffling, not to mention a little sad. Immigrants have a far higher opinion of this country than most Canadian born. The Canadian inferiority complex is slowly fading but it's still prevalent with lots of Canadians .... especially the older generations. Not everyone wants to be an American. I like the US and Americans but I want to be a Canadian.
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Like most Canadians who live in the larger cities I know lots of immigrants personally and their immigration paths vary widely.
There are those (1) who have a negative view of the U.S. (both society and its place in the world) and who never even considered immigrating there. Quite a few of them will wait quite some time after landing in Canada before visiting the U.S. - especially if they don't have relatives down there. Citing the fact that they "want no part of it". A friend of mine was like that and lived here for 25 years before setting foot in the U.S. A few years ago he took his family down to NYC during the summer (partly at my urging) and they all loved it. He said "you know, Americans aren't so bad!".
There is another subset (2) who applied to Canada, the U.S., Australia, etc., and Canada simply said "yes" first. Of these most put down roots in Canada, and learn to like it. Fairly quickly they no longer yearn for the U.S. as they've built a whole life in Canada (including kids) and the differences in outcomes generally aren't really that great in any event.
And then you a have another group (3) which is probably the smallest of the three, who couldn't get into the U.S. and are trying to use Canada as a stepping stone to get into that country. Some of them succeed, some of them don't and get frustrated and bitter, and some of them eventually end up in group (2) above.