Two Lethbridge Polytechnic students study for one of their upcoming assignments. Photo by Kasis Ghale.

Migration is often described as a new beginning; a new country, a new game, a new school, a new job and a chance to build a different life. What is not talked about often is the amount of work to feel like you belong that can come after arriving. For many immigrants, belonging can mean learning how to make themselves accessible for the people around them to understand and accept. It can mean changing the way they speak, the way they dress, the food they bring to work or school and even the way they introduce themselves.

An accent may be one the first things that immigrants notice. One could have a background of their own mother tongue and be fluent in English but soon realize that just being able to talk will not be enough.

It becomes a frustrating contradiction: speak differently, you risk being misunderstood, ridiculed or adapt, and you risk being accused of pretending. And as time goes on, the purpose of the goals may change from “to communicate” to “sound less different.”

A name, that is an entire identity of a person comes under the same pressure. When a natural name from family and friends over the years is suddenly hard of others to pronounce, some immigrants shorten their name or even use a completely different one so it is easier and convenient for other people to pronounce. However, names carries meaning and when it is modified for other people to understand better, it loses its meaning when it is considered difficult to some.

Food also is part of this adjustment. A meal, a dish that represents culture, family and home can suddenly the focus of attention in some places because apparently, it smells unfamiliar. And, all it takes is one comment about the smell for someone to reconsider bringing that meal again or even cook ever again. And that feeling of culture and  the feeling of belonging in a home disappears because food is also a huge part of someone’s identity, and slowly overtime, immigrants lose their identity while pursuing acceptance. What used to normal can now be something that needs to hidden.

Moving to a new country can be an enjoyable experience. Immersing oneself in new customs and learning to communicate and adjust to differing social expectations can help immigrants establish relationships and feel a sense of belonging in their new communities. The difficult part is recognizing the boundary between adaption and self-erasure, difference between learning a new culture and learning to hide your own.

A Sri Lankan-Canadian immigrant Hemu Sunuwar has been in Canada for 19 years. He recalls, “It makes me feel like I am on a contract at some toxic job when I am supposed to make a home out of this place. And sometimes when I share it with my friends, they make comouments like oh then you should go back but how do I make them understand that this place is just as mine as much as it is theirs.”

That feeling is what can leave us feeling exhausted from having to be concerned about what we can show and what we can’t.

Maybe the grief of belonging is not always losing a country itself and a culture but the comfort of being yourself, not showing parts of us that makes us.

One can’t just measure a multicultural society from the number of cultures it has. It will also have to be judged on how much space these cultures must remain undisturbed for the benefit of others.

And now, a question isn’t whether immigrants can adapt to a new country. Many do, establishing lives and friendships and home in the process. Is it their fault that they need to conceal something of themselves to feel at home? After all, home should be a place where you don’t become a stranger to yourself.