Canada Day

A photograph of a hoop stitch embroidery. It features a man and a woman holding a baby.

July 1st 2020

Photo Credit: Jenny Osorio.

When does one start being Canadian? Is it after landing for the first time on a scorching day of June, wearing boots and a heavy jacket, because Canada equals winter all year long?

Is it when you successfully order a medium black with a plain bagel, toasted, cream cheese on the side at Tims, without being looked at as if you are speaking an unknown language?

Is it when you first travel abroad using your Canadian passport, as if wearing an invisible cape? No one at customs is interested in your travel business anymore, or if you’re carrying something, or if you’re meeting someone from your country, or if you’re really really sure of your answer, because I can repeat the question and you can rectify your answer.

Is it when your colleague tells you about her gardening project and her mortgage payments, but Oh, you wouldn’t know what that is, you guys just arrived in this country?

Is it after signing the sale of your house while wearing matching red and white outfits proudly posing for a picture?

Materials: Shweshwe fabric from South Africa, white embroidery floss from France, bamboo hoop from China, embroidery skills from a Colombian in Canada.

1 A Winter Scene

A photograph of an embroidered frame. It depicts a mother and her baby bear standing beneath a supermoon in winter.

2000–2020

Photo Credit: Jenny Osorio

I started this cross-stitch piece when I was 13 years old as part of the Arts and Crafts class at school. A winter scene in which mama bear and baby bear contemplate a supermoon. I remember my mother telling me that the project was too big and that I should choose something smaller to submit. I didn’t complete the piece and left it abandoned. Last year, I received my mother’s collection of cross-stitch fabrics, threads, and projects. She had kept my unfinished embroidery all these years. I had kept the pattern in an old book. I looked at the piece thinking Little did I know then that I would be living in Winterland one day.

I got myself to work and finished the winter scene 20 years later. It now adorns the gallery wall of my son’s bedroom.

2 Fulfillment

Sept 2018

Photo Credit: Jenny Osorio

A photograph of an embroidered frame. It depicts a woman and a man hugging each other.

  • Voice over: What do you want to be when you grow up?

  • 5-year-old Me: Mmm… (gets interrupted).

  • Nona: Mija, estudie. The most important thing is the studies. Your father was a very smart man. Life can take away many things, but no one can take away the knowledge you acquire.

  • 1st grade teacher: Your daughter is very smart. She would benefit from a school like this one. We would like to offer a scholarship.

  • 13-year-old Me: Mami, I won the school knowledge contest. My school fees are covered next year.

  • 10th grade teacher: You’re very good at Math. I am sure you will be either a physicist or a doctor.

  • Man at news’ stand: (reads in the newspaper) The young lady won the regional spelling bee that took place last weekend, and comprised students from over fifty schools.

  • Voice over: So, you finished high school, what are you applying for at university?

  • 16-year-old Me: Mmm… (gets interrupted).

  • Stepfather: Well, it has to be engineering, something useful. And don’t be silly like your cousin, wasting her life and a career as a microbiologist to raise kids at home.

  • 16-year-old Me: Mmm… What about literature? I could write and be a teach… (gets interrupted).

  • Stepfather: I won’t pay for nonsense. Apply to the TESL program, at least you will learn English there. It will be useful in Canada.

  • Auntie: You can be whoever you want. Just make sure you are the best at it. If you want to be a baker, do it, and make everyone dream of your rolls and sweet pastries.

  • Mami: We’re in Canada now, you can fulfill your dreams. There are no barriers here.

  • 19-year-old Me: (Reads letter) We are pleased to inform you that you have been admitted to our Creative writing program…

  • Classmate: how did you do on the assignment? How come you got a better grade than mine, if you don’t even speak this language well? How long have you been in this country? And you aspire to be a writer? We’ve been reading and studying the classics since we were kids.

  • 20-year-old Me: (inaudibly) Well, I’ve read them in both French and Sp… never mind.

  • University Advisor: Well, yes, you could apply to the teaching program, but I am not sure you will get in. I mean, people want their kids to be taught by a native speaker. No one wants their kid talking with a foreign accent, am I right?

  • 21-year-old Me: (To the audience) I remember a substitute teacher we had one day in our French program for newcomers. She was from Romania. She stood confidently in front of us as she introduced herself, articulating every syllable so clearly, we could see the words get written in the air as she spoke. We were in awe. She was just like us. she had come to this country as an adult, attended the same language courses, learned the language and fulfilled the Canadian dream (as far as we could see)...

  • I don’t remember any of my classmates’ names from that time, and we lost contact afterwards, but I can still vividly see their expression and motivation to keep on learning.

(to the University Advisor) I will be my substitute French teacher. Just not at this university. Merci monsieur pour votre temps.

3 La Main

A photograph of a hoop stitch embroidery. It depicts the outline of a hand filled with tiny floral designs.

WIP. Started in October 2020

Photo Credit: Jenny Osorio

Madame Odette was my first French teacher. We were 16 newcomers, from 18 to 60 years old sitting in her classroom. She was not a big person, but her hoarse voice gave her an imposing appearance. She spoke clearly and loudly. She made sure to correct all the mistakes we made as she did not want anyone to make fun of us, you guys already have enough on your plate figuring out how things work in this country.

We learned grammar and pronunciation, along with some basic history of Canada, but her favorite activity was role-play. She used task-based language teaching when it was not yet in vogue. With a rotary dial phone she would announce: Hussam, you are calling your landlord because there are cockroaches in your apartment, are you ready?, or Yerlis, you are calling the school to tell them your daughter is not feeling well and she is staying home today. She would challenge us, making counter arguments to our requests. With her, we learned what to say to open a bank account, what to ask when renting an apartment and most importantly, how to assert ourselves. Vous êtes la crème de la crème, and that is why this country wants you. Never forget that. Whenever someone is trying to diminish you, show up your hand: Attendez s’il vous plaît, I am learning French, please speak slower, not louder.

La main honors this process. When we arrived, we were invisible, we felt invisible, we felt empty. Slowly, one stitch at a time, we started filling our hand with new experiences, with new hopes and with new skills. Until we were seen for who we are, not for the linguistic gaps, or the cultural differences. La main still has some blank spaces, it is a work in progress.

4 Bilingualism, or a Linguistic Fight

July 2020, Rue Galande, Paris

A photograph of a hoop stitch embroidery. It depicts the Rue Galande in Paris.

Photo Credit: Jenny OsorioVerse

Verse So, is it a reality? Utopia? Je n’avais jamais pensé Pouvoir vivre et gagner ma vie Avec la langue de Molière.

Verse

Verse Thinking back I use more French in Alberta Than when I was in Québec. Même plus que l’espagnol Réservé uniquement À l’intimité de chez moi Mi familia, la cocina Las canciones de cuna para Jules. ..

Verse

Verse Je suis bi Et ma famille aussi. Mais pas dans le sens politique du terme. Et c’est correct.

5 The Kiss. Reflections on Love and Identity

A photograph of a hoop stitch embroidery. It depicts a man kissing a woman.

May 2009

Photo Credit: Jenny Osorio

The question of identity is usually related to space. For instance, in the case of national identity, subjects often identify themselves as members of a country, subscribing to or at least accepting the values and principles associated with it. Before coming to Canada, I never had to question my national identity, or how it had an impact on the choices I made or on the ideas I shared. Now, being part of two worlds, and being able to communicate and to love in three languages, a new difficulty arises. How to negotiate between the three? How not to be less Colombian by being more Canadian? How to provide a safe common space for these identities to emerge? Ted Aoiki (1983), when describing his reality as a Japanese Canadian said: “I was both Japanese and non-Japanese. I felt I was both insider and outsider, ‘in’ and yet not fully in, ‘out’ and yet not fully out” (p. 323). I have experienced that same feeling of belonging and at the same time, not being part of it anymore.

In this particular moment in my personal life and in my learning journey, many vital changes are taking place and more questions arise. On one hand, my family has expanded as we became a family of three. Which one of my identities will shape my son? In which language should I cook to tell him I love him? Will he bond with our extended family in Colombia? Will he embrace or despise our core values and beliefs?

On the other hand, after more than fifty years of civil war, Colombia has finally signed a peace agreement, putting an end to years of death and suffering. The road towards peace is still to be travelled, but at last, conversations are taking place. So, the questions many of us ask are: does this mean we can return? Is my home country safe enough to raise my child? Is my time and living and learning in Canada over? Should I pack sixteen years of memories, languages, winters and new recipes in two 23 kg suitcases and go back?

As I ask myself all these questions, a possible answer emerges: The only way I can be Colombo-Canadian is by not trying to be either one or the other, but something different, an intertwined thread with which to embroider the stories I will tell my son and the upcoming generations. Stories of immigration journeys, peace agreements, and returns to the land of forgetfulness.

6 La culpa en los tiempos del COVID-19

A photograph of a hoop stitch embroidery. It depicts a 3-D structure of the word relax.

May 2020

Photo Credit: Jenny Osorio

Verse

Verse Guilt is Knowing you must be productive You are home “More time” to work on your PhD. But all you can think about Is the cross-stitch embroidery Lying on the table Calling you…

Verse

Verse Guilt is Hiding in the basement Hoping to get some work done And listening to your son Upstairs Running Laughing Waiting for you to join him.

Verse

Verse Guilt is Watching TV Taking a nap Playing with J without being completely there “You still have work to do.”

Verse

Verse Guilt is Choosing to fold laundry Instead of watching a movie with family.

Verse

Verse Guilt is Longing For some quiet time alone.

7 Apsara

A photograph of an embroidered frame with three dancing women in it. A picture of it is placed in the lower right corner.

WIP. Started in May 2009

Photo Credit: Jenny Osorio

Women in my family have always told stories. My nona would tell me the story of how my grandfather lost their house at gambling, and how she bought a new one, with no money, only with a promise to the owner that she would open a bakery and pay him in bread. Every week, on our way to the cemetery to visit my father’s and my grandfather’s graves, she would show me the house. She would also tell me about her successful corn business; I remember being little and playing hide and seek around the big jute sacks of corn. One of his employees proposed to her, and when she turned him down, he scattered salt in front of my nona’s house, cursing her business. I have lost it all, but I know I can always start again, she would say, I still carry my experience and my memories of this life, and as long as I tell the stories, I will not forget.

I still wonder what stories are worth telling. Stories from back home? They seem so far away now. Stories of migration? The laughs, the tears, the resilience. Stories of citizenship? Taking a stance, speaking up. As I add stitches to my life embroidery, I am reminded of the importance of telling our stories: To not forget. In my case, when the story is not yet ready to be told, I can always look at the embroidery hanging on the wall, patiently waiting for me to unfold its secrets.