Three years before I immigrated to Canada, then PM Pierre Trudeau announced that  Canada would adopt multicultural policies to address systemic racial and cultural discrimination. This was unanimously supported in parliament. I look at my arrival in Toronto in 1974 as most opportune.

In my personal research involving Filipino immigration to this country, I have discovered that Filipinos started immigrating to Canada as early as 75 years ago. Filipinos with medical background and working in the US moved to Canada after losing their status there. Canada accepted them based on their work history. Architects and those with business backgrounds followed thereafter. The early Filipino settlers were professionals. When martial law was declared in September 1972, the brain drain started. Those who were able to leave left. Those who remained lay low and made plans to emigrate from the country where they received their education.

My early experience as a landed immigrant is a mixture of longing for my old country and excitement over what held for me in this country with four seasons. When I was growing up, the Philippines had only two seasons: dry characterized by hot and humid weather, and wet, by monsoons and rains up to November. Climate change has altered all that.

I felt like a tourist when I arrived in the Fall of 1974, visiting Niagara Falls, going fishing on weekends with my new friends, learning to ice skate in the winter, not knowing what to wear as the cold temperature set in. In my second year, I started to realize that things won’t be easy for me. I suddenly felt like a small fish in a big pond when back home, I was a big fish in a small pond. The realization struck hard that I imagined I was having back pains. Funny how the body reacts to something like this. Third-year, I felt trapped. There was nothing waiting for me back home. Martial law was still on.  So was a curfew. I felt I needed to stop thinking of the Philippines if I was going to make a go of my new life. The resignation came in the fourth year. I decided to adapt to Canadian life, integrate some more while keeping my Filipinoness in me. After this, life became easier.

I started volunteering in the Filipino community. Anything to make use of my weekend which was the only free time for me since weekdays were devoted to putting food on the table. I got involved in all levels of Canadian politics from the municipal to the provincial and then the federal. I contributed to a local Filipino newspaper with my write-ups accompanied by photos taken from my camera. I gained the reputation of being peripatetic because I would be seen in several functions during the weekend. I made no apologies for this. I found my niche.

My involvement in the Filipino community and in politics gave me a big surprise. In 1994, I received a phone call from the Prime Minister. I was appointed to the Immigration and Refugee Board to determine Convention refugee claims. This was a total surprise to me.  So many people left congratulatory messages on my machine.  Some messages were not able to get through because the machine got filled up.

Determining a refugee claim to be genuine or bogus was not easy. But I did it. I read a lot of cases, background info on the country of origin of the claimant, brought homework for the weekend and wrote judgments as best I could. This was a humbling experience for me but I tried my very best to do the job the appointment called for. And all I aspired for during my first years in this country was to work as a mail carrier or a law enforcer. I was given the highest honour a Filipino immigrant could ask for. My being a member of the Immigration and Refugee Board taught me that life is precious, freedom is a basic human right and that no one person can inflict pain and suffering to another human being. Refugees are the result of oppressive governments and wars.