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Citizenship: An Immigrant's Perspective
By Uzma Shakir
As an immigrant who came to Canada from Pakistan 17 years ago, my experience of Canadian citizenship is not a philosophical inquiry into the meaning of belonging, but a lived reality of marginality. For immigrants like me (and even more so for refugees), citizenship in this country is mired in disenfranchisement and a continuing sense of "otherness". Our experience is one of society bestowing citizenship upon us as a privilege, not of us claiming the right to citizenship as co-authors of the great multicultural experiment called Canada.
It took nearly five years before I acquired my Canadian passport. I had to establish continuous residency for three years and then it took another 18 months for the process to be completed. While I was waiting for the famous blue document to arrive in the mail, I stood on the sidelines watching the ebb and flow of Canadian political life but barred from participating. Because I was not a citizen, I could not vote in elections at any level of government. I also had to give up my hopes of pursuing a career in the Canadian Foreign Service since the criteria for entry were Canadian citizenship and demonstrable bilingualism. Even if I could re-energize my efforts after the five-year wait to obtain my citizenship, I would not have been given top consideration since I am bilingual in English and Urdu, not English and French. I was forced to abandon my career plans.
Since obtaining the right to vote, I have participated in many civic forums and have built a different life for myself. But my status in Canada is still fragile. I am a Muslim living in post-9/11 North America . Need I say more? I have to teach my Canadian-born children how to practise self-censorship so that they do not get targeted in public institutions and public spaces. I have to answer more questions and suffer longer physical and verbal scrutiny at national and international borders because my freedom of mobility is not guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms but is curtailed by my country of birth. I have even had to have serious discussions with my young nephew about what jobs not to bother applying for. Not every door is open to him even though he has been in Canada since age 11 and has graduated from a leading Canadian University. The reality is that he has a quintessential Muslim name, was born in Pakistan, and grew up in the Middle East – a deadly combination. Accepting a differential and often diminished notion of Canadian citizenship is a commonplace experience for immigrants.
The time has come for me to speak about my compromised Canadian citizenship and to negotiate a different vision for the future. It is no longer sufficient for me to live under the burden of unfair responsibilities and obligations and not to assert the right to build a new reality. Today's immigrants and refugees must be the architects of tomorrow's citizenship. Their countries of origin, cultures, races, languages, and skills comprise the historical, social, economic, legal, and political lore of this nation. These qualities, along with their time or mode of arrival and/or their immigration or refugee status can be debated, documented, even changed, but they cannot be denied. Nor can we deny the right of every Canadian resident to equal treatment or equal access. Our collective heritage is not a common history, culture, race, language, or even experience of citizenship, but the hope that Canada may still be an unfinished experiment. Citizenship is not a pre-existing fact that can be bestowed on latecomers but an evolving reality that may still produce a new nation.
Comprehension Questions
Talk It Over
Why Doesn't Uzma enjoy full citizenship in Canada?
Find out the laws,social practices and institutions that make our Moroccan society masculine,depriving women from acheiving their full citizenship.
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