Away From Home For The Holidays
The most significant yet unrecognized price of migration.
As I prepare to celebrate Christmas with my family in Canada, for yet another year I can’t help but feel the weight of being away from my home country of Peru during the holiday season.
I’ve lived in Canada for almost 30 years and I’ve been so fortunate to have had the privilege of visiting home when it was possible for my parents, and more often when I became a mother. For me, it is so important to share my experiences of Christmas back home with my daughter and for her to live the magic of family and community. From the Christmas display and manger that is built by neighbours every year with so much love and care in front of the park at my grandparents’ home to the rush of Christmas Eve at the grocery store or neighbourhood mercado to get last minute items for an evening feast, these are all elements that make Christmas feel so real in my heart.
Between North and South America
Living among the cultural differences between Peru and Canada, I’ve learned to adapt during the holiday season at both ends of the Americas. Specially as a mother, and as I bring to my child the magic of the holiday season every year, the significant element of consumerism stands out in North America - not just for Christmas but for every holiday, from extravagant Easter baskets to pricey Advent calendars. In North America, I feel the need to go above and beyond to create holiday magic through participating in an evidently capitalistic system, and I feel fortunate to know a holiday season that doesn’t feel like this at all.
In South America, the holiday magic comes from the cheer among the communities you are part of and naturally through your family. I cannot turn a blind eye to the influences of Americanization (imperialism of the US) within larger cities in South America, but I argue that there is an unintentional resistance from communities through their cultural practices and traditions which keep the level of consumerism experienced in north from taking over in the south. While gift giving is practiced and very much a norm, spending time with loved ones is an evident priority.
Why is this relevant?
The Feeling of Home
Based on experience, I confidently often say “your heart knows when it is home”. The rush and joy of your plane landing in your home country is a feeling like no other, and I’m so fortunate to have the privilege of knowing this unique feeling as not every migrant has the option to return home. Specially during the holiday season, being home is one of the best feelings in the world.
My closest family members continue to live in Peru, so spending the holidays with them has always been a priority for me and I’m so fortunate to have been able to share this with my child. She LOVES going home too, and is very aware of where home is for our family. So when I don’t have the opportunity to visit Peru during the holiday season, no matter how much I try to indulge in the holiday cheer or festivities in Canada, it feels like a piece is missing - a piece that can only be filled by the presence of my family.
When I share these sentiments with people, I am often reminded of how lucky I am to live in Canada and all the privileges I have due to being here. While I recognize that Canada has brought me many opportunities which I have taken advantage of through hard work and perseverance, they don’t compare to spending Christmas with my family. This is why speaking of the consumerism and capitalistic influences of life in North America is relevant to this discourse. While migrants may have material privileges in their host countries which they may not have access to in their home countries, these privileges do not replace the warmth and company of their families during the holiday season.
We are often so caught up in the idea of the “American dream” when we refer to migration that we often forget that emigrating from home comes at a deep and significant cost for migrants. In my personal experience, people often have the impression that because I immigrated to Canada as a child then I should be “used to it” here, but Canada has never felt like home for me. Peru will always be home to me, and Canada is the place my family immigrated to and where I currently live.
Sacrificing For “A Better Life”
Reflecting the academic work I do within the intersections of migration and motherhood, I feel that not enough attention is paid to how this may and does impact the emotional well-being of immigrants when it comes to this topic. Immigrants have strong feelings of missing home during the holiday season, and essentially all year round, and these sentiments are not given the recognition they deserve. This is why I feel it is the most significant yet unrecognized price of migration. No car or Christmas tree that I may be able to obtain with the privileges of living in North America is going to replace the feeling of being surrounded by my family during the holiday season. I think this is something that many folks who have been born and raised here, and may have generations of family close, do not take into consideration as they do not have an idea of what this may feel like. Furthermore, I would argue that the culture of individualism that is so deeply engrained in North America influences this, they fail to recognize what they themselves do not feel or experience.
The recognition that immigrants sacrifice greatly in the name of an better life for themselves and for their families is not new to us, from providing their children with an improved livelihood in their host countries to sending remittances to their loved ones back home. Yet the point I am trying to make here is that the cost of that sacrifice is not one which should ever be taken lightly. In fact, it needs more recognition than we have provided it thus far. While missing families and the feeling of home is a bold layer among the immigrant experience within migrant communities that they are well aware of, this needs to be more widely recognized. Therefore this begs the question that I often pose within discussions of the support that host nations provide to migrants; how can we better support migrants and migrant communities beyond how they will contribute to our capitalistic society?
Immigrants sacrifice greatly for their host nations, and one of the greatest costs is being away from home and their loved ones during the holiday season, and any other holiday seasons which they celebrate. Therefore, it is important to recognize these sacrifices as the emotional and psychological well-being of migrants is just as important as other aspects which support them in thriving within their host nations.
— Christie
I invite you to read my last article, “Introduction to Decolonized Motherhood”, if you haven’t give it a look yet. It will provide you with insight on what you will find on my Decolonized Motherhood Substack.