Immigrants of the Soul
By Gordon Bowness
Xtra, June 26, 1992
Immigrants of the soul. These are my favourite people, my friends.
There exists in this country a large number of people who have been forced to leave their homes, forced out of the cohesion of one culture and into another. From then on, they can never go back. Home is never so clear, coherent, convincing ever again. But who would want to stay in a place so boring anyway?
People are forced out of their cultural homes because they are different. Difference is not the reason. Fear is. Fear in the eyes of the majority, a majority that doesn’t really exist except through the media and other businesses of values and mores. Because the immigrants are a threat to the shadow castles of the dominant culture, they must be drowned in the moat. They are seen as social terrorists who, if not blowing up the blue-eyed family unit, will at least soil the attached garage.
Who are these immigrants? We come in all shades and blushes. Fags, dykes, bisexuals, people of colour, people of mixed heritage… you know, those of us who live in the margins but who can walk across the middle of the page.
We are all people who have journeyed from the straight world into a queer one, who have walked under towering banyans into Bay Street offices, who can smell their mother’s spicy cooking as they put on their father’s tweed tie, who have hidden secrets to avoid the lonely bruising of blows and barbed words. We have hidden and we have fought for our survival, and our knowledge lets us pas in different worlds as we go through our daily lives -- trying on different garments, manners and languages as our situation dictates.
The true meaning of our dangerousness is seldom understood. For we are the fabled tricksters, chameleons, the cats who walk through walls. Though we have known them, we have rejected the particular polarities of gender. Though we have experienced them, we have rejected the black and white dichotomy of race. We are not stuck between opposing camps, but have instead evolved a third distinct option. We can bend the linear world, to make it triangular, more pink, more brown. Therein lies the danger.
Though we can never forfeit the responsibility of dealing with the hostility and ignorance of others, hopefully we immigrants learn to choose how and when we make our migrations, how and when we step out of our respective closets, how and when we wear our practical and beguiling masks. In making those choices we define ourselves as individuals not of others’ making. We create an individuated culture of choice. Through forces beyond our control, we have discovered the true meaning of freedom and self-determination; and that’s a threat to those people who see little choice in their lives.
"I do not want to have my windows closed and my doors shut. I want winds from all cultures to blow freely about my house. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any."
-- MK Gandhi
By Gordon Bowness
Xtra, June 26, 1992
Immigrants of the soul. These are my favourite people, my friends.
There exists in this country a large number of people who have been forced to leave their homes, forced out of the cohesion of one culture and into another. From then on, they can never go back. Home is never so clear, coherent, convincing ever again. But who would want to stay in a place so boring anyway?
People are forced out of their cultural homes because they are different. Difference is not the reason. Fear is. Fear in the eyes of the majority, a majority that doesn’t really exist except through the media and other businesses of values and mores. Because the immigrants are a threat to the shadow castles of the dominant culture, they must be drowned in the moat. They are seen as social terrorists who, if not blowing up the blue-eyed family unit, will at least soil the attached garage.
Who are these immigrants? We come in all shades and blushes. Fags, dykes, bisexuals, people of colour, people of mixed heritage… you know, those of us who live in the margins but who can walk across the middle of the page.
We are all people who have journeyed from the straight world into a queer one, who have walked under towering banyans into Bay Street offices, who can smell their mother’s spicy cooking as they put on their father’s tweed tie, who have hidden secrets to avoid the lonely bruising of blows and barbed words. We have hidden and we have fought for our survival, and our knowledge lets us pas in different worlds as we go through our daily lives -- trying on different garments, manners and languages as our situation dictates.
The true meaning of our dangerousness is seldom understood. For we are the fabled tricksters, chameleons, the cats who walk through walls. Though we have known them, we have rejected the particular polarities of gender. Though we have experienced them, we have rejected the black and white dichotomy of race. We are not stuck between opposing camps, but have instead evolved a third distinct option. We can bend the linear world, to make it triangular, more pink, more brown. Therein lies the danger.
Though we can never forfeit the responsibility of dealing with the hostility and ignorance of others, hopefully we immigrants learn to choose how and when we make our migrations, how and when we step out of our respective closets, how and when we wear our practical and beguiling masks. In making those choices we define ourselves as individuals not of others’ making. We create an individuated culture of choice. Through forces beyond our control, we have discovered the true meaning of freedom and self-determination; and that’s a threat to those people who see little choice in their lives.
"I do not want to have my windows closed and my doors shut. I want winds from all cultures to blow freely about my house. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any."
-- MK Gandhi