TLDR: Racism incident at Vancouver first day of landing. Question for folks currently living in Canada about their experience.
Debated for a while before posting this, but thought its better to share with this community.
Landed a few months ago in Vancouver, everything was smooth at immigration etc, and went on to rent a car to visit a few places (we were only staying there for a day). Our last stop was Canada place. It was ~8:30-9 PM on a weekday, and there were hardly any people. Some guy (looked drunk/high) started yelling ‘Go back to India’, which was totally unexpected since I hadn’t faced such a thing ~6 years in US. It kind of left a bad taste since it was our first day and we had assumed that Canada was better than US in this aspect.
For folks who have lived in Canada for a while, what has your experience been in this regard? Do you feel safe and comfortable in general?
Sorry to hear. But unfortunately, that happens in any place where there is a huge Indian crowd. Vancouver (Surrey) is full of Indians. And if one Indian did something wrong, the rest of the Indian crowd will get affected. That’s sad but we can’t help.
If you go to Vancouver Airport or Uber or any other food delivery places, hotel cleaning staff, gas stations, etc. you see Indians working. Sometimes for me, it’s like before independence where Indians do all blue collar jobs and the rest of British or Canadians use our services. I was in-fact sad when I was in Vancouver for a week. I feel like we are recreating the same situation we had before independence but in a different land.
To your question, I live in Toronto, never had any issue but it depends on the opposite person state of mind. The person you came across might treat you differently the next time. we cannot even blame that guy as he was not happy so many Indians. Just like how Indians were not interested to live in Texas just because there are so many Indians.
Granted there are bad apples - in both the US and Canada. However that does not deter you from taking advantage of the opportunities available here. You can build a career and life of your liking. You do you.
As a patriotic Canadian who’s ancestors have been in this country over 250 years {Since before it was a country} I can say you’re welcome here. Your race is irrelevant. I have worked most of my career in international business, a great deal of that in the USA, and I can relate numerous instances of American racial animus. But I love the USA and would never paint it as generally racist. As you know, there are mindless racists everywhere. Unfortunately, you met one of ours. Ignore the dope. He doesn’t speak for Canada.
It’s been great till now (just a few months since moving to Toronto area). For us, having lived in the US for more than 10+ years in the US, the lack of racism(or in general any animosity towards person of other ethnicity) felt quite apparent.
I take it for granted that there’ll be people who are not happy with immigrants. I’m from Bangalore, I have seen how immigrants (from other states in India) are perceived sometimes, often by sections of the society that are not part of the economic growth taking place around them. It’s the same story in US, Canada etc.
I even met a naturalized citizen (from India) close to retirement, who didn’t seem to be too happy with so many immigrants coming in, because it was driving up their cost of living in GTA (and as people are closing in on their retirement, higher CoL pinches much harder).
Despite such experiences (and the occasional -ve headlines making the news in Canada everyday), we feel it’s been quite safe and comfortable till now.
Thank you everyone for your replies! I feel better after reading all your comments. @hslawd Thank you for being open and welcoming towards us immigrants!