Originally sent as an email chronicle 1 May 2005
I’ve received a few emails from y’all mentioning that I haven’t sent a chronicle in quite some time so I figured I should send some news. I’ve been pretty busy lately with my research here in the Netherlands. I’ve started an experiment on captive Red Knots (my study species) that is taking all of my time. Hubby and I live in a town in the northeast Netherlands, but my birds are housed on an island in the northwest (in the Wadden Sea) – a 4 to 5 hour commute away. Thus I’ve been spending quite some time traveling/commuting. When on the island I’ve been in the lab working with blood and bacteria in a laminar flow hood (a piece of lab equipment that creates a sterile environment where one can work with bacteria and other sensitive media) – it’s about as sterile and “labby” as one can get without working on Ebola :-). The island is a nice place with really beautiful dune ecosystems and I do enjoy my time on the island, but the irony of my living and working situation at present (in relation to my reasons for coming to Europe) are not lost on me.
Those who know me well know that I have a somewhat dark and sarcastic sense of humor, and as such I love irony. My mother commented when I entered a PhD program that it was ironic how long I’d be in school considering that I chose not to become a medical doctor (MD) in part because I didn't want to stay in school so long. Of course she is right (mothers usually are). I also find it ironic that I chose not to stay on in my position at the University in my home city (in a molecular lab) because I didn't want to be stuck doing lab work all of the time. Right now I only work with live birds long enough to take a blood sample, the rest of my time is spent in a sterile lab. Furthermore, I moved to one of the world’s smallest countries, but now commute just about as far as possible (and through the only portion of the country without train service) on a regular basis. But then I guess I shouldn’t complain about the traveling as this journey through the countryside is the closest to fieldwork that I am getting! This is not to say that I won’t do any fieldwork or traveling in the future, I’m still optimistic that I will, and I understand the importance of working out new techniques in a lab before taking them into the field - but the theme of this email is irony :-).
Then there is the question of moving to Europe. Hubby and I decided to move to Europe in part because we felt that Europeans were generally more open minded and liberal than North Americans and we wanted to learn from European society for awhile. We could have gone to the midwest USA for my studies (where there was a strong possibility of fieldwork in Panama), but we decided that we didn’t want to live in a conservative rural community. Well, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the Atlantic… Here is irony for you, we now live in the northern Netherlands, a place which, unlike the large and multicultural cities that we grew up in, is very rural and much to our dismay at times very conservative.
Hubby is from Panama, and a year long battle with Canadian immigration for a visitor visa taught us that racism is alive and well (at least at the bureaucratic level) in Canada; however, when Hubby finally arrived in Canada he fit right in. The residents of my home city did not bat an eyelid at one more Latin American and even when he spent a month in a small town of about 500, he didn’t feel any racial tension. The story has been very different in the Netherlands. Here in Europe, there was no year long battle for a visa, but there has been racial tension. On one occasion Hubby asked a woman for directions and upon looking at him she hid her bags, pointed vaguely, and hurried away, obviously frightened. Hubby has also been followed at night by large white males who have hurled insults at him (most of which he didn’t understand) but that centered on calling him a “kebab” and “immigrant”. Even the academics with whom I work sometimes slip into referring to immigrants as “those people” who can’t integrate. We thought perhaps these were isolated incidents and that things were better in the more urban and multicultural south. But then the national and international news began to report on the firebombing of mosques and Islamic schools in the cities - so much for the pacifism and liberalism of the Netherlands. Racism and intolerance exists everywhere and it seems that the “dyke burst” (pardon the pun) for the Netherlands just as we arrived.
The “immigration/emigration situation” in the Netherlands is addressed in an article in the Globe and Mail (23 April 2005) entitled “It just doesn’t feel like Holland anymore”. The article discusses a recent exodus of Dutch people, troubled by the ways in which immigration has changed their nation. These Dutch emigrants are moving preferentially to Canada. Now there is irony for you! For one Dutch emigrant the problem in the Netherlands is that “Holland has let too many people in without attention to their ability to fit into Dutch society”. The citizens of his town now come in a variety of hues and hold a variety of beliefs and to him it just doesn’t feel like home any more. I wonder how this man will feel when he arrives in Vancouver (multicultural to say the least) and sees that several of the customs officers wear turbans and head scarves. In my first year in the northern Netherlands I could count the number of head scarves I saw on one hand. Only recently have head scarves emerged, and this “fashion trend” is a protest to the anti-Islam movement (a very good sign, I think).
The Globe article states that “The ethnic cleaning and mass migration of the two world wars left many European countries with one dominant ethnic group, so the presence of large numbers of visibly different people has alarmed and alienated many residents.” But the Dutch are traders who have come into contact with “buitenlanders” (foreigners) for centuries – que pasa? I suppose the answer lies in the distinction between foreigners as trading partners, and foreigners as active members of your country. According to the Globe, “the public reaction to the demographic changes has been nothing short of fury.”
But not all Dutch people agree with this reaction. Hubby and I have many Dutch friends who are embarrassed by their nation’s new found intolerance. Furthermore, many Dutch emigrants are leaving not because of the immigrants, but because of the Dutch reaction to immigration, which has “turned their country men into angry intolerant nationalists”. I can sympathize, although for different reasons. It’s shattering to discover that your country and your people are not as perfectly tolerant as you once believed. The emigrants leaving the Netherlands because of the Dutch response to immigration feel that “Canada is a place where the tension between immigrants and non-immigrants does not exist, because that distinction does not exist”. It is true that in Canada (and Panama) nearly everyone is an immigrant so the distinction between “us and them” is blurred and integration becomes less of an issue. In my experience (and I can only speak for myself) there is a very distinct line between the Dutch and the foreigners in the Netherlands - even in academic circles. This is not to say that there is no mixing, everyone works together and collaborations abound; however, in social situations there is a tangible “us and them” feeling. It is uncomfortable, it makes me feel guilty for not integrating more, and it is something I haven’t felt anywhere else.
I hope that Dutch immigrants seeking tolerance in Canada will find what they are looking for. In Canada they will be the foreigners and the tables will be turned. Like the Netherlands, Canada is known throughout the world as a tolerant nation and I hope that despite it’s own debates about immigration, it can live up to that reputation. I hope that Canada (despite somewhat inhumane visa laws) can be a place where all people can live in peace.
I’ve received a few emails from y’all mentioning that I haven’t sent a chronicle in quite some time so I figured I should send some news. I’ve been pretty busy lately with my research here in the Netherlands. I’ve started an experiment on captive Red Knots (my study species) that is taking all of my time. Hubby and I live in a town in the northeast Netherlands, but my birds are housed on an island in the northwest (in the Wadden Sea) – a 4 to 5 hour commute away. Thus I’ve been spending quite some time traveling/commuting. When on the island I’ve been in the lab working with blood and bacteria in a laminar flow hood (a piece of lab equipment that creates a sterile environment where one can work with bacteria and other sensitive media) – it’s about as sterile and “labby” as one can get without working on Ebola :-). The island is a nice place with really beautiful dune ecosystems and I do enjoy my time on the island, but the irony of my living and working situation at present (in relation to my reasons for coming to Europe) are not lost on me.
Those who know me well know that I have a somewhat dark and sarcastic sense of humor, and as such I love irony. My mother commented when I entered a PhD program that it was ironic how long I’d be in school considering that I chose not to become a medical doctor (MD) in part because I didn't want to stay in school so long. Of course she is right (mothers usually are). I also find it ironic that I chose not to stay on in my position at the University in my home city (in a molecular lab) because I didn't want to be stuck doing lab work all of the time. Right now I only work with live birds long enough to take a blood sample, the rest of my time is spent in a sterile lab. Furthermore, I moved to one of the world’s smallest countries, but now commute just about as far as possible (and through the only portion of the country without train service) on a regular basis. But then I guess I shouldn’t complain about the traveling as this journey through the countryside is the closest to fieldwork that I am getting! This is not to say that I won’t do any fieldwork or traveling in the future, I’m still optimistic that I will, and I understand the importance of working out new techniques in a lab before taking them into the field - but the theme of this email is irony :-).
Then there is the question of moving to Europe. Hubby and I decided to move to Europe in part because we felt that Europeans were generally more open minded and liberal than North Americans and we wanted to learn from European society for awhile. We could have gone to the midwest USA for my studies (where there was a strong possibility of fieldwork in Panama), but we decided that we didn’t want to live in a conservative rural community. Well, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the Atlantic… Here is irony for you, we now live in the northern Netherlands, a place which, unlike the large and multicultural cities that we grew up in, is very rural and much to our dismay at times very conservative.
Hubby is from Panama, and a year long battle with Canadian immigration for a visitor visa taught us that racism is alive and well (at least at the bureaucratic level) in Canada; however, when Hubby finally arrived in Canada he fit right in. The residents of my home city did not bat an eyelid at one more Latin American and even when he spent a month in a small town of about 500, he didn’t feel any racial tension. The story has been very different in the Netherlands. Here in Europe, there was no year long battle for a visa, but there has been racial tension. On one occasion Hubby asked a woman for directions and upon looking at him she hid her bags, pointed vaguely, and hurried away, obviously frightened. Hubby has also been followed at night by large white males who have hurled insults at him (most of which he didn’t understand) but that centered on calling him a “kebab” and “immigrant”. Even the academics with whom I work sometimes slip into referring to immigrants as “those people” who can’t integrate. We thought perhaps these were isolated incidents and that things were better in the more urban and multicultural south. But then the national and international news began to report on the firebombing of mosques and Islamic schools in the cities - so much for the pacifism and liberalism of the Netherlands. Racism and intolerance exists everywhere and it seems that the “dyke burst” (pardon the pun) for the Netherlands just as we arrived.
The “immigration/emigration situation” in the Netherlands is addressed in an article in the Globe and Mail (23 April 2005) entitled “It just doesn’t feel like Holland anymore”. The article discusses a recent exodus of Dutch people, troubled by the ways in which immigration has changed their nation. These Dutch emigrants are moving preferentially to Canada. Now there is irony for you! For one Dutch emigrant the problem in the Netherlands is that “Holland has let too many people in without attention to their ability to fit into Dutch society”. The citizens of his town now come in a variety of hues and hold a variety of beliefs and to him it just doesn’t feel like home any more. I wonder how this man will feel when he arrives in Vancouver (multicultural to say the least) and sees that several of the customs officers wear turbans and head scarves. In my first year in the northern Netherlands I could count the number of head scarves I saw on one hand. Only recently have head scarves emerged, and this “fashion trend” is a protest to the anti-Islam movement (a very good sign, I think).
The Globe article states that “The ethnic cleaning and mass migration of the two world wars left many European countries with one dominant ethnic group, so the presence of large numbers of visibly different people has alarmed and alienated many residents.” But the Dutch are traders who have come into contact with “buitenlanders” (foreigners) for centuries – que pasa? I suppose the answer lies in the distinction between foreigners as trading partners, and foreigners as active members of your country. According to the Globe, “the public reaction to the demographic changes has been nothing short of fury.”
But not all Dutch people agree with this reaction. Hubby and I have many Dutch friends who are embarrassed by their nation’s new found intolerance. Furthermore, many Dutch emigrants are leaving not because of the immigrants, but because of the Dutch reaction to immigration, which has “turned their country men into angry intolerant nationalists”. I can sympathize, although for different reasons. It’s shattering to discover that your country and your people are not as perfectly tolerant as you once believed. The emigrants leaving the Netherlands because of the Dutch response to immigration feel that “Canada is a place where the tension between immigrants and non-immigrants does not exist, because that distinction does not exist”. It is true that in Canada (and Panama) nearly everyone is an immigrant so the distinction between “us and them” is blurred and integration becomes less of an issue. In my experience (and I can only speak for myself) there is a very distinct line between the Dutch and the foreigners in the Netherlands - even in academic circles. This is not to say that there is no mixing, everyone works together and collaborations abound; however, in social situations there is a tangible “us and them” feeling. It is uncomfortable, it makes me feel guilty for not integrating more, and it is something I haven’t felt anywhere else.
I hope that Dutch immigrants seeking tolerance in Canada will find what they are looking for. In Canada they will be the foreigners and the tables will be turned. Like the Netherlands, Canada is known throughout the world as a tolerant nation and I hope that despite it’s own debates about immigration, it can live up to that reputation. I hope that Canada (despite somewhat inhumane visa laws) can be a place where all people can live in peace.
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