Cultural Pride

It’s hard not to know that you are an immigrant when you can hear your parents’ accent but I can say in all honesty that I was never embarrassed by my parents’ accents.  My father developed a very fine, extensive vocabulary (correctly used) and Mom did also, though more slowly since she was a housewife and not one to go out to mingle with the other ladies of the neighbourhood very often.  But I was embarrassed by Mom’s “sick note” writing (which I may have written about before).  She would write on a scrap of paper “Susanne was ill.”  I would watch as the teacher read other kids’ notes, written on fancy notepaper or even on card paper. And they were long.  I often wonder now “what the heck did they write?”  But then, Mom hated writing letters and a sick note was definitely not going to get much play with her!

Since many of Dad’s stories were about his childhood and Denmark we naturally took great pride in our heritage.  Not for us any sense of shame that we weren’t WASP.  Who wanted to be WASP when you could be Viking?  Who wanted to be WASP when Danes saved their Jews while the rest of the world gave them up, rejected them and otherwise did not stand up for what was right?  Who wanted to be WASP when they had the best Farmor in the world?  Who wanted to be anything but what we were a Danish family who knew how to love and laugh and have Christmas on Christmas Eve when the rest of the town had to wait until morning for their presents?

Indoors we were Danish to the core. We spoke Danish, we had plain Danish food (meat, potatoes, gravy and a dessert), and we had nice furniture, plants on the tables, pictures on the walls and ornaments here and there.  From the beginning my parents were very puzzled by the way Canadians furnished their homes.  They had a sofa and one chair, sometimes a coffee table but no pictures, plants or ornaments other than an ashtray or two.  We always had sofa, 2 chairs, coffee table, 2 side tables, lamps, and as I say all the “fixings” that made the living room cosy.  Part of this could have been the earlier areas where we lived because once we got into the suburbs the homes looked a little more like ours, but not much.  As my grandparents began sending parcels we had our Royal Danish porcelain and the newer teak things that became so modern in Denmark. 

We were, like, branding before we knew what branding was!  I know that when my friends in junior high came to my house they were terribly impressed by our home.  My parents really had great style.

I know, I am bragging a little . . . but only about my parents who make me so proud.  [bragging was something Dad was very strict about NOT doing, ditto tattle-tailing.  Two HUGE no-nos for us as kids]