I started writing this newsletter on July 5th, a day before I got on a plane and moved to Canada. Given the pervasiveness of the virus in our midst, and how dangerous it has become to leave our homes, I hope it is obvious that this was not an impulsive decision. If we’re being technical, this move has been over a year in the making. If we’re being honest, the possibility of this move has been brewing for about a decade.
I moved from Lagos to New Jersey in the fall of 2011 to start college at Rutgers-University Newark. I spent 4 years at the most diverse college in the country (no, really) without any true understanding of how difficult it would be to go from being an international student to becoming a green card holder, and ultimately an American citizen. In May 2015, I waltzed out of college, diploma in hand, earnestly looking for a job to sponsor my American dream.
Reader, it was difficult.
For the first few months, I sparred with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services when I found out the employment authorization documents I needed to work were lost in the mail. The documents came three months after graduation, but thankfully I was able to find an internship and then a job.
And then the clock ran out on me.
Every international student knows the feeling of racing against borrowed time, trying to prove your worth to an employer so that they can spend an enormous amount of time and money to keep you employed, and ultimately in the country.
At the time, I worked at an amazing non-profit organization in New Jersey as a communications associate. I enjoyed my job and I loved my co-workers, but it was impossible to expect this organization to fork up thousands of dollars to sponsor me. So, during the summer of 2016, I packed my bags, moved out of a gorgeous apartment that my friends and I had taken turns living in like the pants in the Sisterhood movie, and went back to Lagos.
After a year in Lagos, I moved back to New York in 2017 to go to grad school at Columbia. By the time I was done, permanently immigrating to the US was a minefield, and what was already a difficult process in 2015 seemed impossible 3 years and another degree later.
Still, I applied for jobs in journalism and went on interviews only to be told that I was perfect on paper but, off the record, the possibility of finding a job in journalism that would sponsor me was not going to happen. The country was imploding and the industry was bleeding out. Just my luck.
My boyfriend who was privy to the rejections and the anxiety asked if I had ever considered moving to Canada. He had lived in Canada for a few years and save for the winters, he enjoyed it. His premise was simple, why not move somewhere that would be happy to have you.
In one sentence, my own experience of permanently immigrating somewhere was flipped on its head. I was the catch, I had so much to offer, and some countries would be happy to have me. It was like dating, but the stakes were much higher and the outcome more permanent.
I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that this move is not ingenious. The great migration of Nigerians to Canada is well known and is still ongoing. According to a Canadian Immigration Newsletter, over 12,000 Nigerians became permanent residents in Canada in 2019.
This cover from the Nigerian Magazine, The Republic Journal, is so apt. Get access to The Nigeria Dream issue here. Cover illustration by Adanna O.
I remember talking to a colleague, with a similar background ( Nigerian woman, in journalism) and squealing at a coffee shop in lower Manhattan when we found out that we were both doing the same thing: leaving the US and moving to Canada.
Over coffee, she said to me, “I just want to move somewhere I can put up my books and make a home.”
By the time I was readying myself to leave America, news of the Trump administration’s insouciance had reached new levels. At the beginning of the year, Donald Trump added Nigeria and a list of other countries to his hallmark travel ban policy, which indefinitely stopped immigrants from reuniting with their families or settling in the US. In April, he signed another executive order temporarily blocking the issuance of green cards to those outside the US. And in June, the administration suspended H-1B visas and barred foreigners from seeking employment in the United States. (If you’re interested, the Migration Policy Institute has cataloged all of the Trump Administration’s immigrated related policies in this report.)
The slate of bad news was both a gut punch and a gratuitous nail in the coffin. But, most importantly, it served as a reminder that I was making the right decision.
Hopefully, by the time you read this, I’ll be in my new home putting up my books.
other women (w)rote.
I’ve been watching “I May Destroy You” by Michaela Cole and PHEW. The talent, the storytelling, the layers. Jesus. In an interview about the show on ELLE.com, she said
“This story was so in my belly and in my heart and in my mind, it overwhelmed me.”
That hit me because when I think about writing, that’s the only kind of story worth telling, for me. A story that so demands to be told, it won’t let you go.
I finished Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing a few weeks ago and I was floored by what the book was able to achieve. I’ve been thinking about this quote since I put it down.
“Home is about the earth. Whether the earth open up to you. Whether it pull you so close the space between you and it melt and y’all one and it beats like your heart.”
Last Sunday, I was so lucky to (virtually) attend Mini Mood by Nigerian writer and poet, Anjola. I encountered Anjola a while ago after reading a short story she wrote about a married couple. I was floored by the honesty in her words and how palpable the tension was between the husband and wife in the story. The feelings she described were so intimate, so familiar, so real. I can’t find the story anywhere online, but her poetry evokes those same emotions (you can find her work on Instagram.)
Mini Mood is a virtual version of Anjola’s international live show that merges her original poetry with an incredible playlist, and it was exactly what I and the 200 people on that Zoom call last Sunday needed. We smiled knowing smiles, snapped our fingers, raised our fists, and bopped our heads to Anjola’s ethereal poetry and phenomenal playlist. You can listen to Anjola talk about her work and writing on The Stories We Tell Podcast with Nicole Asinugo. She’s also having another Mini Mood this Sunday! Do yourself a favor and sign up for the (free) event here.
(w)rite back.
What are you reading, listening to, or watching that’s moved you in the last few months? What does home feel like for you? Do you have any thoughts, comments, questions about the newsletter? If so, leave them and your jokes about Canadian winters below or write back via email.
Thank you for reading!
Ashley.
Thanks for sharing your news. You deserve to be treated with the respect and remuneration you’re due.