One Holiday, Two Traditions

Late in the afternoon on Christmas day, I left my phone on the kitchen counter, donned a grey overcoat and a cashmere, checkered scarf, and began walking south from my apartment. I crossed over to Bay St.--often discussed as Canada's Wall St.--on which I remained until I hit the shore of Lake Ontario. As I moved along the gradient of buildings from my dingy, brick-intensive neighborhood into the upscale design of the Financial District, I thought about how my walk could be imitated in nearly every major North American city. Industry tends to agglomerate near the water, and expensive, structural investment follows it.

As I passed the base of City Hall into Nathan Phillips Square, I was interrupted by a meandering child who, dazzled by the light of the city's Christmas Tree, stumbled in front of me. I smiled reassuringly to his mother in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent her from chiding him before walking into the Square proper, where its fountain is annually converted into an ice skating rink. The rink/fountain bustled with parents and their children as older family members warmed their hands with coffee and cocoa at the fountain's edges. The letters of the  'T O R O N T O' sign, on the north end of the rink/fountain, were lit in alternating green and red reflected dimly off of the blemished ice.

A picture of the scene, taken during my visit to Toronto last December

The air got colder and the wind began to bite my nose and ears as I passed into Habour Square Park. Pausing only to chuckle at the bright orange scarf and cap that covered the statue of Jack Layton sitting on the back seat of a tandem bicycle, I walked to the railing at the edge of the water. A young British couple watched their even younger boys toss snowballs at one another, and another young couple speaking an unidentifiable Eastern European language struggled to photograph themselves with the Toronto Islands in the background. They excitedly thanked me in broken English after I offered to take their picture for them. 

After standing alone by the water long enough to decide that it was too cold to remain or walk back, I boarded a streetcar to Union Station, where I transferred to the subway that runs right to Wellesley station, less than a block from my apartment. I was surprised by how many people--mostly families--surrounded me on the subway. A teenager stood with her parents near the train's doors, all of them holding ice skates. Is this how families in the city spend Christmas? I thought to myself. The crowds of families skating in front of City Hall, the couple and young family at the park, and the families I passed on my walk through the Financial District rushed to the front of my mind. It occurred to me that this would be my latest lesson in how different urban and rural upbringings truly are.

One Christmas in particular that has stuck in my mind this year is that of 2010. The Christmas celebrations themselves were unremarkable, but our tree stuck with me. Traditionally, tree collection was a family activity. My brothers and I would pile into the Chevy Silverado with my parents, and my dad would drive us down some unmarked road that was so unpopulated that nobody bothered to plow it. We'd park at a wide spot of the road and preemptively turn the car around. We'd wander into the woods, lowering our tree standards in proportion to how much the snow was soaking through our boots and pants. When the candidate was chosen--in good years, a Douglas Fir--my dad would grab the chainsaw from whoever's turn it was to carry it, and I'd test my mom's anxiety by getting as close as I could while he felled our Christmas tree.

Where I spent Christmas from 1994 to 2012

For Christmas 2010, I was the only child living with my parents, and my dad had just undergone a major surgery. My parents, justifiably skeptical of assigning me (having never operated a chainsaw before) the tree collection task alone, sent me and my friend Patrick to do it together. I like to consider myself a thorough, hard worker now, but at the time, I was your typical video gamer: I'd spend hours getting full points in Assassin's Creed II, but when my dad asked me to collect firewood, I'd haul in just enough to ensure that he wouldn't send me out to get more. I'm sure Patrick would agree that he shared my philosophy.

We hopped into my powder blue 1995 Subaru Legacy (endearingly named Beverly) and drove to the county road closest to my house. About five miles from town, where the road turns from blacktop to gravel, we spotted an arrangement of Douglas Firs just off of the road. I pulled Beverly to the edge of the ditch and flicked on her hazard lights as we wandered over find a candidate. Our chosen one was full and perhaps a little too big, but nothing that couldn't be remedied by chopping a foot off of its base. As Patrick fetched the chainsaw from the car, I noticed a pink ribbon tied around the trunk of the tree. "Doesn't this mean this is on protected county land?" We silently started at each other before bursting into laughter. This was a road that my dad taught me to drive on at twelve years old because you could drive from end to end for hours before seeing another car, let alone a police officer. 20 minutes later, we drove a precariously attached tree back to my house as its tip bobbed comically against the top of Beverly's windshield.

We had never had a more beautiful tree. We haven't had one since.

Declining Mobility and "The Skedaddle"

On Thursday night, after taking three exams in three days, one of my classmates and I waited at a popular U of T student pub for the rest of our group to arrive. We engaged in the conversation that has plagued Western political dialogue for the past year: what motivates the near-global populist backlash? As two center-left economics graduate students, we were less keen on blaming immigration and international trade than your average political speculators, and we were not comfortable with laying blame to a single phenomenon.

Much has been made of the factors that we discussed, from decaying institutions to white identity crises and the Internet's role in providing a community for conspiracy theorists and hate groups. I do not intend to write about any of those--anything I add to that conversation would be less informed well-written than pieces that are already in the ether. Instead, I have not been able to stop thinking about mobility.

New World democracies have long been characterized by a multigenerational tendency to do what Jeanette Walls recalls her father describing as "the skedaddle" in her memoir, The Glass Castle. This tendency is codified in popular culture as well as American folklore. It begins in grade school with "Manifest Destiny" and bubbles up in songs, movies, and shows from every era. It appears in music, from Billy Joel's "Movin' Out" to The Lumineers' "Dead Sea" and "Sleep on the Floor"; in literature, with Alice Munro's Runaway and Walt Whitman's "Song of the Open Road"; in shows as old as "That Girl" and contemporary ones like "New Girl". When the story line isn't frustrated easterners journeying west, it's small-town folks following opportunity into the big city. The prevalence of the skedaddle in our culture is not coincidental: it speaks to who we are, and how we view fulfillment.

Very few Americans (and for that matter, Canadians) can go more than a generation or two back in their family before encountering the skedaddle. I can't even begin to count backward: my parents already moved out of my hometown; only one of my seven siblings is left there, and he spent nearly a decade on the east coast before moving back. My mother was born in Oklahoma and would have to start counting on both hands if you asked her how many cities, states, or countries she called home before graduating high school. My father (who was born in Wyoming) claims Knoxville, Tennessee as his hometown, and traveled up and down and between both coasts before settling down in the Pacific Northwest. The skedaddle is a family tradition. Or, as my grandfather put it when my dad moved to my teeny-tiny hometown: "Our family has been killing ourselves for generations just to get out of the hills."

But the skedaddle seems to be losing its touch. As Jed Kolko of CityLab noted a few years ago, the percentage of U.S. residents living in a new home from 2012 to 2013 was an all-time low of just over 11%. This number was at 20% in the 1950s and '60s. Arthur Brooks emphasized in a May New York Times column that the last 25 years have seen a near-halving of Americans moving between states. I mention this out of more than mere nostalgia: this has serious economic implications. Declining mobility leads to lower social mobility and greater regional income inequality. From personal experience, moving to a new area provides wider perspectives that couldn't be gained by staying at home.

My visit to Montreal: Brought to you by the skedaddle

That brings us to current political trends. As Cracked's David Wong articulates in language exclusively befitting of a Cracked article, "rural areas have been beaten to shit." Small towns, like my hometown, are dependent on a single industry, often through a single business. For any town of that sort, in the long run, you either grow or die. In a mobile country, that is depressing, but it is not debilitating: people would just move when the mine closes. When people are moving less and staying longer in each home than ever before, that's devastating. It is the type of event that makes you want to engineer a return to a different time.

Again, I do not think that this is the sole cause of Trump's political success, Brexit, Bernie Sanders's popularity, or the recent rise in white nationalist groups. I know better than that. These political trends are multifaceted. But it is hard to deny that unprecedented geographical stagnation plays a role.

Perhaps we need to make America skedaddle again.

Reflections on Fulbright Orientation and the First Days of Graduate School

It was 7:55 PM on Sunday, September 11th when my train stopped. To my surprise, I was greeted with an urban landscape poking through an early-evening darkness when I peered out of the window. I expected to see Oshawa, a sleepy city with a quaint train station. My nose had been buried in Alice Munro's Runaway, a collection of short stories that, at this moment in my life, hits a little too close to home. The train had stopped at Oshawa nearly a half an hour earlier.

The type of station I expected (from the trip up to Ottawa)

My train was waiting for the car in front of it to turn around at the station, so it was parked far enough away that I had a view of the northeastern face of Toronto. What struck me when I looked up--other than the fear that I may have to wait until I got home to figure out what happens when such and such character runs away with so and so's brother--was how much Toronto felt like home. I was not merely going back, but rather coming home. I have another week before my Toronto month-iversary; am I really at home here already?

I had spent the weekend in Ottawa for my Fulbright Canada orientation. The Fulbright Canada Commission funds the research of both scholars (practicing academics from one country serving a research stint in the other) and graduate students. They also support the Killam Fellowship program, which funds semester-long exchanges for Canadian and Americans. The orientation was only for American scholars and students, but for all of the Killam Fellows from both countries.

I had spent the three preceding weeks in "math camp", a 10:00-4:00 Monday-Friday, intensive review course in mathematics and statistics that is required of all first-year graduate economics students at U of T. On the first day of class, my professor described the course as "mostly math, a bit of stats, and no review." The coursework was downright grueling, and I attended my final lecture two hours prior to my departure for Ottawa. By the next morning, when I was getting ready in the uOttawa brohouse that was my Airbnb, I was simply ready to get the weekend over with so that I could have some time to myself.

I could spend the rest of this entry detailing the events of my orientation. Quite frankly, I would like to. I had an amazing time there and talked to incredibly interesting people. I met scholars and learned about their research. I met the Chief Justice of Canada's Supreme Court (!!) and toured Parliament. Intellectually, it was a remarkably fulfilling experience. Instead, I want to outline what the orientation meant to me in the abstract.

Canada's Parliament: ugly colors, disappointing shortage of Justin Trudeau

The view from the first night's reception

When in Canada: Play hockey, bleed for your cause

Moving to a new city three time zones away after spending one's entire life in the same state is, to put it generously, a psycho-emotionally disruptive event. Doing so across a border and into a heavily-populated city after spending your life in the country (and a small college town) is even more so. Until I attended my orientation, I had not spoken to anybody in a situation like mine. I met fantastic people in my program, but they all either attended undergraduate school in Ontario or grew up here. At the Fulbright orientation, I spoke to dozens of brilliant people my age who are going through the same thing that I am, uprooting themselves and moving thousands of miles away to kick off what is sure to be the beginning of their career. I am sure that it was no coincidence that the Fulbright Canada Commission placed me in a hotel room with somebody from New York (/Maryland/Virginia) who is moving to Vancouver for his Fulbright research. One of us is flowing west to east, the other from east to west. We could never stop talking to each other.

On our last night in Ottawa, I went with a group of students to a speakeasy (a legal one!) near our hotel. We intended to hop through a few bars, but ended up spending the entire night there. Garrett, who is spending a year at McGill as part of his doctorate in history, was turning 27 in the morning. After we all drank at midnight in honor of his birthday, it dawned on him that he was in his "late twenties". The rest of us tried to assure him that, in fact, 27 qualifies as "mid-twenties" and that he has another year before the dread begins. In reality, we were all terrified. We spent the entire night sharing with one another how we ended up as Fulbright Students. We were all at the threshold of adulthood, staring into the great unknown of our future as Fulbright Students, unable to ignore the fact that it has arrived, and we don't know if we're ready.

Cheers?

The Speakeasy crew

A Treatise on Canada's Importance to Americans

I still do not feel like I am in Toronto.

That being said, I quickly settled in, both physically and emotionally. Sure, my duffel bag will be my dresser for the next two weeks, and FedEx can't seem to get one of my packages out of Washington (is it the one with my more eminently important belongings?!), but I leapt, in a matter of days, from being quietly overwhelmed to casually making grocery lists and laundry runs.

Still, the wonder of calling North America's fourth largest city home--if only for a year--has not been lost on me. After spending the first eighteen years of my life in Washington's most rural county, seeing not one, not two, but countless high-rises outside of my window each morning is astounding. I cannot help but think back to one of my first weekends in Bellingham, when I climbed to the top of the watchtower in the Sehome Hill arboretum with a few of my friends. As we watched the sun set over the city, bay, and mountains, I commented on how unbelievable it was to be there. My friend Brooke, who grew up in Wenatchee, responded that she was used to being surrounded by mountains. I was referring, instead, to my wonder at living somewhere with a skyline.

The view from my breakfast table will be a little tough to get used to.

Not sure if I would have been so impressed by Bellingham's skyline if I moved there from Toronto....

Moving in and urban wonder aside, I want to take a moment to talk about why I have this opportunity in the first place. Most international study/research scholarship programs available to American students exist either to educate Americans about "less developed" nations, or to advance ties between the U.S. and the host country. With Canada as the perennial butt of every foreign relations joke, what good does the Fulbright Canada commission see in funding study and research across the U.S.-Canadian border?

The truth is that many Americans take Canada for granted, and even more Americans are ignorant to Canada's role in the world, and even Canada as a whole. To paraphrase Scotty Greenwood of the Canadian-American Business Council, the U.S.-Canadian border is like a two-way mirror: when Canadians look at the U.S., they see the U.S. When Americans look at Canada, they see themselves. The former Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Trudeau (the current Prime Minister's father) said of the relationship, "Living next to [the U.S.] is... like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast... one is affected by every twitch and grunt."

In other words, Canadians cannot help but acknowledge and at least attempt to understand the United States: we're their only neighbor, their largest (by far) trading partner, and the world's leading power. Canada is heavily influenced by America's economy, culture, and politics. Many Americans, on the other hand, can live and die without ever knowing a Canadian Prime Minister's name (or, for that matter, learn that Canada's leader is called a prime minister).

This attitude became clear to me when I accepted admission to the University of Toronto. Like every college senior, I spent the year fielding questions about my post-graduate plans. At least nine out of ten times that I said I would be attending the University of Toronto, the response was something along the lines of, "Oh, are you Canadian?" Sometimes I would omit the fact that I won a Fulbright scholarship, just so that I could explain my choice on the merits of U of T rather than on the money I was offered. "It consistently ranks in the world's top-twenty schools for Economics," I would say, "and Toronto is amazing."

Americans should learn more about Canada. Canada is one of our closest allies and our largest trading partner; we share the world's longest bi-national land border; and Canada is a leader in civil rights, having federally legalized same-sex marriage nine years before we did. Many celebrities and artists that are well-known and -loved in the United States are Canadian: Ryan Reynolds, Celine Dion, Alice Munro, Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, and Michael J. Fox, just to name a few. Just Google "Canadian celebrities", and you'll find countless names and faces that are well-known to you. I was recently surprised to find that Simple Plan, a band that was integral to the release (exacerbation?) of my pre-teen angst, is from Montreal.

The Fulbright-Canada Commission was founded 25 years ago with this relationship in mind. Private donors and both governments see this program as a worthy investment because it pays to have people like me talking to other Americans about Canada without the slightest hint of irony, misunderstanding, or dismissal. I'm more than happy to take the offer. After all, the U of T is fantastic... and Toronto is amazing.

What's Being Left Behind

This entry will be much shorter than I want it to be. Following the trend of my overall move-out experience, this reflection will be shorter, less sentimental, more rushed, and generally more unconventional than I imagined it would be.

This blog is a medium for me to share my experiences in Toronto during my Fulbright year. However, in my introductory post, I want to provide context for what's to come with what's being left behind.

I'm currently sitting on the floor of the SeaTac Airport, waiting in line at my gate. Two days ago, I awoke at 7:00 AM in Bellingham after four hours of sleep with my mind shrouded as it could only be after the last night in one's "college town". Two hours later, I hit the road in a comically-packed 2002 Kia hatchback an hour after I had planned to leave. I always expected my last departure from Bellingham to be teary, sentimental, and ponderous. The truth is, it felt casual, I still do not feel as though I left.  I expected to cry during my goodbyes, but I never did.

During my final week in Bellingham, I was surrounded by my closest friends, some who I have known for my entire time at Western Washington University. We laughed, we stayed up late, and we reminisced. I never considered Bellingham merely my college town, and I never referred to Republic, where I grew up, or Yakima, where my parents have lived for the last four years, as home. Before a holiday break, I would tell others that I was seeing my parents for the holidays.

Bellingham hurts to leave behind because I became myself during my time there. Bellingham was my home, and Western was my identity. It is difficult to fully explain what it is like to grow up in a true small town to those who have never experienced it: to have your identity prescribed to you at birth, to carry the legacy of seven siblings on your shoulders when a teacher or doctor hears your last name.

Coming to college at Western was the first time I had the opportunity to define myself on my own terms. Stepping foot on Western's campus three years and eleven months ago was my introduction to life as an individual. Over the course of 59 months, I built a life as a Western student, a Bellinghamster, an RA, a tutor, an Honors student, a guy at the bar who plays darts even when he doesn't order a drink. I began to feel comfortable in those roles, and took for granted (even feared) the familiarity that came with living in a "college town".

So I'm leaving it behind. I'm choosing not to come back to Washington for my whole Fulbright year, even for holidays. I want to experience Toronto, experience Canada and the U of T in the best way that I can. I adore the people I met, and especially those whom I've seen in my last week. I hope to never take them for granted. Maybe they'll even give me the opportunity to cry.