Memoir of a Teenage Immigrant: My Life in Canada 1964-1972

When I was almost 14, in November of 1964, my family emigrated from Cieszyn, a small town, in at that time Communist Poland, and moved to the big city of Toronto in Canada. Everyone I knew in Poland spoke of America where money grew on trees and anyone could become a president. It was the land of unlimited opportunities and freedom. In Canada, you could criticize the government and wouldn't be sent to a gulag in Siberia. Your neighbours wouldn't report you to the authorities for listening to the "wrong" radio station. You could travel abroad without going through the third degree with some bureaucrats and then having to leave your family behind so that you wouldn't try to defect. The stores were full of things to buy. You didn't have to wait in line for several hours to purchase toothpaste or toilet paper. You just went to the store and bought them.

Immigrants were welcomed and the majority came from war-torn Europe. After they arrived, they joined communities where they could communicate in their own language. The sixties was the time of great social upheaval. John Kennedy, the president of the United States, had been assassinated the year before we arrived. The Beatles gave their first concert in Washington. It was also the beginning of the second wave of feminism with Gloria Steinem its leader and the birth control pill was becoming widely available. It was the time of the flower children and the sit-ins of anti-Vietnam war protests. It was the time of, 'Make Love, not War.' Hippies, rock and roll, and marijuana arrived in downtown Toronto's Yorkville Village. It was the age of Aquarius and the Baby Boomers - children born after the war. I was one of them.
This memoir describes my life as a new Canadian, the homesickness I felt after leaving the only home I had ever known, and how I adapted to my new life.