Fried Brains

Old sunglasses at Abbas Grocery, Ottawa

Old sunglasses at Abbas Gro­cery, Ottawa

Well, my brain is cooked.

I am in Toronto again this week­end, the third time in a month.  I should have ren­ted an apart­ment!  I’m in town for a work­shop with Don­ald Weber, Cana­dian doc­u­ment­ary pho­to­grapher and mem­ber of the VII Network.

Don reviewed my work in 2007, at a con­fer­ence called the Great White North Work­shops. I showed him a port­fo­lio of my “I am Free” series (ori­gin­ally called “Departs”). Nobody else at the con­fer­ence really “got” my pic­tures at the time, or engaged me hon­estly. Don did, and his advice at that time changed my dir­ec­tion in pho­to­graphy. He told me to start pho­to­graph­ing people. He told me to get over my fear, and get closer. Two years later, at a con­fer­ence last month, he remembered my work.

Scrap metal at Baker's in Ottawa

Scrap metal at Baker’s in Ottawa

This time, he kicked my ass a bit. I have been shoot­ing people. I’ve been get­ting a lot closer lately. I’ve worked hard to be cog­niz­ant and crit­ical of my sur­round­ings, and the people in them. What Don did, and what I am grate­ful for, is called me out for not shoot­ing true to my vis­ion. He is right.

Some­where along the way, I trained myself to ignore my instincts. I focused on style and tech­nique over sub­stance and mean­ing. I lost focus of why I love pho­to­graphy. I’ve been sup­press­ing the emo­tional, non-technical, and intu­it­ive way of shoot­ing that is actu­ally my strength. Des­pite count­less hours work­ing on other types of pho­to­graphy, I keep com­ing back to doc­u­ment­ary pho­to­graphy. I can’t stay away, and it’s time for me to be hon­est with myself about that. It’s time for me to make the jump, I just needed a little push from Don­ald Weber.

So if it’s all about the people (or, more spe­cific­ally, rela­tion­ships), why did I choose two pho­to­graphs without people in them?  I just star­ted a new pro­ject. These pic­tures are part of it, but I have to keep the people pho­tos to myself for a while.

Personal Documentary

the crowd at Fait Maison 11

The crowd at Fait Maison 11

Pho­to­graphy is often a sol­it­ary occupation.

First, there’s the many hours spent search­ing for the per­fect pic­ture. When you do find one, you have a split second rela­tion­ship with your sub­ject. This is not a true rela­tion­ship, it is one medi­ated by the cam­era. Pho­to­graphy a moment­ary reflec­tion of real­ity. Then come hours spent alone in front of the com­puter, mak­ing everything just-so: an ideal­ized ver­sion of real­ity. When people finally do look at your pho­tos, they see that split second rela­tion­ship again. How­ever, by this time, the ver­sion of real­ity cap­tured in the moment is a former one, a reflec­tion of some­thing that once was but is no more. Pho­to­graphy is frus­trat­ingly real and unreal at the same time. After almost a dec­ade of tak­ing pic­tures, I still have trouble com­ing to terms with this disconnectedness.

I see loneli­ness in my work, and a cer­tain absence of per­sonal rela­tion­ship. This empti­ness goes along with the way I use the medium — a little heavy on nos­tal­gia. There are parts of this that I like, but at the same time, the empti­ness both­ers me. Pho­to­graphy can be a lonely pur­suit, but it doesn’t have to be one all the time. I want to use the medium to explore con­nec­tion and com­munity, as well as loneli­ness and dis­con­nec­tion. Both each is a part of the human condition.

Next week, I will start the first of a series of in-depth per­sonal mini-documentaries. Some­thing like embed­ding, but without going to war. I’ll be spend­ing the week with one per­son, all the time. Hon­estly, I am scared. I don’t know what to expect. Each per­son will be dif­fer­ent. I am hop­ing to be sur­prised. I am hop­ing to learn. I hope to fall in love, in a small way. It’s time to get up-close and personal.

Tamils protest in Toronto

The con­flict in Sri Lanka is raging. Canada is home to a sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of people from the island off the tip of India. Almost a quarter of a mil­lion Tamils live in Canada, 200,000 of them in Toronto. I was in the city this week, for a con­fer­ence. On my way home, I walked into a protest by Tamil Cana­dians against the war in Sri Lanka. I have never been to Sri Lanka. I am neither Tamil nor Sin­halese. I do know people who are; people I like very much.

The Lib­er­a­tion Tigers of Tamil Elam are a sep­ar­at­ist rebel group lis­ted by Canada as a ter­ror­ist organ­iz­a­tion. Unfor­tu­nately, they are also the focal point for con­cerned Tamils in Canada. As I walked through the crowd, I could feel their boil­ing rage. These were not young hoo­ligans, the crowd was made of des­per­ate grand­moth­ers, old men, and chil­dren. In the middle, men on mega­phones led a chilling call and response. Tamil Tigers flags were everywhere.

Here is what they called:

“Recog­nize Tamil Elam” (The state they desire)

“Our National leader — Prabhakaran” (Leader of the Tamil Tigers)

“Sin­halese stop using chem­ical weapons”

“Sin­halese stop killing inno­cent Tamils”

“Cease fire”

The unity of the call and response was over­whelm­ing.  Their anger and hurt was palpable.

As I walked through the crowd, I was ter­ri­fied. Not for myself, I was going home. I was scared for my friends. Scared for their fam­il­ies in Sri Lanka. Scared for people who live and belong to Canada, but who’s real and imme­di­ate fears are being ignored.

The world is small. There are no far-away con­flicts any more. I don’t know what the proper response to the con­flict in Sri Lanaka is, but I do know this: there must be an offi­cial response. No Cana­dian, born here but with roots afar, is truly divorced from alle­gi­ances out­side the coun­try. We went to war twice to fight for those alle­gi­ances. Why do we now refuse to acknow­ledge the transna­tional nature of our country?

It is not enough to bury our heads and wish our prob­lems away. It is not enough to pre­tend that the battle isn’t being waged here too. We should remem­ber Air India, and real­ize that a safe and healthy Canada needs to acknow­ledge every­one, white, brown, or oth­er­wise. Refus­ing to listen to the legit­im­ate fears of a sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber Cana­dians is dam­aging to the unity of our coun­try and the prin­ciples of equal­ity and mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism upon which it is built.

The Tamil Tigers is, leg­ally, a ter­ror­ist organ­iz­a­tion. They use abhorent tac­tics. The Sri Lankan gov­erne­ment, how­ever, is no model cit­izen either. There needs to be dia­logue. Canada could be a leader, the leader we used to be. What happened to Pearson’s Canada?  What happened to the coun­try that beleived in talk­ing towards peace?

Sticks and stones, names and words

This game goes by many names - I call it king square

This game goes by many names — I call it King Square

I met Melanie when I was 17. I was work­ing at a photo lab, the night shift. Melanie rode by, looked in the win­dow, and decided that I would make a good date for her friend Reg. I didn’t make a good date for Reg, although he is a swell guy. Last night, Reg and his band played at Zaphod’s in Ott­awa, to some crit­ical acclaim. Tomor­row I’ll be tak­ing the train to Toronto to visit Melanie.

After Melanie moved from Ott­awa to Toronto, we lost touch. A couple of years passed. Then, on a trip back to Ott­awa, she told me she was get­ting mar­ried. I laughed. It was the kind of thing she would have said in jest. I felt embar­rassed, but I was happy for her. I shouldn’t have been sur­prised when she told me she was going to have a baby.  And what a baby!  Tarig is one wacky little kid.

The bike racks are new

The bike racks are new

Hunt­ing­hawk Com­mu­nic­a­tions is owned and run by Melanie. Melanie is an ardent advoc­ate for health through her work with Hunt­ing­hawk, in her com­munity, and as a mother. Melanie’s deep under­stand­ing of health changed my opin­ions about Indi­gen­ous people, and the role that words can play in peoples lives. Melanie sees lan­guage as a key ele­ment of health. She helps gov­ern­ments com­mu­nic­ate with First Nations, Metis, and Inuit people about health. Melanie is inspiring.

If you are inter­ested in Indi­gen­ous health, or the inter­sec­tion of lan­guage and health, check out Melanie’s blog. Melanie is also an avid cyc­list! (although I hear her bike needs repairs)

When I get older

If you get the chance, do it.

I went to Cambridge, the other one

I went to Cam­bridge, the other less fam­ous one

Some­times I for­get where I come from. Nine months ago I moved back to my old neigh­bor­hood. Wed­nes­day of last week I went back to my old grade school.  It felt funny to walk through the same cinder block halls, only a couple feet taller. It felt like com­ing home. I’ve grown a lot since grade six.

I walked into the office and the sec­ret­ar­ies recog­nized me imme­di­ately. Con­sid­er­ing how much time I spent in the office this is not really sur­pris­ing. I got into a lot of fights, and did a lot of things that I am not proud of. I was a prob­lem, we all were.

I got lucky. I was a white kid in a brown neigh­bor­hood, a false minor­ity in a mixed com­munity. I grew up in one of the most Cana­dian neigh­bor­hoods in Canada. How can I pos­sibly make that claim?  The Canada that our par­ents, grand­par­ents, and many of my peers were born into does not exist any­more, at least it won’t for long. The future of Canada is mixed, a lot more mixed than it is today. We need to learn from places like Cam­bridge Street Pub­lic school what this means, and how to adapt.

Don’t believe me?  Richard Florida’s “Ontario in the Cre­at­ive Age” report says that we are in the middle of an full-scale eco­nomic trans­ition, one that will place even greater import­ance on the con­tri­bu­tion of new Cana­dians to our soci­ety. The dynam­ics of immig­ra­tion are reshap­ing our cit­ies, big and small. In their report “Immig­rants and Their Com­muni­tites — Strug­gling to Keep Up”, the Fed­er­a­tion of Cana­dian Muni­cip­al­it­ies describes the increas­ing chal­lenge faced by cit­ies to integ­rate new­comers. Schools like Cam­bridge prove that we are doing a good job. Still, we need to do better.

As a young white man, I am priv­ileged. Nobody ever ques­tions my attach­ment to Canada, my her­it­age, or my cit­izen­ship. I’m not an out­sider. People don’t see me as a prob­lem. Not every­one has this priv­ileged oppor­tun­ity. This is why I star­ted volun­teer­ing. Inequity is why I am inter­ested eco­nom­ics, soci­ology, and pho­to­graphy. What keeps me going back though is the kids. The kids are amazing.

Cam­bridge is an incred­ibly diverse school. In its hall­ways, chil­dren from every regional, cul­tural, and eth­nic group share cubby holes. Let­ters home to par­ents are sent in mul­tiple lan­guages. It is a chal­len­ging place. Many of the stu­dents face bar­ri­ers. Some are far behind because they are new to Eng­lish, or have a dif­fi­cult home life. I was one of those kids. If my grade two teacher had not sent me to remedial read­ing (which was avail­able in the school), my life would be very dif­fer­ent now. Early inter­ven­tion in the lives of kids makes a huge difference.

Eco­nom­ists are start­ing to under­stand this. James Heck­man, from the Uni­ver­sity of Chicago, has done pion­eer­ing stud­ies of early edu­ca­tion. Geof­frey Canada (great name) lives this idea with his Har­lem Children’s zone. Both men believe we need to invest in children.

But what does this have to do with pho­to­graphy? Everything.

At it’s core, pho­to­graphy is the act of see­ing. When you take a pic­ture, you immor­tal­ize the action of see­ing some­thing, whether a per­son, a land­scape, or kit­tens. Pho­to­graphy is based on the very basic rela­tion­ship of say­ing “I see you”. This activ­ity gives you and your sub­ject power.  Really see­ing “the other” is an essen­tial step in under­stand­ing. By legit­im­iz­ing the unseen, pho­to­graphy and act­iv­ism are fun­da­ment­ally linked.

I love work­ing with the kids. I do it because they are awe­some people, and I care about them. I volun­teer because I want to pro­mote the idea that kids, these kids, are import­ant. I believe in kids too. My pas­sion about Cam­bridge informs my pho­to­graphy. This is why it is important.

If you’re going to do some­thing, love it. I care about cross-cultural bridge build­ing and under­stand­ing. I want to use my pho­to­graphy as a teach­ing tool, to show people “the other” and dis­solve barriers.

Pho­to­graphy is a skill, not a job. The photographer’s role is much wider than simply click­ing a shut­ter. Whether you are a doc­u­ment­ary pho­to­grapher or a com­mer­cial shooter, people are the most import­ant part of pho­to­graphy. Under­stand­ing people, talk­ing, and listen­ing is the job. Pho­to­graphy is just the man­u­fac­tur­ing pro­cess, we pro­duce a trans­la­tion of real­ity. I think we should use this power for good.

Do what you love, it will make your pho­to­graphy bet­ter, and make a bet­ter world.

Bonus:

Do your­self a favour, listen right to the end of K’naan in con­cert at SXSW ’09. This per­form­ance includes a spe­cial ver­sion of Wavin’ Flag, one that sent shivers up my spine.

Crunch crunch crunch time

I am constructing it

The Eng­lish work­ing class

Some­how, this turned into a crazy week. My life has been one big long crazy week lately, it feels like. Here goes, in reverse order, what went down:

- Met with two couples for wed­dings this sum­mer (fin­gers crossed, they are all awe­some and would be great to work with).

- A photo shoot at the Brook­street Hotel in Kanata. Lamb tagine and the oppor­tun­ity to shoot video made this one extra-fun.
 – Pitched a photo show for Fest­ival X Ott­awa in the fall. Early stages still, but I am optimistic.

- A photo shoot at the Car­leton Uni­ver­sity Art Gal­lery, which is always inter­est­ing.

- Signed up to play hockey this sum­mer, yay!

Oh, and I went to school some­where in there!  Tomor­row I have an eco­nom­ics present­a­tion on the role of immig­rant artists in Canada, and the situ­ation in Ott­awa in particular.

the view from the day bed

the view from the day bed

It’s hard to keep things in bal­ance, and to be hon­est, a lot of times this year they haven’t been bal­anced. Jug­gling my edu­ca­tion and employ­ment has been the most chal­len­ging. Although some­times it feels like I am doing neither prop­erly, ulti­mately I’ve been doing a pretty alright job. I’ve learned, from being busy, that a big part of bal­ance is set­ting bound­ar­ies and ask­ing for what you need. This applies in pro­fes­sional cir­cum­stances just as well as it does in the rest of life.

Some things slipped a little along the way. My house was a mess (I am lucky to live with an under­stand­ing and ridicu­lously tol­er­ant room-mate). The gro­cery situ­ation was, well, a situ­ation. My bike wheel was stolen, my land­lord is insane, and I put my foot through a board on the porch. Things were start­ing to fall apart, literally.

At the same time, they are com­ing back together. I am late on two papers, but they will be done, and they will be good ones. I am a bet­ter, more con­fid­ent pho­to­grapher . I have ideas. I know that sounds funny, but the exper­i­ence of the last year has gal­van­ized my com­mit­ment to pho­to­graphy, and given me insight into what I care about.

I thought, going back to school, that I would have to even­tu­ally choose one or the other, work or school, pho­to­graphy or soci­ology. They are actu­ally the same thing. I look at pho­to­graphy as soci­ology, and I look at school as research for pho­to­graphy. The chal­lenge isn’t to choose one thing that I love over the other, it’s to integ­rate the two. The chal­lenge is to find a balance.

There goes the neighborhood

My house is at the top of a ridge called Nanny Goat Hill. There is a fire sta­tion on Pre­ston street, below the ridge. This sta­tion serves the down­town, so it’s pretty often that I hear the trucks racing past the house, sirens blar­ing. One set of trucks goes up Somer­set Street, on top of Nanny Goat hill, and one set goes below. I like the sound of the trucks. The sirens are excit­ing and alert­ing, they remind me where I am.

Where I am is Chin­atown, and it has been burn­ing down. It has been burn­ing my whole life, really, but these past couple week were par­tic­u­larly incen­di­ary. A couple weeks ago, I was walk­ing home from class and chanced upon the whole of Fire Sta­tion 11, plus some, arranged in a semi-circle around a smol­der­ing house on my block of Bronson.

My room­mate and I had been feel­ing a little groggy, but we chalked it up to fatigue. Then, one even­ing early last week, the smoke detector went off in the base­ment. The ancient fur­nace had finally given up, and was spew­ing car­bon monox­ide. We spent the night on my father’s floor. The next day, my room­mate and I returned to our cold apart­ment, elec­tric heat­ers in tow. It was chilly, but we settled in with blankets and made the best of it. I crawled into my bed, tucked into the chin, and went to sleep.

Tenants look on as firefighters douse their porch

Ten­ants look on as fire­fight­ers douse their porch

I was awoken by sirens, more real and present than usual. The flash­ing lights radi­ated through my half-drawn blinds, cast­ing altern­at­ing bars of red and blue on the wall above my head. I jumped up, ran to the liv­ing room, and saw the flames lick­ing up the porch across the street. My neigh­bors were pour­ing out past the flames in their paja­mas and under­wear. One guy was in his box­ers. First I grabbed some clothes, and then I grabbed my camera.

There is a run­ning bet around here on which porch is going to col­lapse first. The place is not exactly a slum, but it has cer­tainly seen bet­ter days. It’s not the worst place on the street. One of my neigh­bors calls this “the garbage house”.  The kids like to party, but I didn’t expect it to catch fire. My neigh­bor says it was arson, that someone set fire to the recyc­ling, and that another place had been set alight last week. That is truly scary if it is true.

Thank you, fire fight­ers, for being so fast. It is too bad you can’t stop my neigh­bor­hood from burn­ing down.

Oh, one more thing: the land­lord of the garbage house wants to buy the house next door (to the right) and put up a shiny new condo.

Hustle and Bustle

Some­times I feel like I must be wear­ing some sort of a sign, like a “kick me” on my back, or invis­ible ink on my fore­head that says “gull­ible.” I talk to a lot of strangers, and most of the time I enjoy it. In fact, I am try­ing to make talk­ing to strangers my work. Some­times, how­ever, try­ing to be open and enga­ging puts me in com­prom­ising situations.

I was hanging out in the lobby of my hotel on Christ­mas night, and this young guy comes up to me and says “hey, are you from around here?”  Obvi­ously not, oth­er­wise why would I be in this hotel on Christ­mas?  And then he says “I need some help man.” That’s when I flipped on the recorder. Have a listen to the rest:

We were sit­ting no more than twenty steps from “the Mag­ni­fi­cent Mile.”  The fancy stores had been packed with shop­pers buy­ing hand­bags and gad­gets the night before. The street was all but vacant now. It felt like we were the only two people left in a world that had been deserted.

He made his case. It was a scam, and I knew it from the start, but I bought it anyway.

We set out alone through the empty canyons of steel and glass. Around one corner a drunk was yelling at a cop; “fuck you, I ain’t scared of you or nobody!” The cop yelled back “you bet­ter be scared! Scared I don’t put you in a men­tal asylum!” Merry Christ­mas. We marched on, talk­ing, through Grant Park, past the bean, towards the train sta­tion. It was start­ing to get cold. When we finally reached the sta­tion the train had already left.

“Where’s the hostel?”  I said. He was look­ing like crap, slur­ring his speech, stum­bling here and there. I was start­ing to get wor­ried. As we roun­ded the corner head­ing back down­town, he star­ted to tell me a story:

“Once, when I was a kid, my par­ents took me to Navy Pier (where there is a Fer­ris wheel) for the day. My dad gave me ten bucks, for rides and stuff. There was this guy, sit­ting there, beg­ging. I gave him the money. My dad gave me hell, said I was an idiot, that I wasted his ten bucks. But I didn’t feel bad. I fig­ure that that guy must of really needed it.”

When we got to the hostel he didn’t want to stay. I knew he would have to get rid of me. “There’s an all night diner around the corner,” he said, “the sub­way is in the other dir­ec­tion.” I don’t know why I gave him the money. I said good­bye, and we shook hands.

As I turned the corner, I watched him go back into the hostel and make a phone call. In a moment he was back on the street, cross­ing over in the wrong dir­ec­tion. I fol­lowed as he went in to a corner store, and watched as he bought lot­tery tick­ets and an ice cream cone. When he came out of the store the stag­ger was gone. The slur in his speach had cleared up. Back on the side­walk he said to me “hey, be care­full,” and then he was gone.

What Are You Doing Here?

sparse

sparse

“What are you doing here?” said the pair of eyes behind the counter. Good ques­tion. John and I were going to find my grandmother’s house in Hyde Park, an upscale sub­urban com­munity north of the Uni­ver­sity of Chicago. To get there, we had to walk through Chicago’s notori­ous South Side. What the Viet­namese man in the fast food shop meant was “What are you, two white guys, doing in this hard-up black neigh­bor­hood on Christmas?”

The air was clear, bright, and crisp. The wide sub­urban streets were nearly deser­ted. A half hour passed before we saw any­one; a couple of kids rough­hous­ing on the other side of the street. Walk­ing through the neigh­bor­hood from the 47th St. sub­way sta­tion to my grandmother’s, the whole world seemed quiet and still. Christ­mas was cold in Chicago, but it had been warm the night before and every­one seemed to be stuck in the ice. We stopped to give a push sev­eral times along the way.

It wasn’t a long walk, but imme­di­ately upon enter­ing the neigh­bor­hood it was clear we were in a dif­fer­ent Chicago, and curi­os­ity pulled us off course. It seemed like a ghost town, Christ­mas or not. There were a few churches, run down corner shops, and plenty of vacant lots.  Some of the cars obvi­ously hadn’t been moved in some time. There was also plenty of fresh ply­wood on every street, some­times whole rows at once. Many of the big, beau­ti­ful, turn-of-the-century houses were boarded up. One new build­ing was aban­doned half fin­ished. This was the sub-prime mort­gage crisis in action.

We walked for a long time, weav­ing through the side streets until we got cold and hungry. Finaly we came upon the Viet­namese place. “Hot tea?” John asked. “No,” the woman replied “ice tea only” and then con­tin­ued to drink the steam­ing bever­age in her hands. We settled for pop and spring rolls (the unfried Viet­namese variety).

We sat in what could really only be described as the wait­ing room, which had four tables, a tele­vi­sion blar­ing the bas­ket­ball game, and hand-lettered poster on green bris­tol board advert­ising spe­cial hol­i­day cater­ing. The late after­noon sun was stream­ing through the bars over the win­dows, and I was finally start­ing to warm up. I felt good, that con­nec­ted and present feel­ing of inter­act­ing with a new and inter­est­ing place. Then the woman’s hus­band pushed the spring rolls onto the counter and delivered his ques­tion. It wasn’t insult­ing, just mat­ter of fact, unvar­nished, and amp­li­fied by his deliv­ery in halt­ing English.

Until that moment I hadn’t felt unsafe. In fact, every­one we had met was friendly and kind, open even. One man even entrus­ted us with the keys to his car while he went around the corner to get his truck so he could pull his car out of the ice. I’d been to scary places before, down­right dan­ger­ous places too, but I’d never been in a segreg­ated neigh­bor­hood. Until that moment, I hadn’t really under­stood that segreg­a­tion meant that this was a place where there really were no people like me.

I plan on going back again. This trip is over, but it won’t be the last time I come to Chicago.

The spring rolls were delicious.

Hello Chicago

Between terminals at O'Hare

Between ter­min­als at O’Hare

For the second year run­ning, I’m out of the coun­try for Christ­mas. Last year I was in Paris, eat­ing really good Indian food, chocol­ate, and macar­ons. It was the first time I’d skipped the fest­iv­it­ies, and I really enjoyed it. Although it was a bit weird to phone home and hear my fam­ily hav­ing Christ­mas din­ner without me, the com­plete un-craziness of hanging out in the empty city more than made up for it. While every­one else was stressed out about presents and cook­ing, I was free to explore unfettered.

Teenagers at the Cheesecake Factory

Teen­agers at the Cheese­cake Factory.

This time I’m in Chicago, and I’ve con­vinced my father to come. He runs a pub, and works almost every day. I’ve been work­ing on get­ting him to go on a vaca­tion for a long time. The last time we went on vaca­tion together was, well, a long time ago. He always says that all he is going to do is sleep. I never beleive it; he’s actu­ally a pretty ener­getic guy, and besides a pen­chant for nap­ping, he’s restless.

My father’s par­ents met in Chicago. My grand­mother is from Wis­con­sin, and was a singer here when she met my grand­father, a PhD. stu­dent. My mis­sion, on Christ­mas, is to visit all their old haunts. One of my favor­ite things about trav­el­ing is get­ting lost, in a dir­ec­ted sort of way. I’m look­ing for­ward to explor­ing the places where my grand­par­ents were young in a youth­ful city.

Everyone loves The Bean!

Every­one loves The Bean!

I feel con­flic­ted about the United States. Its a place that’s easy to love. Everything is BIG here. Amer­icas don’t really do nuance.  We passed a McDon­alds today that took up a whole city block. Like the other Amer­ican cit­ies that I’ve vis­ited, Chicago has an air of vibrancy and pos­sib­il­ity to it, even in the most dif­fi­cult viol­ent and impov­er­ished places. The unabashed enthu­si­asm of people here is enthralling. It’s infect­ive. They don’t apo­lo­gize for any­thing. People here really believe that is is the best place in the world to live. They’re Amer­ican, and they like it that way.

It is also a ter­ri­fy­ing place. The oppres­sion and exploit­a­tion of minor­it­ies, even in sup­posedly enlightened states like Illinois (they have a Free­dom Museum on the main strip) really leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Although Chicago and Toronto are of roughly the same age, size, and regional import­ance there is not the same amaz­ing mul­ti­cul­tural mix­ture here. My grand­mother tells stor­ies about grow­ing up Ger­man in Wis­con­sin, where every­one had to learn Eng­lish, regard­less of being Pol­ish, or Ukrain­ian, or Aus­trian. You checked your alle­gi­ances at the door. She can still speak Ger­man. I can’t. I think that the beauty of the United States is in its new­ness. It’s too bad the price is hav­ing to give up your past.

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