Less than 10 years ago respected social trend monitor and author Doug Elliott stood in front of about 30 people in Estevan and told them that their possibilities of attracting a goodly number of immigrants to this community were limited.
Quite frankly, he said, we had a reputation as being Saskatchewan's red-neck capital and that tag had spread throughout the employment procurement communities. We were flagged in the regional, national and international skill procurement circles as being not so welcoming when it came to accepting or hiring others who might struggle with the English language (not that we spoke it with any great degree of skill ourselves). We weren't about to do campfire sing-alongs with those who might have different religious, cultural or social upbringings.
Ours was a world where, unless you could swear easily, wear boots with hard toes, baseball caps (backwards), spit at least six feet and drive a huge three-quarter ton truck with lifters and four inches of mud on it you just didn't belong. "Don't go bringing no new ideas into our town," we said, we liked it just the way it was.
Well, look at us now.
We may not have swept away that dreadful red-neck image completely, but we certainly took a big step forward on the weekend thanks to the Collage Cultural Festival.
But first, let us pay tribute to those who have been working more quietly and effectively in the background for the past half dozen years, making Estevan and immediate area a little warmer and a little more comfortable and a little more understanding and educated about other people from other lands who have shown a willingness to come here to help us out. They, and the new arrivals, had to show a certain measure of bravery.
Only Canadians who have spent more than a year living and working in a foreign land, dealing with a foreign language and cultural twists and turns, can appreciate what our newcomers have to contend with once they make the decision to come and join us. The fact that we had a reputation as being not so warm was certainly working against us, said Elliott and others.
This week we'd like to suggest quite boldly that we've changed.
Certainly we still have the narrow minded among us. They'll always be there, unwilling to budge from their entrenched and poorly educated opinions. They are best ignored while the rest of us move on to the next phase, the next adventure.
Collage taught us clearly that our newest citizens from foreign lands are more than willing to reach out, share experiences, give us a taste of their culture, if we ask for it, and help us attain some of our goals. Let's not force them into tiny cultural ghettos. That's not the Canadian or Saskatchewan way.
We've been given a clear path toward learning, living and embracing one another. Let's take that path. Let's pick it up where Collage has left it and move forward in a spirit of acceptance and diversity.
We need to understand one another and get along if we're going to succeed.
Collage couldn't do that for us, but we were shown how it can be done and that should be good enough to boost us to that next level of assimilation and acceptance.
A little reaching out, a smile, an invitation of inclusion and friendly curiosity can go a long way.
