Our paper analyzes the experiences of Persian Bahá’ís who arrived more than twenty years ago and stayed in New Brunswick. We conducted seven interviews involving ten people. This paper presents a widely ignored aspect of immigrant life: namely, the creativity that immigrants use to overcome local residents’ hesitancy in reaching out to them in friendship. This paper further analyzes two aspects of these immigrants’ arrival that account for their success. First, the receiving Bahá’í communities integrated them immediately into the social and administrative affairs of their communities. Second, the immigrants’ recent spiritual connection to the birth place of the Bahá’í faith became the means of Canadian Bahá’ís to welcome their brothers and sisters from Iran.
L’article analyse l’expérience qu’ont connu les Persans Bahá’is qui se sont installés ici, au Nouveau-Brunswick, il y a plus de vingt ans et qui y sont restés. Nous avons mené sept entrevues avec dix personnes. L’article présente une facette souvent méconnue de la vie des immigrants : notamment la créativité dont ils doivent faire preuve afin de vaincre les hésitations des résidents de la région pour se lier d’amitié avec eux. De plus, cet article analyse deux aspects de l’arrivée de ces immigrants qui favorisent leur réussite. D’abord, les communautés d’accueil bahá’í ont intégré immédiatement les immigrés dans les affaires sociales et administratives de leur communauté. Ensuite, les liens spirituels récents des immigrants envers leur pays natal ont contribué à ce que les Bahá’í Canadiens accueillent leurs frères et sœurs de l’Iran.
1 With few exceptions, recent research about immigrants probes the way that the receiving society can help newcomers to Canada, the Atlantic region, and New Brunswick. Governments and others see themselves as service providers (Cottrel), whether in terms of encouraging the provision of credit history (Connellan), providing services to children (Quaicoe, “Canadian Heritage. . .”), education (Quaicoe “Role of Education. . .”), and networks (Weerasinghe). Increasingly, however, one also finds discussions about creating “welcoming communities” (Flint; O’Hara) as an integral part of retaining immigrants, and thus scholars and policy makers are paying attention to the community-personal, subjective components of the immigrant experience. Our own research points to the crucial need for the members of the receiving society to make a personal effort to welcome newcomers. 1
2 Taken as a whole, research has identified the many crucial elements that make up the web of life of the newcomers: on the one hand, the receiving society has become painfully aware of the tribulations of the newcomers’ daily life, family, and work; on the other hand, research sets out policies, services, and strategies to alleviate these difficulties. The index in Lisa Gilad’s ethnography on immigrants to Newfoundland (1990), for example, reads like a catalogue of seemingly unbearable hurdles that newcomers inevitably face: unsuccessful adjustments, isolation, unemployment, lack of sense of belonging, facing “come-from-away” attitudes, invisibility, discrimination, mental illness, and linguistic frustration.
3 Our paper, however, addresses one crucial element that is missing from the research, namely, the creative means newcomers use to draw themselves closer to members of the receiving society. Our study of the Persian Bahá’ís in New Brunswick and elsewhere in Atlantic Canada can serve as a model by which newcomers resort to creative, imaginative, and innovative ways to befriend members of the receiving community and, as a consequence, find ways to contribute to the receiving society. We must point out, however, that the presence of the Bahá’í community in Canada is quite unlike that of other religious communities. It is not an immigrant religious community (such as the Sikh community) and is not a diasporic community. Its boundaries are porous as it intersects (individually and collectively) and engages with the wider society. Its diversity prevents observers from easily identifying it with a particular ethnic, cultural, or occupational group. It has a high rate of civic participation, including the exercise of voting in municipal, provincial, and federal elections, despite its being apolitical. 2 Yet, it has a distinctive history, teachings, administration, and practices that give the Bahá’í community its form and purpose.
4 Because our research delves into the subjective realities of a community, our research takes on a symbolic-interactionist perspective, a deeply rooted approach in sociology (Fine 73). This approach entails the view that human beings construct their realities through social interaction. While humans enter interactions with preconceived meanings, those meanings change through social interaction, laying the groundwork for future interactions. Meanings are therefore not static but dynamic. Humans are active agents in constructing, maintaining, and revising meanings. As researchers in this tradition, we attribute importance to what people think, say, and do. In the context of research on newcomers, it is important to consider the interactional components between the newcomers and the members of the receiving society. It is insufficient merely to study the “needs” of newcomers (or the “needs” of the receiving society, for that matter). If we are truly to grasp the situation of newcomers, we must consider their interactions with the larger receiving society. Only when we consider these social dynamics do we get a fuller picture.
5 The original material from which data for this study was extracted comes from an ongoing, in-depth interview study with Persian Bahá’í newcomers 3 who have lived in New Brunswick (and Prince Edward Island) for at least ten years, and, in most cases, twenty. We conducted seven interviews involving ten people. Three couples generated three interviews because we sat down together with each couple whom we interviewed; one couple generated two interviews because we interviewed the wife and the husband separately, and finally, a woman and a man unrelated to each other resulted in two interviews.
6 The approximately fifty Persian Bahá’ís in New Brunswick provide a unique situation because, although they did not have an in-place ethnic group in which to embed themselves, they were greeted by an eager local community of co-religionists made up of Canadians. Gilad’s ethnography of refugees from a variety of ethnic backgrounds who settled in Newfoundland describes the integration of Iranian Bahá’ís into the community as “somewhat astounding.” She notes that they, “quickly prove an asset to the [Bahá’í] community” (238). We now provide a brief overview of the Bahá’í faith to lay a foundation for understanding the unique attributes of the Bahá’í community that facilitates the integration of the newcomers.
7 The Bahá’í faith originated in Persia (now Iran) in 1844. Its founders are the Báb (1819-1850) and Bahá’u’lláh (1817-1892). They proclaimed a new religion that included the need to promote gender equality, a universal language, racial amity, and education amongst others. The Ministry of the Báb lasted four years and ended with his execution in 1850. Bahá’u’lláh was exiled and imprisoned. Bahá’ís assert the common foundation of all revealed religions and that there is one God. 4
8 From its inception in 1844, Persian authorities and clergy persecuted the Bahá’ís, sometimes in a horrific manner. After the revolution in 1979, the persecution intensified again, including widespread arrests and the execution of more than 200 Bahá’ís. The authorities now regularly circumscribe the life of Bahá’ís, whether old or young. It is a persecution that includes the bullying of children in and out of school, the suspension of employment and pensions, and the destruction of Bahá’í properties, including holy places, cemeteries, and homes. A number of Bahá’ís are now imprisoned without formal charges, falsely accused of crimes punishable by death. They have been deprived of access to their lawyer, Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi. The European Union, the United Nations, and numerous governments, including Canada, have taken note of the innocence of Bahá’ís. 5 Although not part of the narrative of the Persian Bahá’ís in this paper, we readily see the importance of the persecutions in the stories told to us by every Bahá’í in our research. These stories relativize the difficulties and hardships experienced by the “refugees” as they settle into Canadian culture. Persia as the birthplace of the Bahá’í faith holds a unique place in the heart of Bahá’ís around the world, including Canada. The current waves of persecution, while wrenching, have created a surge of affection among Bahá’ís outside Iran for the Persian Bahá’í refugees.
9 In Canada, the Bahá’í community numbers over 33,000 members. The Government of Canada was the first government to welcome Bahá’í refugees in response to severe persecution following the Islamic revolution in 1979. In the early 1980s, many Iranian Bahá’ís 6 came to Canada through a program cooperatively set up by the Government of Canada and the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Canada. By the summer of 1984, over 1,000 Persian Bahá’ís (“refugees”) had been resettled in 150 localities across Canada (National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Canada, 1999). The Persian Bahá’í newcomers have a different experience from other immigrants for two reasons. First, the welcoming nature of the New Brunswick Bahá’í community to these newcomers originates in the excitement of knowing that the newcomers come from the historical and spiritual cradle of their faith. Second, having lived under conditions in Iran that only allowed the existence of the Bahá’í community at a highly circumscribed level (to the point of official strategies to eradicate it), let alone not permitting the Bahá’ís to disseminate the Bahá’í teachings, the Persian Bahá’í newcomers have seized newfound opportunities to reach out to the larger community, especially by acts of service.
10 In an effort to allow Persian Bahá’ís to contribute to the life of the Bahá’í community in the Atlantic provinces, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Canada encouraged their dispersal in that region. A relatively small number of 200 Persian Bahá’ís have come to live in the region since 1984. We estimate that one-third to one-half have left the region since their arrival. Today, in New Brunswick, one finds these Persian Bahá’ís in more than a half-dozen towns. While some came directly from Iran, many more came from Pakistan, Malaysia, Oman, India, Morocco, and other countries to which they had escaped from Iran or where they were unable to secure their Iranian passport. Occasionally, when friendships with Persian Bahá’ís become deeper, one will hear of horrifying accounts of deprivation and torture. Unable to visit family in Iran, the Persian Bahá’ís feel a particular grief in that area of life. Their creative ways to engage the wider receiving society—the focus of this paper—become a particular testament to their ability to overcome challenges.
11 There are at least two significant aspects of their arrival in New Brunswick. First, the receiving Bahá’í communities accepted them completely and integrated them immediately into the social and administrative affairs of existing communities. Lisa Gilad made this independent observation of the similar phenomenon regarding the Bahá’ís in Newfoundland:
12 The experience in New Brunswick echoes that of Newfoundland.
13 Second, the spiritual significance of this dispersal is not lost on these Bahá’í communities; it became the means of these communities to welcome their brothers and sisters from Iran, which is the birthplace of the Bahá’í faith. In this regard, a Bahá’í from a small town offered this sentiment:
14 Another Bahá’í from Nova Scotia, Sandra Phinney (33), feels “a tremendous sense of honour in having [mentions names of Persian newcomers] living in our midst.” Moreover, she writes
15 There are a handful of studies about the experiences of Persian Bahá’ís in Canada. In Vancouver, Bahá’ís “presented moral cosmopolitanism as a constitutive component of belonging to a world community. . .a concept that embodies the notions of unity, diversity and the oneness of humanity, central teachings of the Bahá’í faith” (Swanton 32-3). From the same general geographic area, we find Parin Dossa’s study 7 using narrative accounts of Canadian Iranian women’s experiences of displacement and resettlement. One of the accounts pertains to an older Bahá’í woman (“Sahra”). One cannot remain unmoved by Sahra’s exceptional account of her and her family’s suffering in Iran and that “Canada does not have space for her in her old age” (Dossa 131).
16 Gilad offers us one of the most detailed ethnographies about refugees. Her work focusses on Newfoundland and portrays Bahá’ís alongside other newcomers. Her findings are highly relevant for our own research:
17 These studies indicate that their adjustment and integration has, in the main, proceeded more successfully than that of other Iranians, such as those in Los Angeles (Bozorgmehr) and Australia (Feather et al.). 8
18 The creative means by which the Persian Bahá’ís negotiated their new environment in Canada betrays a backdrop of challenges and problems that, in the early instances of their lives in New Brunswick, can be seen as overwhelmingly negative. The newcomers noted that the broader community demonstrated prejudice, fear of people who are “dark,” and an unwillingness to include newcomers in their social lives. “It was really hard to get a job,” says one, “and everybody was fearful: ‘Is this guy a good guy to work for me and is he going to be able to talk in a [way] that I can understand? Is he going to drive my customers away?’” The unwillingness of employers to hire people who looked and sounded different was palpable:
19 One of the most consistent early experiences was the challenge of being hired. Finding work was not a problem, but being hired was. “Do you have Canadian experience?” was the question that each newcomer had to face. Several newcomers reported that they were asked if they had Canadian experience even when they applied for menial jobs as a dishwasher. One informed his potential employer that people in Iran use dishes as well. He was hired.
20 Former training and experience do not seem to matter too much, as the following account of a wheel-balancer and mechanic in his former country illustrates:
21 Getting a job was hard enough, but promotions and recognition were even harder to achieve. One woman reported being passed over repeatedly for promotion to manager of her store even though she was the top salesperson. Another Bahá’í, who had risen to the position of director of a local federal government department, recounted the experience of being ignored by someone who had come from Ottawa to interview her as director about her work but could not seem to grasp the fact that it was the immigrant who was director. The official proceeded to talk only to the director’s assistant. In the words of the newcomer (and director): “I was just the third person, just simply watching and I couldn't say anything. What could I say?. . .As far as I do my job and the government is happy, I’m happy.”
22 Against this backdrop of early negative experiences, it is useful to trace the chronological path of employment of three Bahá’ís–a woman and two men. It is apparent that other Persian Bahá’ís follow a similar path in employment, moving from labour requiring hardly any skills to a position with considerable responsibility:
23 It is possible that some challenges in being hired were related to inadequate mastery of English, but we have found that a number of immigrants were disqualified from being provided ESL classes because their English was “too good.” One believed that the minimal level of competence in English that made her ineligible for classes has resulted in lack of advancement in her occupational and educational opportunities. Other newcomers found that ESL classes were far too basic given their level of English. One newcomer developed his English vocabulary (when studying Canadian tax law) with a dictionary on his lap. Our findings provide evidence that agencies should have English classes in place for those who have more than a basic knowledge of the language, thus allowing immigrants to develop successful and meaningful careers. 9
24 Within the symbolic interactionist framework, it is helpful to “listen” carefully to the data and, once we find out what questions the data answer, to develop concepts grounded in those data (Becker). In relation to the creative approaches inherent in the way Persian Bahá’ís construct their reality as newcomers who wish to draw closer to members of the receiving society, we find these concepts: individualizing the problem, disavowing blame, taking preventative action, taking the creative route, and being of service. Our paper offers some empirical illustrations in support of these emerging concepts. On an empirical level, this paper dignifies newcomers who, despite their vulnerable situation (and against all odds in New Brunswick), have not only managed to remain in the region but have also found ways to negotiate a path through potentially problematic situations.
25 The Persian Bahá’ís dealt with prejudice in several ways. One Persian Bahá’í believed that one should never take the prejudice personally: “You know, it's very obvious, it's very obvious. . . .I don't [take it] personally. . .even after 100 years. . .I am immigrant. You know, I have to accept that.” The same person reflected on the downside of accepting racism, particularly that it leaves no room for personal improvement:
26 While some found it helpful not to take the prejudice or discrimination personally, others adopted the idea that these acts were reflections of a few individuals, not the community as a whole: “You find odd people that they are prejudiced, but you cannot really say that [about] the entire city or entire town.” An exchange between a wife and a husband reveals a similar understanding about not taking prejudice personally or at least that prejudice is an expression of “stupid things” and of a small minority in the population:
27 The ability to disavow blame is a key ingredient in fostering positive interpersonal relations, a much-needed ingredient in any climate suffused with prejudice and discrimination. One newcomer neutralized his feelings and explained that, given the circumstances in the world, no one should be blamed for being afraid of strangers, especially those with dark skin, and opined that fear results from ignorance.
28 Naturally, the immigrants are particularly worried about the impact of this fear on their children. A second-grader came to his mother after school and asked, “How come, Mom, I’m not pink?” The mother told us the story as follows:
29 Rather than blaming the school or her son’s friends, the mother was inspired to take the blame away and, instead, present a light-hearted comment that put the matter away without too much attention.
30 It is not only skin colour that sets the Persian Bahá’ís apart from the receiving society. Hospitality is a much-valued aspect of Persian culture. The issue of hospitality has become a major point of discussion and debate among the Persian newcomers. Its importance is probably ranked as high as being hired. A Persian Bahá’í tactfully described New Brunswickers as “a very reserved community.” Another Persian simply talks about the fact that New Brunswick culture is “different.” Persian culture requires one to be hospitable, and the newcomer analyzed, and later disavowed, the experience of not being invited into people’s homes as simply a difference between cultures:
31 The contrast between the openness of the Persian Bahá’ís and the reserve of other New Brunswickers is striking:
32 For another, the Persian Bahá’ís clearly proclaim that prejudice does not belong to the entire town; in any case, it is never as bad as in Iran, where fanaticism against Bahá’ís is rampant:
33 The interviews are remarkable for the lack of anger or even disappointment among the Persian Bahá’ís. One Bahá’í thought that the relentless persecution of the Bahá’ís in Iran had somehow made the prejudice experienced in Canada a rather mild matter, resulting from a lack of education:
34 Thus, the prejudice experienced in New Brunswick can never be as intense as in Iran, which is a different world. If any blame is to be assigned to the presence of prejudice in New Brunswick, it is to ignorance, and to not being “educated.”
35 Having become acquainted with the receiving culture, the Persian Bahá’ís were now able to take preventative measures to address the prejudice they experienced. It is striking that they took responsibility for the way others reacted to them. Take the example of a professional’s decision not to carry his instrument case on a city bus:
36 In addition to being more friendly than usual, he decided to go empty-handed when he took the bus to work from then on.
37 Preventative action can appear in the most unlikely guises. One couple became reluctant to invite their neighbours into their home: the Persian Bahá’í couple became afraid that their offers of hospitality might be rejected:
38 Not inviting one’s neighbour to the house was not about fearing neighbours but about the fear of being rejected by neighbours. The Persian Bahá’ís traced this fear to a time when they were invited to a wedding but found themselves “lonely”
39 A number of researchers have noted that women’s relationships with other women are often the means through which breakthroughs from social isolation occur (Dobrowolsky and Tastsoglou). Reaching out to other women inside the Bahá’í community was never an issue. The Persian Bahá’í women may appear to be no different to their finding except that they exemplify considerably greater efforts in reaching out to others outside the Bahá’í community, as the following accounts illustrate. Deprived of any opportunity in Iran to attract others to the Bahá’í community, the Persian newcomers avail themselves of the freedom of religion to acquaint others with the Bahá’í teachings, however indirectly and discreetly. Although the following is an example from a neighbouring province, it typifies both the suspicions of the receiving society and the great length that some newcomers go to alleviate those suspicions. A Persian Bahá’í woman had heard from a third person that her neighbour believed that “you have a rifle in your basement.” She decided to take the creative route. She invited her neighbour to visit and gave her a tour of the whole house, including, “coincidentally,” her basement. She commented that “now they are very, very friendly.”
40 It is not uncommon for other creative strategies can be used. The same woman said:
41 For others, the creative approach involves the development of palpable trustworthiness and honesty. In the words of one immigrant:
42 There are also some truly daring ways that demonstrate the creative manner by which some Persian Bahá’ís involve themselves in the life of the receiving society. For example, one Persian Bahá’í reprimanded a co-worker for his many anti-First Nations rants. What was interesting is that it involved a co-worker who did not talk to him for sixteen years. The Persian Bahá’í, however, did take the initiative, but in the form of a reprimand:
43 That was the last time that the person uttered such invectives in the presence of this Persian Bahá’í.
44 When considering opportunities to render service in New Brunswick, it is striking that so many acts of service take place in the home. One couple organized a goodbye party in their home for a friend of a neighbour who was leaving for Ontario. In another instance, in the same home, the following transpired (in response to the large number of Bahá’í meetings in a home):
45 In other instances, a newly arrived Persian family decided to cook for their Canadian hosts while staying in their home. In another family, a son’s Grade 3 teacher was invited over; there was a lot of excited discussion about culture. When New Brunswickers respond to such invitations, a great deal of excitement ensues. 11
46 We see our article as a contribution to understanding some of the strategies that immigrants use to draw closer to the receiving society, a subject matter that has received scant attention in the scholarly literature. Those immigrant strategies gain particular significance when, on the one hand, one considers that the Persian Bahá’ís from Iran already experienced hardships at the hands of fanatical elements in Iran and when, on the other hand, they (not unlike other visible minorities) initially faced significant barriers in terms of the reserved atmosphere of the receiving society. Many faced the infamous “Canadian experience” question even for jobs as menial as dishwasher, not to mention advancing in meaningful careers.
47 The contrast between the welcome the Bahá’í refugees received from local Bahá’ís and the wider community is striking. The warmth of the local Bahá’ís greeting sheds a spotlight on the social distance that the refugees experienced in the wider community. Most non-European immigrants do not, in any case, have a significant community in the Maritimes to which they automatically belong—ethnic or otherwise. Thus, they are unlikely to remain in a region of the country where the local residents are unable or unwilling to integrate them into the mainstream of daily life. It is also likely that New Brunswickers are often unaware of this problem. We often hear that we need more programs for newcomers to help them adapt to the way of life in Canada. The findings from our exploratory study indicate the relevance of ongoing hospitality—beyond superficial cordiality—as one of the principal determinants that encourage immigrants to remain in the region. Our continuing study will provide examples of such hospitality both in its presence and absence.
48 Persian Bahá’ís are already taking the initiative in reaching out to the receiving society, well beyond the confines of the Bahá’í community itself. These initiatives involve not only depersonalizing acts of discrimination but also individualizing the problem, concluding that only a few people engage in discrimination, not the whole population. The Persian Bahá’ís also disavow any blame on the part of the receiving society: the fear of strangers (especially with darker skin) is understandable, the situation in Iran is far worse, and the lack of hospitality is merely seen as part of a “different culture.” The Bahá’ís have also undertaken preventative action so as not to provoke fear among members of the receiving society. Moreover, among the more creative approaches, the Persian Bahá’ís have gone out of their way to open up their homes to their neighbours so that others can see that their homes have no weapons. Engaging in anti-racist speech is another way that some Bahá’ís have demonstrated a channel to the wider society, albeit quite a risky one. The slow process of demonstrating trustworthiness and honesty to one’s neighbours and clients has demonstrable effects in drawing members of the receiving society closer to the newcomers. Finally, rendering work or actions in the spirit of service enabled others to see the value of allowing newcomers to stay in New Brunswick.
49 The question as to what leads members of a receiving society to be fearful of newcomers is beyond the scope of this paper but should be judiciously investigated. Is it a matter of fear of an unfamiliar religion? Does such a fear have too high a cost when it comes to not being able to retain immigrants? In New Brunswick, where so much social life is church related, being a member of a minority religion exacerbates the challenge.
50 Nonetheless, our participants have all managed to develop meaningful careers through persistence and creativity. The accounts of a broader spectrum of successful immigrants have the potential to provide the basis for policies that would enable more immigrants to find occupational and career success in New Brunswick and other parts of Atlantic Canada. This aspect of the research addresses one of the most, if not the most, challenging aspects of immigrants’ efforts not to relocate to larger centres.
51 One of the most important, yet unrecognized, components of retaining immigrants is the willingness of local people to become friends with immigrants. Although the participants in our pilot project found people “friendly,” particularly when one compares their actions to those who actively persecuted the Bahá’ís based on their religion in Iran, they reported that they initially had difficulty making friends outside the Bahá’í community. Our informal discussions with those in the mainstream community indicate that this situation is invisible to them.
52 It is clear that Atlantic Canadians in general and New Brunswickers in particular will need to find a way more authentically, warmly, and helpfully to welcome non-European immigrants, both to avoid a secondary migration from the region by these immigrants and to avoid their social isolation if they do stay. Persian Bahá’ís, according to the data in this paper, have demonstrated a willingness and a creativity to reach out to the receiving community. While governmental and non-governmental agencies have a crucial role to play in the lives of newcomers, there are some areas where citizens themselves need to be called upon to exercise what is in their power. Is it not time for members of the receiving society to reciprocate those stretching hearts and minds?
Will van den Hoonaard, Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology, University of New Brunswick, has authored and edited seven volumes on a wide variety of topics: the Dutch in New Brunswick, a fishing village in Iceland, a history of the Bahá’í Community of Canada, ethics, the equality of women and men in the Canadian Bahá’í community, qualitative methods, and the research-ethics review process.
Deborah K. van den Hoonaard is Canada Research Chair in Qualitative Research and Analysis and Professor of Gerontology at St. Thomas University. Her research and professional interests focus on the experiences of older people and aging. She authored several books: The Widowed Self: The Older Woman’s Journey through Widowhood (2001), The Equality of Women and Men: The Experience of the Bahá’í Community of Canada (2006, with W. C. van den Hoonaard), and By Himself: The Older Man’s Experience of Widowhood (2010).