Arrival in Canada through the eyes of immigrants
Arrival in Canada through the eyes of immigrants
By Ysh Cabana
The Philippine Reporter
Born in California, raised in Brunei and came to Vancouver, Canada at age six, Joella Cabalu’s story typifies how rich and layered immigration experiences can be.
“Migration journey is complex and nuanced,” says Cabalu. “That there is a tension between feeling grateful and excited to arrive in Canada but also a sense of loneliness and bittersweetness of being apart from loved ones.”
Through film, she has started to reclaim her Filipino roots. Among her documentaries, her previous films include ‘StandStill’, ‘FIXED!’ and ‘It Runs in the Family’ which garnered awards in the U.S. and Canada. Through photography, she hopes to capture the first impression of moving to Canada—at the most basic level.
As part of the First Photo Here project, the Vancouver-based filmmaker is teaming up with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) to create a collection of the first photos that newcomers to Canada sent to their friends and members of their families who stayed behind.
Nation of immigrants
The 2016 census counted 7,540,830 people born abroad who came to Canada through the immigration process. More than one in five (21.9%) people in Canada were born abroad, a proportion close to that of 22.3% observed in the 1921 census, the highest level since that Canada became a country in 1867.
The increase in the proportion of immigrants in the Canadian population is explained by the large number of immigrants admitted each year, by a progressive increase in the number of deaths and by relatively low fertility levels in Canada.
According to Statistics Canada’s population projections, the proportion of the Canadian population born abroad could reach between 24.5% and 30% in 2036.
“Immigration routinely figures in conversations around Canadian identity, but it’s often presented in terms of statistics,” producer Nicholas Klassen says. “What’s great about this project is how it humanizes the subject and how readily people ‘get’ it.”
For her part, director Joella Cabalu wishes to highlight the multitude of experiences, emotions and situations of newcomers.
Power of photos
Cabalu was first approached by NFB about the project a year and a half ago. At the time, she was developing documentary projects on first- and second-generation immigrant experiences and reading memoirs and novels by Canadian authors about their own upbringings as the children of immigrants.
“With the hugely popular project Humans of New York as an inspiration, I understood the power of photographs and the first-person narrative to transmit stories. But they also act as a time machine, conveying the immediate feelings of the moment, and reflecting on time passed since then,” Cabalu says. “I was attracted to the broad appeal and accessibility of First Photo Here—that participants and people viewing the project needn’t be Artists with a capital A to submit a photograph or understand the collection of stories.”
The photos and stories capture a vast range of first impressions in their new surroundings. Given that the respective stories consisted of one photograph and a corresponding caption, the decision to showcase them on Instagram—arguably the most popular image-sharing site on the planet—was an obvious one.
“On a personal level, I’ve come to better appreciate the immense courage of newcomers to relocate to a new country and culture. And I hope that others who view the project will walk away with a deeper empathy as well.”
Contribute your ‘First Photo Here’
If you or people you know in Canada have still those previous first images captured upon arrival, you can submit them to nfb.ca/interactive/first_photo_here or via email firstphotohere@nfb.ca, along with a 50–100-word caption.
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Joella is a Filipino-Canadian documentary filmmaker based in Vancouver. Her award-winning film It Runs in the Family (2015) was her first mid-length documentary as a producer and director. She is a collaborative producer whose work includes: FIXED! (2016), Do I Have Boobs Now? (2017), Biker Bob’s Posthumous Adventure (2019), and On Falling (2019). Currently, she is producing her first feature documentary Back Home (Telefilm Talent to Watch, 2019).
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