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I dare say that immigration is like being a baby, only that this time you have the mental baggage of your former life to deal with as you grow into the new one.

On February 4th, 2021, I landed in Toronto as a 30-something-year-old man with an MBA, a decade of work experience, and a clear sense of who I was. Within weeks, I was learning how to do everything from scratch. Five years later, I'm still learning.

However, in that time, I’ve also worked with some amazing humans, made some great friends, tried dozens of cuisines, started a podcast where I’ve interviewed over 100 immigrants about their journeys, and become a Canadian citizen. I have also owed the CRA, undergone my first-ever surgery, lost my Dad, and buried a close friend via livestream. 

None of the good things would have happened if I’d waited until I was ready.

So…

When our Ethiopian Airlines flight landed in Toronto, we still weren’t sure the border officials would let us through. COVID was still the main character in every conversation at that time. 

The Canadian government and the country’s major airlines reached an agreement to suspend all flights to Mexico and the Caribbean to curb the spread of the virus and its variants. Someone said they were targeting the “Spring Break” travel season. Stranger Things to me at that time. There were also rumors of enforced hotel quarantines and we didn’t have the money for that. 

But we boarded the plane anyway. 

There’s a popular piece of advice every immigrant gets within their first year or two, which is, make sure you make friends or connections outside your community as soon as possible. I think it comes from a good place. Plus it’s good advice. However, there’s a caveat. 

When you move to a new country, you leave all the social capital you’ve come to take for granted behind. Rebuilding that takes years. So maybe the advice should be:

Find your people first. They are the ones who understand your context, who get your jokes without the need to explain. They are the ones who can see you for who you are and who you are trying to become. 

Then, once you’re grounded, stretch your hands out and start to feel your bright new world. Make friends and acquaintances from different cultures. Learn how they see the world. Settling into a new country can be mentally exhausting. Don’t make it worse.

That you all speak the same language doesn’t mean you all speak the same language. “Come to my house” in Nigeria is a genuine invitation. “Stop by my place someday” in Canada is often polite small talk. Please don’t show up. 

“I’ll call you later” means different things depending on who’s saying it to you. One lesson I’ve learned from many of my podcast guests is to ask “what do you mean” whenever I can. A genuine, curious question that, in my experience, most times gets answered. Because the gap between what someone says and what they mean is where most cross-cultural conflict lives. 

The last time I saw my Dad was March 2020. I still remember walking him to the foot of the plane before he boarded. He passed away suddenly in July, 2023. By the time I woke up, he had been buried. So when I flew to Nigeria for the funeral ceremony, all I had was a grave, freshly tilled for the funeral ceremony. 

Immigration puts oceans and deserts and continents between you and your loved ones. And when they get sick or pass away, you can’t just drive over. You have to book flights, take time off work, explain to your boss why you need to leave immediately. And sometimes, even when you do everything right, you’re still too late.

In Nigeria, friendships happened organically. You’d finish work, drive to your friend’s house or go sit at the community center with a beer, vent about Lagos traffic, and go home. In Canada, you have to schedule these meets. That’s if they happen at all. I’ve been trying to grab coffee with my mentor for the past one month but we can’t find time in our calendars to meet yet.

For someone who grew up in a culture where people could drop by unexpectedly and stay all day, the structured social interactions that are the norm in Canada has taken some getting used to. But neither is wrong. Folks here wanna hang too. They just do it differently. 

As an aside, make peace with the fact that most of your friendships from home won’t survive immigration. Some of my closest friends in Nigeria, people I talked to every day, are now people I talk to every few months. The WhatsApp group is active, but it’s not the same as sitting together. The context that held you together (same office, same neighbourhood, same life stage) no longer exists.

Someone asked me recently, “Who is Dozie right now?” My answer was I don't know. I say I’m 80% Nigerian, 20% Canadian. But I’m still figuring out what the Canadian part even means, especially since that’s predominantly where I spend my time these days. 

I show up with different versions of myself depending on if I am at work, with friends from other countries, in predominantly white spaces, or at a Nigerian or African gathering. I find myself code-switching (not the accent though, gonna speak with my Nigerian tongue no matter what) to adjust my references, humour, or the necessary cultural cachets needed to fit in. A close friend of mine calls this “living two lives” in one body.

My sons are growing up here. They’ll know Canada in a way I never will and they’ll know Nigeria in a way I never wanted. It’ll be a place they visit, not a place that shaped them. The country where Grandma lives. This used to bother me. Not so much anymore. 

They’ll be Nigerian-Canadians like me, but their version will look nothing like mine. And my job is to share the values I brought with me, the stories, the food, and the language. And then give them the freedom to become whoever they want to be.

A good salary will do some good things to your happiness. But the biggest predictor of how happy you are considering all settling into Canada usually throws at you is your expectations.

If you arrive expecting things to work the same way they did back home, you’ll be constantly frustrated. If you show up with an open mind, you’ll adapt faster. Being receptive doesn’t mean you accept everything hook, line, and sinker. It means you know it’s okay to feel confused, to not have it all figured out, and to ask questions, even if you don’t get the answers you expected.

I thought becoming a Canadian citizen would feel like I’ve arrived. It doesn't. Don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely proud to be a citizen of this country. But immigration seems to be a process, one that continues long after the paperwork is done. 

You don’t “arrive” and suddenly feel integrated. You have to build settlement, then integration, one day at a time. 

Five years ago, I stepped off a plane into a country I’d never lived in, carrying everything I thought I needed. I was wrong about what I needed. I was wrong about how long it would take to feel at home.

But I was right about one thing; nothing beats getting an opportunity to restart your life with some knowledge of what you did right and wrong in the last one. 

I’ll let you know if this changes in the next five.