Kelowna doesn't even rank among the most racist cities in Canada when I check the statistics on hate crimes. In the two years I’ve lived here, no one has introduced themselves as a racist who hates immigrants. However, they have never let me forget that I am not Canadian, despite having green eyes, white skin, and having obtained Canadian citizenship. As soon as I open my mouth, they notice that I sound different because of my Azeri Turkish accent. Then comes the question: “Where are you from?”
My Mexican wife argues that no one ever asks her that question and that, most of the time, she feels at home. She believes I should feel even more at home since I look entirely Caucasian. So it has to be me, taking it personally.
“Basically, I'm a white guy until I prove otherwise,” I thought. “Well, that's enough. Maybe I'm also being arrogant and not trying to mingle.” So, the next morning, I went to work with a different mindset—and in a different outfit.
I didn't wear my favourite double-pocket work shirt. Instead, I wore cargo shorts and a company T-shirt, and, of course, a cap. Precisely like every other plumber in Kelowna.
The client greeted me in a typical Canadian way, and when I responded, he couldn't hide his surprise. He clearly hadn't expected to hear an accent, so he followed up with “The Question.” As always, it was followed by the three typical reactions I got after saying I was Turkish.
One: “No way! I love Turkey—the food!”
Two: “I have a Turkish friend.” Or, “I had a Turkish friend.”
And three: he wanted me to confirm whether everything was really as bad as the local media told him it was about the rest of the world—except here in Canada.
Instead of trying to provide real information, this time I actually checked off what he wanted to hear.
At the end of the job, I had even convinced myself that he would keep an eye on every other tradesman who came into his house, just as he had kept an eye on me—and I didn't take it personally at all.
It worked. I couldn't change his beliefs about our place in this world anyway. Nor could he change mine. It was all in my mind, just as my wife had told me.
I had been avoiding the Lake Country Home White Ware ... pardon me, Home Hardware store, for a while. I was ready to drive several kilometres farther to buy my parts at Home Depot in Kelowna.
I used to joke, “Want a job? Just go to the Lake Country Home Hardware and tell them you were fired from Home Depot for being racist.”
I believed that, unlike Home Hardware, Home Depot promoted diversity. They hired people with disabilities, people with mental health issues, homosexuals, people of different genders, and even immigrants.
But that was my old mindset, my old set of beliefs.
I pulled into the parking lot, put on my cap, and walked into Home Hardware for the first time in months. I passed two white cashiers, raising my chin slightly in a casual “Hey,” and headed straight for the plumbing aisle.
They didn’t notice anything unusual. They simply turned back to their conversation instead of watching me or having a staff member follow me through the aisles.
I put the parts I’d picked out in front of the cashier, responded with “uh-huh” and “uh-uh,” and was out of there with no feeling of discrimination.
It felt like an achievement, even though they probably took me for an arrogant white boy who considered speaking unnecessary—or maybe they thought I was deaf. It didn’t matter. In that place, an immigrant was already considered a cheater and incapable of proper communication.
I should have learned sign language instead of English, I thought. I shut my van door and threw my cap onto the passenger seat, like a bank robber taking off his mask after a successful job. Then I started yelling, “It’s simple. They like ‘familiar’ over ‘unfamiliar.’ The worst familiar thing is better than the best unfamiliar one.”
I was rushing to share my experience with my wife, but I had to slow down when I saw a young female cyclist repeatedly drifting into my lane from the bike lane. I wanted to make sure she was safely riding in the bike lane before passing her, as any Canadian driver would. But the little girl on her giant electric bike kept losing her balance every time she looked back in panic, seemingly trying to increase her speed instead.
I slowed down even more to increase the distance between us. Driving at 30 kilometres per hour on a straight, empty road between two farms made the white Tesla driver behind me impatient—until he noticed the bike too.
Unfortunately, I saw her fall and hit the asphalt, while a couple of broken pieces flew off the heavy bike. I stopped immediately and ran to help. It took me a minute to get there because of the distance I had kept between us. She was shaking as she checked her wounded arms and legs. Thank God she was wearing a proper helmet, as Canadian cyclists generally do, and in this case, knee and elbow pads. Otherwise, the fall could have resulted in more than just skin injuries.
She looked shocked. When I asked if she was okay, her first response was, “Oh, my dad’s bike!”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I said. I immediately moved the bike off the road and went back to see if she needed help standing up.
Meanwhile, Karen and her husband, who were approaching from the opposite lane, parked their e-bikes properly beside the road and rushed to help.
“Oh my God! What happened?” Karen yelled.
“She fall,” I responded.
She gave me a meaningful look and asked, “She fell?” Then she turned her face toward the girl without waiting for any further response from me.
My credibility vanished the moment I opened my mouth, thanks to my terrible pronunciation and a grammar mistake that even a little kid would not make.
“Did he hit you? You’re safe with us, my child. Tell me, he hit you?”
The girl’s eyes widened, and she burst into the tears she had been holding back since the fall.
“I think sooo. He hit me! He hit meeee!” she cried.
“I’m calling 911!” Karen yelled, fumbling with her phone with both hands.
I switched my gaze between the girl, Karen, and her husband, my eyes confused and scared. I was suddenly speechless, wishing I had been born speechless.
Just then, the white Tesla driver, dressed in a clean, tucked-in white shirt and shiny realtor shoes, came over and asked if there was anything he could do to help.
Karen stepped in front and told him, “He hit her. 911 is on the way. Better everyone wait here. You know what I mean, right? Uh-huh.”
I was still speechless. None of them would have listened to me anyway.
The guy said, “No, no, no. We were both driving very slowly and keeping a safe distance from her” pointing toward the gap between us and my van. “She fell,” he confirmed.
Karen’s husband said, “No, you don’t get it. She already told us. He hit her. These people don’t follow the rules and make it unsafe here for everyone, especially cyclists. You know what I mean, right?”
The guy still didn’t understand what they meant, particularly since I hadn’t opened my mouth since he arrived. He seemed to believe that old cyclists were being unfair to young drivers.
“Don’t worry, bud. I got you. My Tesla records everything to my smartphone. What’s your number, brother?”
The couple couldn’t wait for me to open my mouth and for the guy to finally understand what they meant.
I wanted that video so badly, but there was no way I could say ten digits out loud and get away without revealing my accent and losing my only ally.
So I stayed mute. I typed my number on my phone screen and held it toward his face like a beggar on the sidewalk stretching out his hand for a few extra coins.
Everyone, including the guy, was staring at me wide-eyed, wondering what was going on.
I really wanted to stand up for myself but, I thought, I can’t lose my last chance because of my pride.
So I started, “Ah… ehh… ohhh…Adaaa… vedaaa…” while gesturing with my hands exactly like a deaf man.
The guy’s expression suddenly changed. “Ahaaaa, now I get it,” he said.
Karen lit up, apparently convinced that he had finally understood that I couldn’t speak English.
“You get it? That’s what I mean, right? Uh-huh,” she said, nodding along as if they had just solved the mystery.
“Yeah, I get it. Totally. Sorry, I misunderstood. He’s deaf,” the guy said.
He took my phone number, patted me on the shoulder, and got to work retrieving the video.
The next few minutes, as I waited for him to send me the file, were some of the most stressful of my life. I was breathing slowly, trying to keep quiet, while Karen and her husband continued trying to say what they wanted to say without actually saying it.
I was terrified that they would finally say it before I received the video.
But they never said it—not directly. They seemed to know better than to say it in Kelowna.
Unless, of course, the guy I had thanked for sending the video felt betrayed. As he turned away, grinding his teeth, he muttered: "...Go to hell, all of you... You're all cheaters..."
As I drove back to my wife and our newborn, I thought:
We were actually lured here. Trapped here. We will cheat until we—or our next generation—no longer have to. Exactly like their fathers did.