© Maziar Ghaderi
Maziar Ghaderi at age 14 (Burnaby, B.C., Canada, 1997).
In 1988, my family fled Iran to seek political asylum in Canada. I was 5 years old. When we arrived, we did what all desperate immigrants from war-torn countries do: We found our ethnic enclave and surrounded ourselves in it as much as possible to help ease the transition.
During these years, I thought I was the default, the norm. That is to say, I thought I was white.
Almost all of my friends were Iranian. We ate the same food, pronounced each other's names correctly, and our parents spoke the same language at home. I never had to deal with any racial tensions at all. All of the other ethnic groups at school - the Tamils, Latinos and Jamaicans - did the same. Everything fit.
My ethnic identity wasn't something I thought much about. That was until we moved from the multicultural milieu of Scarborough (a suburb of Toronto) to Burnaby, British Columbia, when I was 11 years old. My new school featured only one other set of Iranian siblings amidst a sea of white and Chinese kids.
Comment: The author's turnaround came when he began to interact with and concretely contribute to the world. It's interesting to note that Mr. Ghaderi is involved with a film about Dr. Peterson. He has taken Peterson's message to heart, and found his version of 'meaningful (meaning-filled) work'.